The Funny Papers

Among the flotsam and jetsam of news items that I randomly pick up on any given day, I could swear I heard of a recent study that suggests children should not be actively taught math or English until they reach the age of six.

This must come as a shock to the parents who frantically wave flash cards in front of their two-months-olds’ adorable mugs, but that sounds about right to me. When I was a kid, there was no such grade as “pre-K” and, even though my house was a few doors down from Merry Makers nursery school, I can’t remember one of my childhood pals who was ever enrolled to play on its swing set or draw with its Crayolas, which I’m sure is about as advanced as the learning curved in that establishment.

Which is not to suggest that we were a bunch of happy-go-lucky nitwits the day we were taken by the hand and tearfully dropped off for our first day of school. In fact, by the time I became a pint-sized pupil in Miss Mulford’s morning kindergarten class, I was a pretty good reader. And I owe it all to the “funny papers.”

While a day doesn’t go by when you don’t hear about the nosedive that the newspaper industry is taking, I remember newsprint’s halcyon years, when delivered to our doorstep was not one, but two, daily papers, morning and evening editions. Best of all, one of those papers, “The Long Island Press,” distributed their full-color comic section on Saturday, as opposed to the traditional Sunday. When that pile of wood pulp and ink showed up around noon, I’d grab the comics like a hungry mutt snatches an unattended roast beef sandwich and fly through the house trying to hunt down a “grown up” who could read me the “bubbles” while I eyeballed the panels of brightly-colored characters and their antics.

My father was working and my mother’s housekeeping duties knocked her out of the box, so that left me with either my two brothers or one of my sisters who, by virtue of being a decade older than me, give or take a year or two, were my usual go-to readers. Whether I had been more bratty than usual this particular Saturday, or they finally became exasperated by blowing a few minutes of their only full goofing-off day entertaining their four-year-old sister (Mass on Sunday!), who knows? All I can report is that I struck out three times, with the final thumbs down issued by one of my bros, who followed it with a rather harsh, “Why don’t you read it yourself?”

After I got over my initial hissy fit, it slowly dawned on me. Yeah! Why don’t I read it myself? I mean, I’d seen my sibs pull enough bone-headed stunts that I knew they weren’t smarter than me. Besides, if I could learn how to read, I wouldn’t have to debase myself to those three teenaged tyrants ever again. I’d be free, I tell you. FREE!

I spent that Saturday afternoon, and a fair share of the ones to follow, hunkered down on the living room floor, picking my way through the “bubbles” until the letters became sounds, the sounds became words and the words became Charlie Brown. Or Broom-Hilda. Or Miss Peach.

Even today, the comics are part of my daily read. The players have changed (Doonesbury, Mutts, Dilbert) but my delight in the low culture fusion of art and words remains the same. In fact, I’ve developed a bad habit of judging someone’s intelligence on whether they do the same. Apparently, so do two of the most powerful and chillingly savvy men to ever dominate the silver screen:

Don Corleone: How's your boy?

Michael: He's good.

Don Corleone: You know, he looks more like you every day.

Michael: He's smarter than I am. Three years old, and he can already read the funny papers.

Don Corleone: [laughs] Read the funny papers...

Yeah. Read the funny papers.