Match to Flame 243

Another mega-thread that runs through the strips in this collection, and well into the next, involves a character that I nearly lost. Cathy and I were out to dinner (must have had a really super idea earlier that day), and, as we were leaving the restaurant, a character named “Mason Jarr” flashed through the brain pan. My next thought was that it would be a nifty name for a movie actor. My next, next thought was that it’s a two-block walk to my car without a notepad in sight and that it was going to be a couple of minutes before I could reach the notepad stashed in my car. Now I know that sounds like a fairly straightforward and easy proposition, but trust me when I say that what the brain gives, it can take back. Instantly. You think you can hang onto a thought for two minutes while you walk, talk, and watch for traffic as you cross the street, but you can’t. Look away from that special thought for even a nanosecond and you can kiss it goodbye. So, aware of the pitfalls, I instructed myself not to forget the name, and, trust me, Bullwinkle, that trick never works. It may fill you with momentary confidence, but it’s a false confidence. What your brain does instead is go: “Gotcha! Check! Done!” and then, thinking that it has already accomplished the task, waves “so long” as it lets the idea slip back into the ether. And the problem is that I know that as surely as I know that the sun is coming up in the morning! Did it anyway. To make it worse, this name that came to me was a visitor from out of the deep cerulean blue, totally unconnected to any snippet of conversation or visual cue. I feel sorry for Cathy for all of the times I’ve had to ask: “Hey, do you remember what we were talking about earlier when we were back there?” When we got to our car, I remembered that I had thought of something pretty cool (this, I might add, is where it usually ends, except for the recriminations for being so stupid, stupid, stupid for not marching back into the restaurant and asking for a pen and piece of paper right then and there). But, I was lucky. This time the idea gods tired of their little joke, and I wrote down the name that, from this innocuous beginning, was destined to play an outsized role in Funky going forward, including the cover to this volume. I followed up by writing down the name in my writing book when I got home, and then I let go of it to wait for the right moment to present itself.

From The Complete Funky Winkerbean Volume 15