After my family had moved away from Akron, we would make periodic forced marches back to the city on Sundays to “go visiting.” For a twelve-year-old kid, it was unsparing boredom, but when we got to my Grandmother’s house on Brown Street, I would be set free to walk the two blocks to the Rexall Drugstore where I could check out the comics. On one of those Sunday afternoons, I walked into the store and spotted The Flash #115 on the rack. As I leafed through the book taking in the art and story, it rearranged my molecules. Frankly, I’m surprised I didn’t burst into flames right on the spot. A few months hence, a letter to the Flash Grams letters page would win me original artwork from the magazine, which further cemented the deal. It’s hard to explain how a flimsy newsprint pamphlet with garish coloring and hyperbolic prose could change how you viewed your place in the universe, but it did. I walked into the store with a dime in my hand and exited that holy of holies with a book and a plan. That evening I decided to send away for a subscription to The Flash. It cost a dollar, but, even as a twelve-year-old, I knew you didn’t send that kind of cash through the mail. So I gave my dad a dollar and asked him to write a check for me for the subscription. He skimmed through the book and said he didn’t think it was worth it, but, being a good dad, he wrote the check for me. My dad was a mechanical engineer and a very intelligent guy, but as I walked away with my check I felt a little sorry for him because I realized that, when it came to the stuff in life that mattered most, he didn’t have a clue.
From The Complete Funky Winkerbean Volume 13
