Prince Valiant

My parents clipped lots of things out of magazines and newspapers when I was younger.   There was no internet or even personal computers until I was older, so print media was the main way information was transmitted.   My parents were both educators so reading was important to them and was something they enjoyed.

Every Sunday my mother would give me the comics section of the newspaper (or the “funnies” as they were sometimes called) and I would read through the ones that were age-appropriate for me.   There were a lot I didn’t get as a child, but as I got older I understood more and more of them and their humor made sense.

One comic I never understood was Prince Valiant.   It was beautifully drawn but the content was above me.   I didn’t realize my father was cutting them out though until one day I was in the basement and saw a stack of them.   I asked him why and he said someday I might want to read them.

My father could be described as a pack rat.   But he’s really a collector.   He has collections beyond the limits of the space he has to store them, so collecting Prince Valiant comics seemed a reasonable thing to me for him to do.

Years later I asked him if he still had the collection and he said he didn’t.   I don’t remember if he had thrown them out of if they’d gotten water damaged at some point.   I don’t know that I would find the same enjoyment out of the comic strip today that he did back when I was a child.   I just looked online and apparently the story continues, with the latest installment being this past weekend.

My parents still do a lot of reading and still clip articles and comics.   They both bring me things from time to time that they think I’d enjoy.

The Big Boy Update:  We went out for Sushi last night with my parents.   My son decided he wanted to have sushi instead of the more tame chicken teriyaki.   I was skeptical he’d actually eat the sushi, especially when he wanted to order some of the more exotic items on the menu.   But he liked the food and ate a good bit.   He said at one point, “this shrimp is dead!” meaning he was making sure it was dead as he pulled the tail off.   He also wondered about the red things on top of one of his pieces. My husband said it was fish eggs called “roe” and that it was like the chicken eggs he ate for breakfast, only from fish.   The best part was watching my son eat the shrimp head, which he thought tasted pretty good, although he only ate one of the eyes.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter ran to find me on Friday night as she was having a snack.   She had a strawberry in her hands and asked me, “can you take a picture of this strawberry?  Because it’s the cutest one I’ve ever seen.”