Charlie Brown follows me and my record collection around. At least it seems that way.
There have been two things that have followed me around my entire life like an invisible force: Depression and the Peanuts gang.
The earliest memories I have of reading is grabbing the sports section from the Detroit Free Press from my Dad and turning to the last page to read Peanuts. Over the years it escalated to little paperback books from B. Dalton or the Scholastic Book Fair. I didn’t realize it until a little later, but I think I liked them so much because there was a character that I could relate to — Charlie Brown. He loved baseball. I loved baseball. He was ostracized. So was I. He was depressed. So was I. I realized that I wasn’t the only one out there who thought “Nobody likes me.” Or that I was a “Blockhead.” I would read the paperbacks over and over again. I learned how to draw Snoopy on his doghouse as good as Charles Schulz. Whenever I wanted to retreat from whatever stress I was feeling, Peanuts was there for me. I didn’t realize how clinically depressed ol’ Chuck was until I started to read thinkpieces about Peanuts when I got older. What I did know is that reading Peanuts was the first time I started to think I’m not alone dealing with this.
The second time was when I started to listen to the lyrics to my favorite songs. You know that line in High Fidelity where John Cusack’s character says:
What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?
I like a lot of upbeat music, but when I was down, the right song could knock me flat. When I started paying attention to the songs I liked, they were about what? Heartbreak, pain and misery. My early thoughts about love were framed by lyrics like these:
Don’t fall in love/’cause if you do/you’ll find out she don’t love you…
No confession/no religion/Never gonna fall for/Modern Love…
All for freedom and for pleasure/nothing ever lasts forever….
And of course every word of “Love Hurts.”
I hadn’t even kissed a girl at this point in my life, but I’d already steeled myself for the inevitable heartbreak and started to build a library of musical soundtracks for the impending pain. By the time my heart was broken for real, I had dozens of records to turn to when I was home and mix tapes for the car. I would become Charlie Brown in those moments. Head down, depressed, unloved by the “little red-haired girl”.
Fast forward to 2004, my worst depressive episode was barely a year in the past, and I’d just moved to St. Paul, Minnesota. Although excited to start a new chapter, I sometimes fell into old thought patterns and habits. The high point of my day would often be my daily visit to Starbucks for coffee. The one I frequented most was on the corner of Snelling and Selby. I was literally in the place every day. At one point I realized that on days when I didn’t work, the only person I spoke to all day would be the barista. Across the street from Starbucks was a bar called O’Gara’s. I went there a few times (a co-worker moonlighted as a doorman there on weekends), had a few drinks, but never saw the interior in the daytime. If I had, I’d have seen something that would’ve stunned me.
I knew St. Paul was the home of Peanuts creator, Charles Schulz. There are statues of Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus and other characters all over the city. The city was very proud to call him one of their own. After I moved away from Minnesota a few years later, I purchased the first book in The Complete Peanuts series. Reading the forward, I learned that the barbershop owned by Charles Schulz’ father (the inspiration for Charlie Brown’s father’s occupation) was located at the corner of….Snelling and Selby in St. Paul.
The interior of O’Gara’s has a tribute to the Schulz family and the barbershop that used to be housed there. For the better part of two years on a daily basis, I’d unknowingly been near ground zero for Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang. Good Grief!
Whenever I see the Vince Guaraldi record in my collection, I think of the strange coincidences and common themes that little piece of vinyl represents.
