Monday, October 23, 2017

Monday, 10/23

I know I've written about this before, but this time I have pictures!

It is, after all, that time of the year when many of us will pull out a certain dvd for the annual viewing of a holiday classic. So would you like to know how Marquette is connected, in the strangest way, to “It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown”?

Yes, you read that right.  Keep reading on.

I love “It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” (which is 51 years old this year!), and can recite most of the lines before the characters say them (much, I’m sure, to the amusement of Loraine, who somehow finds the inner strength to sit next to me when I watch it and recite said lines).  However, in the past couple of years we've come to realize that Marquette is indeed connected not only to the cartoon, but to the comic strip, as well.

If you watch the show closely you may remember the scene in the cartoon where Snoopy is a World War I flying ace, and is trying to sneak across France to make it out of enemy territory after being shot down. Well, while doing so, he comes across several road signs, one of which says “Pont-a-Mousson 3km”. Here's almost the same thing, taken from a “Peanuts” comic strip--



Now, if you remember our travels from this year, we actually stopped in Pont-a-Mousson because a certain French missionary and explorer received his education there. Which French missionary and explorer was that, you ask?



That’s right—in both the TV show and the comic strip Snoopy was less than 2 miles away from where Father Jacques Marquette went to school!

Loraine and I discovered this fact about a decade or so ago, and now every time we watch “It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown” we always have to freeze the scene and laugh a little. After all, it's not every day you can make a connection (however tenuous) between the U.P. and one of the most famous and beloved cartoons in history. So when you watch the cartoon this year, by yourself or with your kids, watch for the sign, and realize that you, too, can stop and shake your head in amazement.

After all, Marquette and “It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” have something very important in common!


No comments:

Post a Comment