Francie Arenson Dickman

I loved, and will always love, Snoopy. My Snoopy, stuffed though he was, had a wardrobe. A bathing suit, in case he felt like a swim. Overalls, for casual. Tennis togs with a visor, so the sun didn’t interfere with his overhead. An umbrella, in case it rained. He also had a tuxedo, which he wore on Saturdays to host the Snoopy Talk Show. An unscripted affair during which Snoopy chatted with Woodstock and other A- and B-list stuffed animals. I was show runner; getting animals from the green room, pressing play on the cassette recorder, editing afterwards, forcing my brother to listen. 

As beloved as Snoopy himself, was his “stuff”. The miniature “Peanuts” notebooks, pencil sets and memo pads which were sold uptown at Chestnut Court and which I collected and coveted. But never used. They were precious. They were possibility.

That it all—the obsession with a dog who, in comic strip or imagination, personified and embodied every kind of character including author, and that he had his own line of notebooks and pens, the stuff of writers—was an indication of who I was and what I liked to do, never crossed my mind.

Until yesterday, when I was driving along, listening to Ann Patchett read her essay, Snoopy Taught Me How To Be a Writer. “Me too, me too,” I wanted to scream. “Thank you,” I wanted to say, for the insight. All these years, I assumed my infatuation with Snoopy stemmed from wanting to have a dog. Maybe, too, it stemmed from wanting to be a writer.