Psychiatric Help Five Cents

 Depressed? Not sure you can go on in this maelstrom of bad news and worse news? Please know that you're not alone. Everyone has a friend. 

Even Charlie Brown.

I say this because the lesson I have learned from reading Peanuts for my entire life is that even if you feel like a blockhead, and the people around you treat you with little or no respect, there will come a time when you will be lauded as a hero. You will get the girl. Or at least you will get the opportunity to speak with her and keep that flicker of hope alive for one more week. I have seen how even Lucy Van Pelt has had to come to terms with Charlie Brown's power and capacity for continuing on when everything seemed bleakest. 

Which, of course, does not keep her from snatching the football away from him just before he attempts to kick it. Such is the life of "that round-headed kid." But when the chips are down, the gang realizes that the glue that binds them all together isn't Schroeder's piano or Linus' blanket. It is the steadfast integrity of Good Ol' Charlie Brown. 

If this seems obvious to you, please keep in mind that Charlie's creator, Charles M. Schulz took his own feelings of loneliness and anxiety and turned them into panels upon which we could all reflect on our own miseries. In what is perhaps the unkindest cut Charles Schulz chose to name his comic strip, not after his doppelganger, but after a legume.

Maybe then it should come as no surprise that the voice behind the animated version of Chuck Brown recently committed suicide. Peter Robbins, who spoke for Charlie starting with 1963's A Charlie Brown Christmas and stuck with the role through his feature film debut, A Boy Named Charlie Brown. Sadly, Peter struggled with mental illness and bipolar disorder, as well as problems with drinking and drugs. Maybe it isn't really a surprise that the kid who used to pursue that little red-headed girl was charged and arrested for stalking. Mister Robbins, upon his release from a stint in prison in 2019 said that he was looking forward to writing his memoir, Confessions Of A Blockhead. He never got around to it. He committed suicide last week. 

That's not funny. It's just sad. Aloha, Peter Robbins. your attempts to stomp on the Terra may not have been as successful as you had hoped, but thank you for the gift of bringing Good Ol' Charlie Brown to life for me and the rest of the world.