Polkas, schottisches, waltzes...

Or..."How my early brain was influenced by Peanuts comic strips."

Listening to Pandora this morning, a little Mazurka (by Gottschalk) came on. And I thought, "That's the kind of stuff I want to be able to play on the piano. That, and waltzes, and other old country dances. HAPPY music."

And immediately, my brain turned up the phrase, "Polkas, schottisches, and waltzes" - and I remembered the old Peanuts comic strip where Snoopy had somehow acquired an accordion, and that was what he chose to play.

When I was a kid, my mom had a pretty complete set of 60s-era books of reprints of Peanuts comic strips. (She also had a few of the Pogo books - but those, being more topical of the era, the stuff in them tended to sail a bit over my head). She gave them to me to read. (They actually still sit on the bookshelf in what functions as "my" room at their house).

I was a pretty early reader (well, for those days. I learned to read at 4, which some parents now would lead you to believe is tragically late. But I will say I was one of very few kids in my kindergarten class who could read. My mom also tells me that one of my little friends, upon having learned I could read, one day asked me to read a book to her while she was over playing. As I was (at that moment) more interested in building with Lego or arranging my small plastic zoo animals, I told her (I am told), "Can't you just look at the pictures for now?")

But there were some things in the Peanuts book that were beyond me. I remember my mom telling me she had to explain what "sarcasm" was to me (at four or five) when I ran across the term in one of the comics. And I think that slightly-morose, slightly ironic humor of many of the 60s-era Peanuts strips stuck with me and did influence the way I look at things. (And poor Charlie Brown: I remember the comic where he talked about how he would lie awake at night, listening for a voice, from somewhere in the distance: "But WE love you, Charlie Brown!" Ouch. I remember totally understanding that feeling as a child. I think Schulz was very much in touch with what it was like to be an unpopular kid, or a kid who worried about stuff).

I admit though I did mainly read them for the Snoopy storylines. (Some of my early understanding of WWI came from my early reading of the "Flying Ace" stories...). And so, I tend to remember things like "Polkas, Schottisches, and Waltzes" (Which I think would make an excellent title for a sheet-music compilation volume of that kind of "happy" music for the piano.)