“Happiness is a Warm Puppy”

Jill's Journal: Our title today is one of the thousands of simple truths and wonderful quotes created by Charles M. Schulz and voiced by Snoopy, Charlie Brown, Linus, and the rest of the “Peanuts” gang. We spent a huge portion of our day yesterday at the Schulz Museum and Research Center in Santa Rosa.

Neither Rob nor I had given much thought to Schulz's work before, but we left with an incredible appreciation for the man called Sparky and his work.

“Think about the content of Peanuts: frustration, loss and fear of loss, insecurity, aspiration of art and heroism, love lust, sibling rivalry, arrogance, kindness, friendship, disgrace, rebellion, and the existential orneriness of everyday existence. Realize that these grand themes have been expressed with charm and unfailing humor in drawings as simple and evocative as a fine haiku every day for almost 50 years. Then acknowledge Charles Schulz as one of the century’s greatest artists.” --Dennis O’Neil

Schulz had a 50-year career and drew nearly 18,000 comic strips during that time. He would doodle his ideas every morning before making his final version. The doodle would get wadded up and tossed in his trash can. And every day, faithfully, his secretary would raid his trash can, take home the doodles, and iron them flat before placing them in a scrapbook. The museum now has many of these sheets of doodles and about 7,000 of those original 18,000 comic strips. Unfortunately, photography was forbidden throughout most of the museum, so hopefully the girls “took pictures in their heads” because they all really enjoyed it. I don’t think they’d ever seen a Peanuts comic strip previously, but we do have some of those holiday cartoon specials on DVD and the girls love them.

Other highlights of the museum included Schulz’s entire studio, removed from his office (he spent nearly the last 40 years of his life and career here in Santa Rosa) and reconstructed here down to the very curtains and trash in the wastebasket; a wall (yes, the entire wall!) from his daughter’s bedroom in 1951 on which he’d painted a mural; and Schulz original comic strips with eraser marks, white out, and places where new images were glued over the original drawings. I sure would have loved to snap a few pictures but understand why they like to keep such treasures proprietary.

This is neat: a two-story mural done out of comic strips. It took over 3,500 strips, or about 10 years worth of Schulz’s work, to create the mural.

Here’s a shot of a portion of the mural close-up. Very cool.

After thoroughly enjoying the museum, we walked across the street to Schulz’s café, The Warm Puppy, and ice skating rink, Snoopy’s Home Ice/Redwood Empire Ice Arena. He had them both built in 1969 (along with a baseball diamond) to resemble a Swiss chalet. World-class skaters like Peggy Fleming, Scott Hamilton, and Kristi Yamaguchi have performed at the rink.

Schulz had lunch, a tuna fish sandwich, here daily. His table remains. We had fun enjoying lunch at the café (adjacent to the rink) while watching the skaters.

The girls loved seeing the rink and are itching to try their hands (feet?) at ice skating. Much to their dismay, today was not the day!

After leaving the Schulz Museum, we made a quick stop at another Santa Rosa landmark: “The Church of One Tree.” This is a most unique building. It was constructed in 1874 out of the lumber from precisely one gigantic redwood tree. The tree once stood 275 feet high and had an 18-foot diameter.

First serving for nearly 100 years as a church, The Church of One Tree then spent about 30 years as a Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum. The city now owns it and rents it out for weddings, parties, etc. What a fun history -- I love places like this.