Zwaanendael

It's funny but I can't even tell you how many people have emailed me or stopped me on the street or put a note in an old bottle of Miller Genuine Draft and threw it in the ocean with the hopes that I would someday be stranded on a deserted island and have it wash up on shore to ask me the same darn tootin' question:

"Just how do you do it? Just how do you keep coming up with all of the ten different reasons to buy a minivan?"

Well I'd like to say to them, with voice proud and unwaivering like a tiger's roar mixed with the dulcet tones of Mr. Pyle (Mr. Pyle was my fourth grade history teacher. He had one hell of a voice.) "I do it on my own. I am a single ship at sea with a crew of one: me." But I can't, as much as I would love to, jump up and use a voice rich like soy sauce and smooth like rocky road ice cream and brave like Mr. Pyle. (Mr. Pyle, my fourth grade history teacher, was famous for warding off the roving herd of wild tigers that used to haunt the playground of Bayard Elementary School in downtown Wilmington, DE. He looked at those tigers, all 33 of them, and while staring at all of them in their evil deep tiger eyes with his one good eye (he had a glass one but that's a non-tiger related story) he began to lecture them about Zwaanendael, the Dutch trading post that was established in 1631 near the present day town of Lewes, DE. And boy did he lecture. He lectured in timbre loud and clear and decadent. It was like a cannon ball flying on the wings of angels. And just as he began to tell the tigers how the Dutch, in 1664, were removed from Zwaanendael by those dirty dirty British and that bastard James, the Duke of York the tigers began to howl. But it wasn't a threatening howl. It wasn't a GROWL. It was something completely different. It was a howl of surrender. The tigers were surrendering to Mr. Pyle and their white flag was all they had: their howls. Mr. Pyle stopped lecturing and he looked at those tigers. He looked at those tigers who had carried away three third graders and one art teacher (who was a sub so she didn't really count). He looked at those tigers who he had just, with only his voice and an utterly thrilling tale of Delaware history, tamed. We all watched him as he took off his glasses, rubbed his good eye, rubbed his glass eye, put his glasses back on and started to howl along with those tigers. At first it was amorphous and grating like listening to Sonic Youth and Yo La Tengo and your upstairs neighbors making love and an impact driver driving 1-5/8" dry wall screws into particle board all at the same time. But then something happened . . . something amazing happened . . . the howling . . . it morphed . . . and it became SOMETHING. The howling it had consonance and dissonance. The howling it was . . . music. But not just any music, it was a song. In that playground in downtown Wilmington, DE just a few thousand miles from Zwaanendael, the Dutch trading post, Mr. Pyle and those tigers began to howl After The Fire's "Der Kommissar". Some of the teachers hummed along (not the substitute art teacher, she would never be seen again) some of the children clapped their hands and some, myself included, just watched with our mouths hanging open the taste of wonder and surrealism dancing on our tongues.)

When strangers on the street grab my arm and ask me, "How do you do it man?" I would love to tell them, "I'm flying this plane solo with a crew of one. Pilot: me. Navigator: me. Pretty but emotionally distant stewardess: me." But I can't. I have to be honest. I have help. Obviously I have all of the email tips streaming into my email mail box. Obviously I have the pretty big resource called, the encyclopedia. Obviously I use the internet every so often. Obviously I have intuition. But I also have "HIM".

I'm not a religious person but I am a man of faith. And I have faith in a man and this man has helped me in so many ways I can't even begin to list them. I wouldn't even begin to list them because if I did try to list them and I forgot one or two things that he had done for me I would NEVER be able to forgive myself. I couldn't live with that sort of guilt.

Who is this man? Well it just so happens I have a little comic about him that I would like to share with you. After it you will understand how important he is to me and how important he could be to you. After it I think things will just be a little clearer.

(You can click on each page to enlarge it to gaze upon it in all of it's wonder.)