EXTRACT FROM BODIE ON THE ROAD – THE DOGGED PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

We’re on our way to see a 60-year-old dog that generates more than two billion dollars in annual sales, thanks to its licensing deals with the likes of Hallmark and Ty Warner of Beanie Baby – we’re talking SNOOPY!

Specifically we’re visiting the Charles M Schulz museum in Santa Rosa. When I say we… Bodie gets to play in the maze shaped like Snoopy’s head and sit on a bench with a fiberglass statue but he’s not allowed in the museum itself. Handily there’s a doggie daycare just minutes away so he can rough-house with the boys while I tiptoe around the exhibits.

This really is a splendid museum – spacious, airy and both immaculately and thoughtfully put together. With nearly 18,000 Peanuts strips to choose from, the theme of the main room is always changing. Today the focus is heartbreak.

The opening panel talks about ‘the disappointment Charlie Brown feels each Valentine’s Day’ and Lucy’s ‘unrelenting pursuit of Schroeder.’

We learn that Schulz drew upon his own life experiences to create several recurring plots focussed on lost love. Charlie Brown’s Little Red-Haired Girl was inspired by memories of a former sweetheart, Donna Mae Johnson, who was proposed to by two men on the same day and did not choose Schulz.

He said: ‘I can think of no more emotionally damaging loss than to be turned down by someone whom you love very much.’

And to see your beloved marry another so soon after? That’s not something you get over in a finger-snap. Though in real-life Schulz had dated his co-worker for three years, in the strips this pain took the form of unrequited love.

‘I’d give anything to talk with that little red-haired girl…’ Charlie Brown moons in frame one. ‘The amazing thing is that I know I’m the sort of person she’d like. I mean I’m not rough or crude or anything. I’m not the greatest person who ever lived, of course, but after all who is? I’m just a nice sort of guy who…’ Cut to last frame with his head hung low. ‘…never gets to meet little red-haired girls!’

Even Snoopy isn’t immune to heartache – one of the cutest sequences shows him snuffling at his dog bowl with a series of thought bubbles: ‘I must have been crazy to fall in love. I thought I could forget her but I can’t… What a life… you try for a little happiness and what do you get?’ Cut to him lying on top of his doghouse, his classic profile altered by a huge round belly. ‘A few memories and a fat stomach.’

My hand instinctively moves to my own tummy. It’s so true and of course the irony is that, in life, the good memories can cause you more pain than the bad. Like now, I can think of Ryan and I side by side in the kitchen, sipping wine, swaying to the music, smiling at as we chopped and stirred dinner. It makes my head feel swimmy and my eyes prickle. I blink vigorously. This won’t do! I can’t have my vision blurring, I won’t be able to read the next display.

The more I read the more I realise how little I knew about the depth of these cartoons, their subtle political and social commentary, Schulz campaigning for equal pay for women in sports, as well as the angst and vulnerabilities of the characters… Take Snoopy when he tells Charlie Brown that he’s getting married to ‘the most wonderful girl in the world.’

‘All my life I’ve felt unsettled, sort of up in the air. Not any more. The beagle has landed!’

Of course, come the wedding day, the bride runs off with Snoopy’s brother Spike.

Romantic love is such a minefield. No wonder people value the love of their pets so much. One of the few sure things in life.

Upstairs I take a look at Sparky’s Studio. (That’s what his friends and family called him.) He’s quite the opposite of me, believing a change of scenery makes work more difficult – for him coming to the same room everyday was ‘the only guarantee of keeping going’. I may not relate but I do like hearing how he’d often slide back the patio doors and join his children playing by the pool. So he did find love and marriage, first with Joyce (they had four children together) then with Jean who he was with for 27 years, until his death in 2000.

He really seems a lovely man with a gentle, v-neck-sweater handsomeness that puts me in mind of Andy Williams. I’m surprised to hear him described as melancholy. It makes me sad to think of him sad but as one of his close friend’s said, ‘We’ve all got some melancholy in us, Sparky used his to make us laugh.’

I’m sitting in the screening room now, watching a documentary on his life.

Apparently the family dog that inspired Snoopy was quite the wayward character, given to ingesting tacks and even, on one occasion, a double-edged razor blade. He’d often disappear for hours and the only way the family could get him to come home was for the dad to drive around the neighborhood honking his horn.

The dog would come running and jump in the front seat, never happier than when he was riding alongside his master.

Just like Bodie!

Schulz talks about the comfort and security of being in the back seat with your parents up front, taking all responsibility for the direction and the driving. But part of being an adult is ‘being reconciled with the fact that you can’t go back, you cannot sleep in the back seat any longer, you have to sit in the front, you have to drive your own way.’

Wow.

This whole experience has been way more moving than I was expecting and I wander back outside in something of a daze.

It’s a little too soon to pick up Bodie so I head over to the Warm Puppy Café, which I’m rather surprised to see is housed in a large Austrian chalet. Even more unexpected is the full-size ice rink within. Cue lots of teenage girls with buns and mums with bedazzled hoodies. Apparently Schulz had a long association with ice sports and I have to say the flagstone fireplace is most welcoming. I snug up with my hot chocolate wishing I wasn’t still full of breakfast so I could take advantage of the Snoopy Special – hot dog and chips served in Snoopy’s Own Dog Dish!

I peer deeper into the flames. So. Let me get this straight: the man fulfilled his childhood dreams, led a successfully creative life, made millions, had a loving wife and children and he still got the blues? Is there no cure for the human condition? I remember Shirley MacLaine talking about the reasons she got into spirituality – since she had already acquired and achieved all the things that most people spend their lives in pursuit of she knew for a fact that money and fame wasn’t the answer, there had to be more. I’ve certainly read my share of spiritual and self-help books and they do put you on a better path. But I have to say, in terms of actual tangible, instant gratification happiness, a dog is far more effective.

In gratitude to Bodie I visit the vast gift emporium across the way and purchase a cuddly Snoopy for him to chew on. Well, it’s a dog-eat-dog world out there…

CHARLES M SCHULZ MUSEUM WEBSITE

ADMISSION: $10

ADDRESS: 2301 Hardies Lane, Santa Rosa, California 95403

PHONE: (707) 579-4452

WHERE TO STAY: On our first visit we spent the night 20 minutes away in an aptly Snoopy-esque ‘dog house’ in Petaluma. It was absolutely adorable with a mini kitchen and circular bed but is not currently listed online. (Bodie has a particularly ‘hang dog’ expression because I was making him pose in the drizzle.)

The second time we visited we stayed at The Sandman Inn which offers reasonable rates (we paid $85 for the room and $25 pet fee) for a well-appointed motel just 5 minutes drive from the museum. (There’s a grassy area for your pup and it’s also walking distance from Trader Joe’s and Wash Plus – just incase it’s time to catch up on your travel laundry and stock up on healthy road snacks!)