My personal collection in Afghanistan

Since 2001, every top desk drawer, in every office in which I have worked has included a small stack of almost square cartoons assembled from Gary Larson’s Farside series. For more years than I can remember, my Christmas stocking has always included a daily desktop calendar featuring his cartoons. Like so many of you, his sarcastic, sometimes weird sense of humor brings a smile to my face, and often reduces me to tears of laughter. I can be doubled over in laughter, hand one to my wife and she might say, “I don’t get it,” and toss it back to me as she walks away. Either you like him or you don’t. Yet, faithfully she produced…excuse me…Santa produced my expected office accessory.

So back to this small stack. Larson retired in 1995, so I began to assemble my “favorites” into a collection that would carry me through until someone would come along that would match his nature and sense of humor…impossible. As I packed my last bag to drag around the globe, I tossed my alligator-clipped stack of cartoons in, knowing I would regret not having them during the year long deployment.

I have never examined them as Larsons’ anthology or as a memoriam, or even arranged them in order. I simply take off the clip and flip through them from time to time to get a “pick me up” when I need it the most. Today would be different. Repacking for my next move in theater, I paused at my desk, and unclipped the stack. It turns out there are exactly 50 in the stack. The oldest one is from 23 January 2001 and the newest one from 16 October 2007. Not the first time any single one had been in print, as his works have been syndicated and re-published time and time again in numerous calendars and books. But this is my collection of the “best” of Larson…a snapshot of when it stood out to me. Like reading a good book or the Bible, and a passage jumps off the page that you had read dozens of times before. This stack has been so assembled. There are three dates that have two selections from different years. Some months have more than others – April only has one.

They are all in chronological order now, as if I have my own special calendar, with only 50 days. I’ve included a sample for those living in a cave during the 80’s and 90’s. Not the funniest in the stack, but it made the 50 for me. Love him or leave him, my stack goes with me through Afghanistan and beyond, and will probably bring me to tears many times over. Thanks, Gary.