My name is John Public. I’m an ordinary man of ordinary means and intellect. My concerns are by and large the same as most folks; taxes, inflation, education and the general condition of my family, neighborhood, city, state and country.
My hopes and dreams are modest. I want to do a little better than my parents and I want to provide for my children so that, with a little hard work and diligence, they might do a little better than my wife and I.
I’d rather leave well enough alone and mind my own business but some things get me so riled I feel obliged to speak out.
This habit, over the years, has caused me to be slapped with a reputation, unfairly and unwarranted I believe, as a trouble maker and crack pot. I’ve been called other names as well but mostly those aren’t fit for polite company, so we’ll leave them be.
When and where I was born is irrelevant, what is important is I have lived and worked all across this great country.
I’m as comfortable talking to a Pennsylvania Quaker as a West Texas dirt farmer or a Manhattan Cosmo girl.
People are pretty much people has been my experience.
We, as Americans, may disagree on how things should be done but we generally agree on what should be done.
From 1938 to 1958 a talented artist named Hal Coffman took some of my thoughts and concerns and turned them into cartoons published in a daily newspaper in Texas called the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Mr. Coffman was a talented cuss and before he moved his family to Fort Worth in ’38 he worked for the San Francisco Examiner, The Inquirer, New York American, the New York Journal and briefly for the International Film Service. I feel humbled he saw fit to occasionally turn my simple rants into cartoons. He never said why but it must have been tough coming up with ideas two or three times a week, 52 weeks a year so maybe he used my ramblings now and again when he was stuck for an idea.
In any case, Mr. Coffman passed in 1958 and since then I have quietly mused and fumed in private. I decided to speak out now because over the past fifty odd years I have seen many of these old problems fester and worsen to the point I can’t stay quiet anymore. I will, from time to time, use a few of Hal’s original cartoons to show how problems and issues that drew my ire fifty or sixty years ago still have my dander up today.
If no one cares to hear the rants and raves of an ordinary, old man, so be it. Sometimes you just feel better if you can just get your troubles off your chest.
