I haven’t been around lately because I’m planning to re-release two books I wrote over ten years ago. The first one Flipka has a modified ending but otherwise is the same wacky tale described here. The second book has undergone a different POV and will get a new name. Readers had complained they didn’t know what the heroine would do next. That’s not an issue any more!
Many decades ago I spent the week before Christmas hanging out at the Officer’s Club in Worms Germany with military personnel, primarily civilian, who’d opted not to return to the states for the holidays. The club had been decorated for the season with plastic poinsettias and cinnamon scented candles. Canned Christmas carols played. Drinks and bar food were half off but it was still a dreary place. One evening I sat at a table with a be-speckled young man who barely looked up at me as he scribbled on a notepad.
He was a cartoonist for various publications distributed to military personnel.
It was fascinating to watch him work. But eventually Happy Hour was over. I told him how much I loved his work – having spent many a Happy Hour waiting for my uncle to finishing schmoozing with his co-workers so that I could drive him home. And he handed me the drawings.
I wish I’d caught his name but I was so young. At least I had the sense to hold onto his scribbles and the memory of that evening all these years ago.
When I was thinking of a new title, those cartoons came to mind. And a record my uncle used to play …. every damn evening! Stanyan Streets and Other Sorrows by Rod McKuen. And every damn evening it got stuck on the same song:
For a while the only earth that Sloopy knew was her sandbox
Two rooms on 55th Street was her domain
Every night she’d sit in the window among the avocado plants
Waiting for me to come home
My arms filled with canned liver and love
We’d talk into the night then contented but missing something
She, the earth she never knew, me, the hills I ran while growing bent
Sloopy should have been a cowboy’s cat
With prairies to run, not linoleum
And real live catnip mice
No one to depend on but herself
I never told her but in my mind I was a midnight cowboy even then
Riding my imaginary horse down 42nd street
Going off with strangers to live an hour long cowboy’s life
But always coming home to Sloopy who loved me best
For a dozen summers we lived against the world an island on an island
She’d comfort me with purring
I’d fatten her with smiles
We grew rich on trust needing not the beach or butterflies
I had a friend named Ben who painted buildings like Rouault men
He went away
My laughter tired Lillian after a time
She found a man who only smiled
But Sloopy stayed and stayed
Winter 1959 old men walk their dogs
Some are walked so often that their feet
Leave little pink tracks in the soft gray snow
Woman fur on fur
Elegant and easy only slightly pure
Hailing cabs to take them round the block and back
Who is not a love seeker when December comes?
Even children pray to Santa Claus
I had my own love safe at home
And yet I stayed out all one night and the next day too
They must of thought me crazy screaming Sloopy Sloopy
As the snow came falling down around me
I was a madman to have stayed away
One minute more than the appointed hour
I’d like to think a golden cowboy snatched her from the window sill
And safely saddle bagged she rode to Arizona
She’s stalking lizards in the cactus now perhaps, bitter, but free
I’m bitter too
And not a free man anymore
But once was a time in New York’s jungle in a tree
Before I went into the world in search of other kinds of love
Nobody owned me, but a can named Sloopy
Looking back perhaps she’s been the only human thing
That ever gave love back to me
Saying nothing in particular 
What amazing drawings! The red in Happy Hour is perfect, and the cover is going to look awesome in color, but also as it is. It reminded me of the “Eats, Shoots & Leaves” cover.
Thanks Edward. I’ve tried a bit of color but it makes the cartoon a little too cartoonish.
You’re welcome. I think it looks good as is. I mentioned the book because, on her book cover, she only used red and some light yellow, but the rest is white (or cream—I’m not sure about the exact color) with some black for the pandas. It’s a simple color scheme but quite successful, so I think your draft is on the right track.
Thank you! I did check out the book and I agree – just the right pops of color. I do love those pandas.
Love the drawings. What a wonderful memory…
Thanks Rivergirl! It’s a bittersweet memory – it was during the Vietnam War and a lot of the young officers I met were nervous about being sent into war and we were in a country still reeling from a war. And it was cold grey season.
Love this, Jan! Can’t wait till the republished versions come out!
Thank you Mary – it’s only taken me 10+ years.
It’s been a tough ten years, Jan. I admire you for doing it!
Thanks Mary – you’re the best.
Hello there. I hadn’t thought about Rod McKuen in a long time. He was tremendously popular for quite a few years, as a poet and as a singer-songwriter. Sinatra once recorded an album of McKuen songs.
I remember thinking how sentimental his poetry was – but I was a kid. I didn’t know anything.
When I remember Stanyon Way, I think about the time your upside down smile became a thin and bitter line
I think about the rain, not seeing you again
I’ve never forgotten this line and I’m sure it is off somehow, but even as a teenager I knew something like this was happening to me and so it was. Duke
That year melancholy music was very popular in Europe – Noir c’est Noir (by Johnny Hallyday of course), La Mar (Aznavour), anything Ray Charles – McKuen fit right in.
Pure poetry!
I haven’t been around lately either. But I’m all ears. Bring it on, Jan!
I’ve missed you. I’ll try to get in touch.
As much as I’ve missed all of you, guys. Btw, I got your email.
The drawings are amazing. The deets are perfect, what a talent. Some of the best memories are still fresh today.
It’s a bittersweet memory because it was the middle of a very dark winter and I was so far from home. Like so many of the army personnel I met.As I recall, the cartoonist had just returned from Vietnam.
Hi Jan, it’s lovely that you still have those pictures from years ago
Amazing I’ve been able to hold onto them for so long and through many moves.
It is wonderful. My mom threw out a lot of my stuff during our 21 moves. I am a hoarder as a consequence – smile.
What lovely memories, even if that bar was a dreary place during the weeks before Christmas. But imagine if you had left and never sat next to the guy doing the drawings. They look like the kind you see in newspapers. I wonder if he went on to publish any?
Good luck with the republishing of the two books, Jan.
The club was a cheap place for Americans stationed in Germany to get a burger and fries for their kids while they drank at the bar. As I remember there weren’t that many restaurants in Worms that served much more than bratwurst or wiener schnitzel. It wasn’t the culinary capital of Germany – probably still isn’t! Thanks Hugh – the first time I had more help but this time I have more control.
Great sketches. You might identify the author, if he has gone on drawing, by submitting the sketches to Google Lens? Worth a try.
Stay safe.
The cartoonist would probably be in his eighties by now. I have looked for him over the years without luck.
Some people manage to go under the radar. Which is not so bad. Ultimately, all the people I’ve “found” were dead. Obituaries are now posted… A bit sad…