Charles Schulz

Re “Good Grief! Charles Schulz Calls It Quits,” Dec. 15: I am saddened by the illness and retirement of Charles Schulz and his “Peanuts” characters, but I am glad that this cartoon strip had such a long and successful run.

My husband and I had so much fondness for the “Peanuts” gang that when we married in 1978 we had Snoopy wedding invitations. The invitations depicted Snoopy and Woodstock leaving home, and the reception portrayed Snoopy dressed in his top hat and tux. Our wedding cake also featured Snoopy and Woodstock. It was an informal wedding and some people even gave us Snoopy wedding gifts that we kept for many, many years.

I also would get Charlie Brown Christmas trees during the holidays due to my love for the cartoon, “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” I’d wait until a tree farm was down to its last trees and get one that needed some devotion and perking up.

My most memorable in the strip is where Snoopy sits atop his doghouse with his faithful typewriter and repeatedly begins, “It was a dark and stormy night.”

It was to my joy that Schulz started what he did--the heart of which goes on.

MADELINE J. KITT

Pleasanton, Calif.

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As a boy in the late 1950s, I delivered the Los Angeles Examiner each morning. Starting with the comics, I began reading the paper and developed a lifelong addiction to morning newspapers. On Sundays, I also delivered The Times. The only thing I read in it was “Peanuts,” which appeared at the bottom of the front page of the Sunday comics. When my beloved Examiner gave up the ghost in 1962, my mother brought the hated Times into our house. It took me a while to even recognize the greatness of Jim Murray, but “Peanuts” was always in the main news section. I got hooked on The Times through “Peanuts.”

REXFORD OLLIFF

Mission Hills