Please Don't Quote Me By Caralee Aschenbrenner Spud - Freckles - Red - Slim - Pinky - Bud - Pudge - Skip - Frosty - Shorty - Buster - Butch - Buck ... Are nicknames obsolete today? Growing up in the long ago there were many contemporaries who had them. And also adults. We have fond memories of Buck Zier who had the garage on lower Broad Street who fixed cars and towed them from accidents in creative ways. He sent bills only once a year. At the Holidays.

We also remember a Butch, a Red, Shorty, Skip. Frosty Thompson was an insurance agent. And Slim Bleegin (sp.) one of the many railroad bachelors who lived at the hotel and sat on the long, convenient benches in front of “Newt’s Tavern” to watch the world go by. It was special to the community.

I had an Uncle Bud and the “hep” in the ‘40’s recognized Skinny Ennis who sang with the Big Band. But there was another Skinny even earlier who was famous all over America because he appeared, rather the name did, in the daily cartoons. His name in full was Skinny Malloy and you saw him but rarely though in the “motto series” done by Clare Briggs, “Days of Real Sport,” the kids in it were always calling Skinny-Skin-nay, to join them to share the chunks of ice the delivery wagon brought or go the bridge fishing, gatherin’ nuts, see the new kid who had a footba

ll, watch one of the gang get his first haircut from the barber, etc.

Clare Briggs, the cartoonist during the first couple decades of the early twentieth century, began his career in Dixon, Illinois. He gained immense popularity throughout the country with his Down Home themes and drawings. Other series were such as “Someone is Always Taking the Joy Out of Life,” “It Happens in the Best Regulated Families,” “Golf,” “When a Feller Needs a Friend,” and “Days of Real Sport” from which book the two illustrations here are taken. It was published in 1913 with accompanying poems from Briggs’ friend, Wilbur Nesbit.

The cartoons are familiar yet today though situations are far different than ninety, nearly a hundred years ago. They speak of youthful frustration, fun, poignant moments, underlying sadness ... All the emotions we went through in our childhood. Each picture finds the soft spot in our hearts. It was about the end of the age of innocence, don’t you think? Have the Skinny Malloys whom you’d want to share with, disappeared, too?

More about Clare Briggs next week. Oh, yes, MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEAR from our new address to you all!