I was trying to write an article for an editor of a Christian magazine in another country, the subject being “What I wish I had known when I was 25.”  It was to be primarily a piece about regrets, things I could have done differently.  And that’s how I came to realize…

I don’t actually have a lot of regrets.

I may be the most blessed person you will ever meet.

Consider, for instance….

1.  My parents brought me up to love the Lord. Being born to Lois and Carl in a Christian family was not something I chose.
2. When I was five, my mother got me started to drawing.  I became a professional cartoonist, among other things.  — Okay, what she did was to sit my little sis and me down at the kitchen table, give us pencil and paper, and tell us to “Sit there and draw!”  She was mainly interested in keeping her precocious son busy so she could get her housework done.  But–this is true–I discovered that day that I loved to draw. I kept at it and when I started at the first grade (Nauvoo, AL elementary school), the other children would gather around and watch me draw.  I figure I have sketched 100,000 people over the years and have done many thousands of cartoons for various publications.
3. When I was eight, my coal-miner dad asked me to walk with him off the West Virginia mountain where we lived and up the railroad tracks to the next town (Sophia, WV)  There, we went into a variety store and he asked me to pick out a Bible. I chose a black (ha, they were all black!) KJV (ditto!) with a zipper around it.  It was lovely and cost $2.98.  Of the six children in our family, I was the only one to be so favored.  He never said why he did this.
4. When I was perhaps 12 years old, a cousin got me into memorizing scripture.  When I could recite the verses on a page he had given me, he presented me with my very own New Testament.
5. When I was sixteen, my older sister who had taken a job as a telephone operator, offered to pay for my correspondence course in cartooning with Art Instruction out of Minneapolis. It was $10 a month for thirty months.  I kept it up until they tried to teach me how to design draperies.  I still recall some of the lessons.  The wonderful Charles Schulz used to teach for this company.

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