Cookies Crumble the Resistance

About 10 pounds of chocolate chip cookies and a heaping measure of fan loyalty proved to be the right recipe for comic strip immortality. Carolyn Goldston of Austin, Tex., began a letter-and-cookie campaign months ago to get the Goldston name drawn on the nationally syndicated comic strip character Pogo’s boat as a special 25th anniversary message to her husband, Don. In Monday’s strip, Pogo and Porky Pine were lying in their boat talking about the hot weather. On the side of the boat were the words, “A silver for the Goldstons,” and the next frame showed the names “Carolyn and Don.” Pogo writer Larry Doyle said: “First she wrote a very funny letter, and said she’d send cookies. We asked what kind, and we proceeded to get about 10 pounds of chocolate chip.” Carolyn Goldston said that in her letters to Doyle and artist Neal Sternecky she used insider jokes and references that only a dedicated fan would recognize. “By what I wrote, they knew that I was a serious fanatic,” she said. “This is the one time we put an anniversary on the boat, and we won’t be doing it again,” Doyle said. Pogo, created by Walt Kelly, caused a stir with its political and social commentary when it first appeared in the 1940s. Doyle and Sternecky took over the strip several years after Kelly’s death.

--Appreciation of author Eudora Welty’s work is not limited to her home state of Mississippi. The 80-year-old writer will receive the National Governors’ Assn. award for artistic production. “Miss Welty is a national treasure,” Mississippi Gov. Ray Mabus said in announcing the honor. “Through her work, she has taught people how to understand Mississippi. Miss Welty writes of the essence of life itself.” Welty is among five citizens and five state officials from across the nation who will receive the awards Aug. 1 in Chicago.

--Britain’s Prince Andrew and his wife, Sarah, the Duke and Duchess of York, became proud adoptive parents of a beluga whale. In Quebec as part of their 13-day Canadian tour, the royal couple took a cruise on a whale-watching vessel from Baie-Ste.-Catherine, a port northeast of Quebec City. “We have decided to name it White Mischief and we wish it luck,” the duchess said to about 50 people at the Pointe-Noire Coastal Station overlooking the mouth of the Saguenay River as she accepted the adoption certificate for the whale. The newest addition to the royal family lives in the St. Lawrence River.