Bay Area Town Says Goodbye to Charles Schulz

SANTA ROSA —  It was a morning dreary enough to drive Snoopy right down off his doghouse, but the people of this Bay Area suburb turned out in force anyway--to say that the graceful and unerring hand of Charles M. Schulz extended beyond his beloved comic strip to the life he led every day.

With small stories that spoke of big emotions--the sort Schulz made his stock in trade for nearly 50 years--the people of Santa Rosa told of the kind, white-haired man who many simply called “Sparky.”

Santa Rosa’s Schulz was the grandfather who, until his death earlier this month, was the fixture at the corner table at the local ice rink he owned. He was the businessman who quietly let a girls youth group skate for free. He was the shy fellow who offered the occasional quip. He was the guy who liked to bet small at the local golf course--no more than $3 a round.

And he was the homebody who prized a good chocolate chip cookie and whose creation, Snoopy, liked to binge on root beer. So his family made sure those treats were on hand in abundance at a news conference that followed the memorial at the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts.

Sallie Keyser, a graphic artist, said she saw Schulz only once in person, at a benefit. But she brought her daughters, 10 and 5, to the memorial so they would know that the cartoonist who created Lucy and Pigpen also supported the symphony, library, a housing development and a training center for dogs for the disabled.

“He was special to me and to everyone here in Santa Rosa. He belonged to all of us here,” said Keyser. “Even though he kept to himself, you really felt his presence wherever you were in town.”

Those who couldn’t fit into the 1,500-seat auditorium Monday, stood in the lobby and watched on big-screen televisions as family and friends recalled their local hero. By the end of the hour and a half program, it seemed everyone had known Schulz, even those who conceded that they had barely caught a glimpse of him at the post office.

After the service, 27-year-old Jody Banovich of Santa Rosa said she remembers Schulz at the ice rink’s corner table, beside the fireplace. The 77-year-old had once conceded that he had his own athletic cross to bear--like Charlie Brown’s unceasingly futile attempts to kick the football. Schulz was still looking for his first hole in one on the golf course.

“He would sit there and watch me skate,” Banovich recalled with a smile. “He said I would be better off sticking with golf.”

That was Schulz, said his friends, family and barest acquaintances--keenly attuned to life’s small vagaries but never laughing at his audience. Always laughing with them.

But he wasn’t just an old softy. Ask the guys who traded elbows when he and his hockey mates, the “Red Barons,” took the ice.

“He was the most competitive guy you could ever meet,” said Mark Cox, who played goalie on the team.

Schulz was never one to put on airs, despite his immense wealth and income estimated at $30 million a year from the “Peanuts” marketing juggernaut.

Ulysses van der Kamp, 32, met Schulz when he first started work as a waiter at the “Warm Puppy” coffee shop in the ice rink. Van der Kamp had worked in a French restaurant and--not knowing that Schulz was a cheeseburger and tapioca sort of guy--served him a plate of meatloaf with an herb garnish. Schulz ordered the fancy addition off the plate, van der Kamp recalled.

A couple of weeks later, the waiter had a small thrill when he opened “Peanuts” to find Charlie Brown serving Snoopy his usual dog chow, topped with a decorative flag.

“I don’t think there was anyone else in the whole world except for the two of us who knew exactly what that was about,” said van der Kamp, smiling.

The memorial service was mostly celebratory, a tone that Jeannie Schulz, the cartoonist’s widow, insisted on in her opening remarks.

Behind the Schulz family in the front row were gray-haired golf buddies and children clutching stuffed Snoopy toys.

There were testimonials from cartoonist Cathy Guisewite and from tennis legend Billie Jean King, both friends. One of Schulz’s grandchildren played a hymn on the piano, bringing tears to many in attendance. And daughter Amy Johnson described the central place the “Peanuts” comic strip had taken in her father’s life: “Dad did not draw to earn a living,” Johnson said. “He lived to draw.”

When the tributes were over, Santa Rosa emerged into a day of rapidly spreading sunshine. Three World War II-era airplanes flew overhead in the missing-man formation, a tribute to a regular guy who had served through Europe as an infantryman.

Jeannie Schulz said her husband would have been amazed by all the attention, just as he had been with the outcry that greeted his decision in November to discontinue “Peanuts” because of debilitating colon cancer.

“He could not know the extent of the impact he had made. I believe that’s what these last months have been about,” Jeannie Schulz said. “My comfort comes from knowing that he fully received the love and appreciation that poured out to him.”

Schulz was buried last week just down the road in Sebastopol.

Friend Richard Dwyer, who traveled to Hollywood to see the cartoonist’s star unveiled on the Walk of Fame, said Schulz was always happiest back in Santa Rosa.

“He would say, ‘Richard, I will go anywhere in the world . . . as long as I can be home by noon.’ ”

Associated Press contributed to this story.