Making the Break

We’re near the end of a year. So I suppose it’s fitting that we’re at the end of an era, too.

Lee Mendelson died on Christmas Day.

In a way, the timing is weirdly appropriate. Mendelson, a television producer, was part of the power trio that created “A Charlie Brown Christmas” along with creator Charles Schulz and director Bill Meléndez. With its unexpected success, the three would continue to make special after special for years, taking the already beloved Peanuts gang into the stratosphere.

Schulz died in 2000, Meléndez in 2008. And now, with Mendelson’s passing, I’m left a little speechless. So let’s take a moment of silence – maybe accompanied by a talking trombone – and reflect on failure.

After all, Charlie Brown is the most famous failure in the world. He never kicks the football, never wins the baseball game, never gets the little red-haired girl.  But for one brief moment, the “Peanuts trio” was at risk of surpassing him.

Schulz, Mendelson, and Meléndez easily could have gone into history as the men who broke Charlie Brown.

That sounds like hyperbole. But Mendelson already knew that producing a Charlie Brown piece was not a guaranteed success – he’d been shopping around a documentary on the little round-headed kid for months without a single bite before getting the opportunity to do a holiday special on an insanely fast turn-around time. And the choices that the three men in creating that special – well, if it had fallen flat, you could have pointed to any of those decisions, or all of them, and said “Good grief! What were they thinking?”

Things like using real child actors and no laugh track.

Or hiring a jazz composer to do the soundtrack.

Or giving the most popular character, Snoopy, no lines whatsoever.

Or making the climax of the entire show a reading from the book of Luke.

Production finished just 10 days before air time – which Mendelson would later say was the only thing that kept it from being canceled by the network executives, since it had already been scheduled.  It seemed as weak and spindly as Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree.

You know – the tree that just needed a little love?

Today, of course, the whole thing shines as bright as Snoopy’s doghouse. It’s mandatory viewing, year after year. It had been taken to the breaking point – and held.

My brother-in-law understands that sort of thing very well. Once, while helping with a home repair, he explained his basic philosophy: “You can’t fix something if you’re afraid to break it.”

That’s a vital lesson. And a hard one.

Because boy, do we love to play it safe.

It’s easy to do what you know. After all, a lot of risks fail – that’s why they’re risks. Nobody wants to be the one who gets burned, gets laughed at, gets left with nothing but empty hands and painful memories.  It’s tempting to keep your head down, do nothing, believe in nothing, risk nothing.

And of course, that’s a path that leaves you with nothing.

Everything worth doing involves some kind of risk, whether it’s as spectacular as a television program or as personal as falling in love. (C.S. Lewis famously said that “To love at all is to be vulnerable.”) It doesn’t have to be a stupid risk, mind you; there’s no medals given for playing in traffic. But when the stake is worth the gamble – when you’re not afraid to break it –  that’s when lives can be transformed.  That’s when the song gets written, or the job gets taken, or the family begun.

That’s when memories get made.

Thank you, Mr. Mendelson, for making some of our own.

For you, and for all of us, it was a lucky break indeed.

Time For a Good Man

Missy’s had a new friend hanging around the house lately.

She met him at Kohl’s and it was love at first sight. Now he seems to go everywhere with her. He’s even sat in our evening story times, and since he’s the quiet-spoken sort, it doesn’t disrupt anything. Besides, I love his shirt.

Yep. It’s easily the cutest Charlie Brown doll I have ever seen.

I’m not quite sure why Missy latched on to ol’ Chuck. I suspect the small size and bald head give it a “baby” appearance to her and she’s always been fascinated by babies. When our now-3-year-old niece Riley visits, there’s been several times when the toddler girl and the developmentally-disabled woman seem to have a perfect understanding of each other. Before the fights over the Legos begin, anyway.

But whatever the reason, I’m glad to have him around. Charlie Brown has always been a favorite of mine, the unlikeliest American celebrity of all.

Think about it.

America celebrates winners. Charlie Brown has never kicked a football, won a baseball game or flown a kite without disaster.

America encourages busyness, even hyperactivity. Charlie Brown always has time to lean on a brick wall and talk with a friend.

America urges people to get more, bigger, brighter, better. Charlie Brown rolls his eyes at over-decorated doghouses and aluminum Christmas trees, and picks out a scrawny branch that needs a little love.

He’s not a success. What’s more, he knows it. When he asks into the silent night “Why me?”, the answer he hears is “Nothing personal … your name just happened to come up.”

And yet, if you were to set him alongside most of the nation’s leaders right now – maybe all of them – the little round-headed kid with the rickrack shirt would be the first choice in a heartbeat.

Good grief!

OK, that’s not quite a fair comparison. After all, many things are outpolling the Congress right now, including the IRS, venereal disease and possibly the Oakland Raiders, though that’s stooping a bit low. But still, there’s something about the ol’ blockhead.

Sure, he dodges confrontations and hides from the little red-haired girl. Yes, he gets depressed and frustrated. And everyone knows he was overshadowed by his dog long ago in almost every possible area of accomplishment.

But … well … he’s decent. Courteous. Fair, even when it costs him. He sticks by his friends, even giving up a Little League sponsorship when it means the girls and Snoopy would have to leave the team.

He’s the guy you’d never put in the Hall of Fame – but you’d love to put him in the house next door.

He’s humble.

And I think we’ve lost some of that.

Oh, not at the local level. Not entirely. If anything proved that, the flood did, with good neighbors lining up to work in the muck and mud to help someone else. No pride on the line, just an awareness of someone else’s need.

But at the national level, where expensive temper tantrums can erupt for weeks and change nothing by the end … well, wouldn’t it be nice, once in a while, to have folks who were less sure of themselves?

I’m not arguing that confidence is a bad thing. But it’s not the only thing, either. When Rome celebrated its heroes with a triumphal procession, someone was always assigned to whisper in the hero’s ear “Remember, you, too are mortal.” Humility, in the midst of pride.

Even one of the most self-assured dictators of history, Oliver Cromwell, recognized the need. In a 1560 letter to the Church of Scotland, he wrote “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, consider that you may be mistaken.”

That doesn’t fit modern Washington, where you never apologize (except when caught in an affair), never back down, never admit the other guy might have a point.

And, lately, never get any work done.

Maybe that’s something to remember next year, come November. The confident men and women with all the answers make attractive candidates – but the less certain ones, the ones willing to ask questions, even of themselves, may make better leaders.

And it doesn’t have to be a costly experience.

I even know one guy who did it for Peanuts.