I’m currently engrossed in David Michaelis’ Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography. I’ve rarely been so caught up in a nonfiction book, for reasons I’ll explain when I’m ready to write my review (which I expect will be a long one).

But one thing that grabbed my interest was all the places where Schulz’s and my paths crossed (disregarding the small matter of a few decades’ time). I lived for a while with my aunt in St. Paul, only a couple miles southeast of the corner of Snelling and Selby, where Schulz’s father, Carl, ran a barber shop for most of his life. I used to jog around Highland Park, where Schulz himself liked to play golf.

But the crossings weren’t only in St. Paul.

I worked several years in Minneapolis in the shipping and mailing department (known for some reason as the Service Section) of the headquarters of the American Lutheran Church, an organization which no longer exists (like its building, which was demolished a few years back to make way for the new city jail).

Just kittycorner across Fourth Street from our building was Art Instruction Schools (the people behind the “Can you draw me?” magazine ads). Schulz worked there for a number of years, before and after his service in World War II and up to the time when he became an established cartoonist.

Michaelis reports that he “fell in love” (from afar; he was desperately shy) with several pretty girls who worked at the school. One became the inspiration for Charlie Brown’s “little red-haired girl.” Another was the sister of the woman he eventually married.

Art Instruction Schools and pretty girls. That brings back a memory….

She used to walk north along the block from the bus stop to Art Instruction Schools every morning. She was young—probably about eighteen, fresh from some small town. “Fresh” was precisely the word. She had a lovely face, a slim figure, a graceful walk. Her hair was incredible. Brown and curly, shoulder length, it bounced in a fascinating way as she hurried to work, free but always falling back into its essential shape.

“Her hair,” said one of my friends, “actually looks like what they try to make models’ hair look like, in shampoo commercials.”

Though they worked for a church organization, many of the guys in the Service Section were fairly rough types. But I don’t recall any of them ever saying a crude word about that girl. One of the guys nicknamed her “Princess,” and it stuck. We were all kind of in awe of her.

Then one day it changed.

I saw her hurrying to work on her usual route, but that perfect complexion had now been covered over with pancake and blush. The wonderful hair had gotten a cut and a styling. It was elegant, but it no longer moved. She wore a new, stylish dress.

Someone had clearly given her a makeover. And in so doing had destroyed what had made her amazing. Now she was just another pretty girl, one of 100,000 in the city.

Thinking about this, I came to understand one of the few things I know about women (one which, it will surprise no one, is of no use to me at all).

1. Young women wear makeup in order to look the way sophisticated older women look.

2. Older women wear makeup in order to look the way younger women look without makeup.

Because the world is mad, mad, mad.