He made some tools

A few days ago, Twitter user @Bondcliff2008 posted this image to Twitter. I didn’t stop laughing for almost a full minute. Those who get it right off probably love it as well–and I love you for that.

It is the subject of an inside joke between me and my Dad. Way back in the fall of 1982, a Far Side comic appeared in the paper simply titled Cow Tools, featuring a cow standing next to her tools, the ones that were created in real life by the Jim.

Dad hated that particular cartoon. I didn’t get it either, but I loved that my dad was so annoyed by it that I kept laughing at it as if it was the funniest thing in the world. I was 14 and probably found life in general more absurd and funny.

Little did we know that an entire country of people also were annoyed to the point that the strip creator, Gary Larson, felt compelled to issue a statement.

The cartoon was intended to be an exercise in silliness. While I have never met a cow who could make tools, I felt sure that if I did, they (the tools) would lack something in sophistication and resemble the sorry specimens shown in this cartoon.

The Spokesman Review, Friday, 29 October 1982

The full statement is in the newspaper clipping below. It also contains this gem, which describes a lot of artsy type projects of my own, but has always made me okay with how things sometimes turn out:

Occasionally, between the time I first conceive a certain idea and the final product, something goes awry…

A cartoonist has to posses a certain level of fearlessness, as does any artist. One has to be okay putting something out into the world that not everyone is going to love. That was my take away.

When I moved away from Kansas City and email became the normal communication path between Dad and I, we often shared Far Side comics when we’d stumble across them. I remember sending him this very one, just to egg him on. He didn’t remember it, didn’t remember his visceral reaction to it two decades prior. He simply replied, “haha”. Maybe he got it by then. Or maybe he Googled Cow Tools and found the Wiki page for that particular strip and finally got the explanation he didn’t get before. I don’t know.

Dad would turn 83 today. It breaks my heart to no end that I cannot share the photo above with him.