Adam Blatner

When I was young I was very taken by the struggle of the boy in the poem, Jabberwocky, in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures Through the Looking Glass. My pretend dragon—let’s call him Poof, because in some ways he came back in the 60s as Puff the Magic Dragon, and I would engage in cartoon-fantasy struggles. He almost got me a number of times, let me tell you, but I always triumphed because that’s the way it was. He was good, Poof, because he always took me on anew like this time we was going to eat me up to pieces. (I almost wish I could let him, he was such a pal, but it wasn’t in the script.) (It was more dramatic even when I learned how to recite it in a modified German language!)

The pot-helmet-hat and garbage-can lid shield and sword made of two pieces of wood nailed together worked, though. Snicker-snack! and I won. Somehow the simplicity of the struggle was nice. Would that the world was like this, you know? Clear good versus evil and good wins. I think we were a bit spoiled by the victory following the propaganda in “the Good war,” World War 2. It was horrible for most, but for a kid growing up in the good ol’ USA, it was misleadingly mythic and seemed simple. (Only later did I realize how close we came to losing!)