My mother and my grandmother both read to me as a child. I loved the Little Golden Bugs my Mom read to me. And my grandmother was my nursery age Sunday School teacher and she read me many Bible stories. I entered first grade not know how to read. My mother had tried to sit me down and teach me words but I just was not interested. But in first grade I fell in love with the pictures and stories of Sally, Dick and Jane in the old Scott Forseman readers. And I learned to read very quickly. I had many books to read at home and around the age of eight I was given my first Dennis The Menace book. The title was In This Corner...Dennis The Menace. I must have read the captions under those cartoons in the book over a hundred times.
It became the first of many Dennis The Menace paperback books I bought as a kid. I still had this original one way into my adulthood until it finally got lost in one of my many moves. But I treasured the laughs and the antics of Dennis. After Hawaii became a state the comic book Dennis Goes to Hawaii was published. I was fascinated with Hawaii. It was the new state. They taught us all about the two new states in second grade and it was a big deal at the time. And this comic book taught me more than either of my first or second grade teachers had taught me about Hawaii. I learned the names of the individual islands. I learned about volcanoes. And there was even a word list of Hawaiian words to learn to read and to speak.
I kept that comic book way into my adult life also but like the paperback books it eventually got lost again in one of my many moves. I remember being excited about Hawaii and wanted to go see this magical new state. But my parents reminded me that would never happen. We would never be able to afford a vacation like that in this life time. Even in my twenties when I talked about going to Hawaii on my own I was reminded this was just some silly childhood dream and would never happen. My parents could not imagine traveling far from our little home town in Maryland. But it stayed a life long fantasy for me thanks to Dennis.
But I did get there finally in 2013! And saw and heard that word Aloha that I had learned from the vocabulary list in the comic book every where. I was in Heaven. And Mark and I returned five more times after our initial visit. We have climbed Diamond Head. Played in the sand in Waikiki. Searched for waterfalls And like Dennis's mother we sampled some of those Hawaiin cocktails while listening to Hawaiian music. I remember Dennis asking his mother why she was crying listening to the music and she said because it's so beautiful. He thought it was silly to cry when you are laughing. But I understood. I had tears when I stepped off the plane in Honolulu the first.
Thanks to Jay North when he debuted on Dennis The Menace in 1959 I learned to love Dennis. And that changed my life. And I know I will get to Hawaii at least one more time and I plan to have a toast to Jay North who played Dennis and Hank Ketcham who created the character Dennis The Menace.
Don't get me wrong. I liked Charlie Brown also. But he was not Dennis. Dennis and the Mitchell family were my favorites. And let's face it can you imagine Charlie Brown in leather? Never! But I did find this photo below a few years back and it made me love Dennis even more. Always the bad boy Dennis. But you won my heart.
Rest in peace Jay North. I have read you had issues in your adult life as many child actors did also. But you brought Dennis to life for me and for that I am very grateful.
