The Rarely Rising Great Pumpkin

Linus.  He's the perfect companion to the pessimistic Charlie Brown.  If Charles views the glass as half empty, Linus quips that there is, at least, a glass.  This is what makes Linus at once lovable, laughable and pitiable.  Linus is the sage of ancient wisdom whose own insecurity toward life illumines as a great blue, fuzzy beacon.  He is the observer; never the doer-- ever the thinker but never the courageous advocate of his own ideals.  His is the cause of the cautious philosopher.  You know, he might just like little Sally but to admit as much would put him too close to reality for comfort.  He is the eye in the sky.  The power of eyes in skies is their distance.  Eyes on the ground get trampled. It's messy stuff.  Everything is too large...too near to make any sense of; and in the panic stricken end you never even have the satisfaction of knowing what it was that crushed you.


So Linus keeps to himself and the pursuit of his own interests.  His optimism is shrouded but it is there, wrapped around him like the warm embrace of flannel or fleece.  Hope abounds in Linus.  Quiet hope.  Enduring hope.  Linus has needs.  After all, it is something, not nothing, that impels him to a random pumpkin patch each October in search of the elusive Great Pumpkin.  Linus needs the Pumpkin to rise even if it is only to quantify his own professed conclusions.  Letters don't lie.  Legends are intrinsically bound to their truth.  

Each October Linus misses out on chocolates and sweet, hard candies and, yes, even rocks.  Rocks, at least, would be something.  Linus exiles himself to bitter disappointment in exaggerated expectation of the rarely rising Great Pumpkin.  He remains undaunted.  It has risen somewhere, for someone, just not for him... just not for him.  It is a rite of despair.  For, if one is convinced that a Great Pumpkin rises, then one must hold in trust one ragged, blue blanket of reassurance: to guard against the chill of October nights, to quickly receive and conceal the boldest of tears, to be the icon of shattered hopes for one who copes from afar and sometimes in concert with Brown's depression at a common wailing wall. 


You might think that Linus would be better off with stale suckers and miniature faux-chocolate rolls.  You might think that Linus should be with friends enjoying the thrill of deep October evenings in spooky revelry.  You might think that Linus's great mind could be put to better use, say, helping Charlie Brown make a ghost costume.  


You might be right.


You should tell him.


And you can, If you can find him in one of his many points of isolated meditation, where right now  his rite of failure has evaporated with the warmth of a family fireplace.  He is working on his list for Santa...  I wouldn't disturb him.