Serendipity

Yesterday's post brought fans of the Cokesbury Party Blog, among other things, a Bloom County comic strip featuring Steve Dallas' tacky Sunday suit.

My brain, long ago, catalogued Opus' reaction to his suit ("Perfect! El barfo!") as an item worth remembering, so whenever I encountered tacky clothing, El Barfo immediately came to mind. I even briefly conteplated a novel with El Barfo as the unlikliest of superheroes.

So I knew I wanted to use the comic for the Tacky Party post. But I couldn't find it. My kids have glommed onto my comic books, rendering them into piles of unreadable pulp within months by wearing them out. So I'd been searching for that particular strip for about two weeks before I found it, in a most serendipitous way.

First, I had the strip linked to a court case in which assistant Opus wanted Steve to look his best. Leafed through my books looking for Dallas, Steve, court cases of. Found plenty, but couldn't find the strip. My brain latched onto the El barfo, could not recall anything else.

Then it came to me in a flash. Tess Turbo! He was going to star in a Tess Turbo video! So I Googled Tess Turbo. Nothing, until I got into "Penguin Dreams and Stranger Things" on Wikipedia. Then there the storyline was. Then I saw a link a few levels down -- Tess Turbo at GoComics! I went there. Lo and behold, the previous strip was the one I wanted.

So, to those who condemn the Internet for replacing our memories, I say phooey. The Internet is a resposity for memory, but it takes a good old-fashioned organic brain to be able to sort out the mess and find what is wanted. Even something as ridiculous as a 30-year-old comic strip. Take that, Socrates.