There is a place so like the place where my heart and mind were born that I feel as if I have always lived there. That place is a cartoon panel that ran in newspapers throughout the country from 1913 to 1955 (a year before I was born in Mason City, Iowa). It was called Toonerville Folks and was centered around the famous Toonerville Trolley.
Fontaine Fox was born near Louisville Kentucky in 1884. Louisville, of course is one of the two cities that claims to be the inspiration for Toonerville. Apparently the old Brook Street Line Trolley in Louisville was always run-down, operating on balls of twine and bailing wire for repair parts. The people of Pelham, New York, however, point to a trolley ride Fox took in 1909 on Pelham’s rickety little trolley car with a highly enterprising and gossip-dealing old reprobate for a conductor. No matter which it was, Fox’s cartoon mastery took over and created Toonerville, where you find the famous trolley that “meets all trains”.
I didn’t learn of the comic strip’s existence until I was in college, but once I found it (yes, I am the type of idiot who researches old comics in university libraries), I couldn’t get enough of it. Characters like the Conductor, the Powerful (physically) Katrinka, and the terrible-tempered Mr. Bang can charm the neck hair off of any Midwestern farm-town boy who is too stupid to regret being born in the boring old rural Midwest.
I fancied myself to be just like the infamous Mickey (himself) McGuire. After all, we have the same first name… and I always lick any bully or boob who wants to put up a fight (at least in my daydreams).
So, this is my tribute to the cartoonist who probably did more to warp my personality and make me funny (well, at least easy to laugh at! ) than any other influence. All of the cartoons in this post can be credited to Fontaine Fox. And all the people in them can be blamed on Toonerville, the town I used to live in, though I never really knew it until far too late.
Catch a Falling Star 
Don’t Throw Me in My Laughing Place!
I am a captive today. I went to Denton, Texas yesterday to receive my booster dose of the Covid vaccine. I don’t feel any worse than the last two times I got vaccinated. But I am not better either.
And there are two big court cases happening today that have a huge effect on whether life is going to be fair to us rabbit-people, or will end up being more fair to those FOX people.
Three knuckle-dragging crackers hunted down an unarmed black man with guns in Georgia, claiming he was a theft suspect. They repeatedly threatened to kill him if he didn’t surrender to them, and then they finally carried out the threat and shot him dead. And yesterday I heard the main cracker make the excuse that the man tried to grab his gun, so he shot him to death in self-defense.
One Rambo wannabe in Wisconsin, a seventeen-year-old who owned an AR-15 that he wasn’t old enough to legally purchase, went to a protest where he goaded unarmed protesters to attack him, shot and killed two of them, wounded some others, and now is claiming he shot in self defense. Those unarmed protesters shoulda known better than to taunt him and make him afraid when he had his big gun in his hands.
I’ma thinkin’summat ain’t right.
It’s a tricky briar patch they want to throw me in. I live in Texas where you can now carry around a loaded gun concealed on your rabbit fur without having to get any kind of permit first. I may have to think twice about walking into anyplace named the OK Corral.
I am not the sort to solve my problems with a gun. If I am ever in a confrontation where someone has to be shot, it will most likely be me. I would sooner die than kill somebody.
But the world in general does not think like I do.
So, I am thinkin’ all tricksey about makin’ that old FOX throw me inta my laughin’ place. Somehow I gotta convince that old boy that I don’t wanna be there. Cuz them ol’ FOXes is cruel like that.
I will recover from my booster shot I will feel better in a day or two. The FOXes will probably look at this post and call me a racist, because of what I am actually saying. That’s how racists justify being racists. But the only race I really belong to is the ordinary rabbit-people race, also known as the human race. But rabbits come in many different colors, and lots of them are spotted. So what? What ya gonna make out o’ dat?
You don’t solve problems of violence with more violence. So, we gotta try something else. Any ideas?
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Filed under angry rant, cartoons, commentary, goofy thoughts, gun control, humor, rabbit people