{"id":291,"date":"2020-03-27T18:51:03","date_gmt":"2020-03-27T22:51:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mrfitz.com\/blog\/?p=291"},"modified":"2020-03-27T19:08:32","modified_gmt":"2020-03-27T23:08:32","slug":"the-tale-of-phineas-based-on-real-events","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mrfitz.com\/blog\/the-tale-of-phineas-based-on-real-events\/","title":{"rendered":"The Tale of Phineas: Based on Real Events"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

After my recent\nannouncement about moving from six strips a week to just three, I received a\nmessage here at this blog from someone who loved the strip. Interestingly, the\nseries he brought up as his favorite was a series from three years ago that\nwasn\u2019t even set in the classroom or at school. It was set on a street in early\nmorning before the sun was up, and concerned Mr. Fitz meeting a young boy named\nPhineas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That series was based\non a real event in my life from four years ago, an that event showed up as a\nFacebook memory today. Since this series was one my own favorites, I thought\nI\u2019d re-post it here as a graphic short story of sorts, along with my description\nof the event that inspired it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s interesting to\nnote that it took me over a year to actually write the event into comic strip\nform. I didn\u2019t include everything, and I had to frame it so that it followed my\nown rule that everything in Mr. Fitz must somehow connect to learning,\neducation, teaching, or literacy. Mr. Fitz\u2019s thoughts near the end of the strip\nare (as is often the case) actually my thoughts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m happy I got to\nmeet \u201cPhineas,\u201d and I sometimes wonder what has happened with him. He\u2019d be 8\nnow. I\u2019ve had a few people ask me to bring Phineas back as a recurring\ncharacter in the strip, and if I ever met the real Phineas again, I might. But\nfor now I prefer to let the series be like the real event: a strange, magical\nlittle interlude that couldn\u2019t be repeated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is my original\nnarrative Facebook post about the event, followed by the comic strips the event\ninspired\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dropped Alex off at\nthe high school this morning, turned the corner onto a side street to drive\nhome, pick up Andrea, and go work, and saw a little boy wandering on the street\nin pre-dawn semi-dark. I turned around and went back to see if he was lost, and\nhe informed me that he was \u201cFar, far from home,\u201d and that they\u2019d been to Hawaii\nto get a dog. I stopped and got out to make sure he didn\u2019t go out into the\nstreet again. He was in short and a T-shirt, but no shoes\u2013 just Angry Birds\nsocks. He told me he was 4. I asked him how long he\u2019d been out walking. He\nreplied, \u201cUm, about 5 years.\u201d He informed me that he was going to Walmart to\nget Play-doh. I called 911 and told them I\u2019d found a boy wandering. A woman who\nwas driving by found out the street name for me, and then the boy and I waited\noutside my car for the police to come. I called Andrea and assured her I was\nokay and hadn\u2019t been in an accident\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The boy told me he\nliked my Star Wars T-shirt and knew who Han and Chewie were. He told me his\nbrother had told him not to leave the house. I asked him how old is brother\nwas. \u201cHe\u2019s one. He\u2019s a baby. He\u2019s fat.\u201d He told me he wanted to get under\n\u201cthose rocks,\u201d and pointed at the street. \u201cWhy?\u201d I asked him. \u201cBecause I bet\nthere\u2019s Play-Doh down there. I wish this whole town was made of Play-Doh.\u201d When\nthe police officer arrived, he told him his name, flapped his wings, and said,\n\u201cI\u2019m a bird!\u201d The officer took down some information and went about trying to\nfind out where he lived, and I went on my way. I hope he got home okay.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s been an interesting couple of days. Maybe tomorrow I\u2019ll rescue a kitten from a storm drain or something.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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After my recent announcement about moving from six strips a week to just three, I received a message here at this blog from someone who loved the strip. Interestingly, the series he brought up as his favorite was a series from three years ago that wasn\u2019t even set in the classroom or at school. It Read More >><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[14,128,4],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrfitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrfitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrfitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrfitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrfitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mrfitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":327,"href":"https:\/\/mrfitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291\/revisions\/327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrfitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrfitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrfitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}