"Put down that comic book and clean your room, Skeezix!"
Particularly when my misbehaving had some connection to same-sex desire, like when Bill and I became a "mama and a papa", when I was disappointed at the lack of muscles at A Little Bit O'Heaven., or when I asked for a statue of a naked man for Christmas.
He never used that name on my brother or sister, just me. I had no idea why.
One day I stumbled upon a book in my Aunt Nora's attic, starring a boy named Skeezix. Turns out that he was from the long-running comic strip Gasoline Alley (1918-). Originally about four buddies who hung around in an alley to talk about cars, it took a domestic turn on February 14, 1921, when Walt Wallet found a baby on his doorstep, and named him Skeezix.
The strips were now about a single dad raising a small child -- who aged in real time. Every day in the strip corresponded to a day in real life.
He starred in three radio series and two movies (played by Jimmy Lyndon of Tom Brown's School Days fame,
The strip was not known for beefcake -- Walt was rather pudgy -- but Skeezix got some shirtless and underwear shots, and displayed a nice physique.
So my father connected my homoerotic hijinks to the shirtless, buddy-bonding, arguably gay Skeezix of his childhood.
The gay symbolism didn't last. Skeezix got a girlfriend, Nina Clock (pronounced Nine-a).
He graduated from high school, served in World War II, and returned to run the gas station. He married Nina, and had two kids: Chipper and Clovia.
Left: The bisexual Scotty Beckett played Skeezix's brother in Gasoline Alley (1951).
Chipper served in the Vietnam War, and became a physician's assistant as the job was just starting out. He met his wife through a computer dating service.
Clovia grew up, managed the gas station after Skeezix retired, and married Slim Skinner. They had two kids: Gretchen and Rover (born in 1978).
Rover grew up, graduated from high school, and married Hoogy Boogle. They had a son, Boog, in 2004. As of 2022, he is 18 years old, and has a girlfriend, Polly.
The first and second generations don't appear much anymore, since Walt Wallet is over 120 years old, and Skeezix over 100, but none of the cartoonists want to mention iconic characters dying.
Six generations of Wallets, Skinners, Boggles, and Bumps, and you'd be hard pressed to find anyone in who isn't involved in a hetero-romance. There are no confirmed bachelor uncles or maiden aunts anywhere to provide queer subtexts (except for the outsider characters Rufus and Joel). Gasoline Alley remains a holdout from the time when gay people were assumed not to exist.
Yet for kids growing up in the 1930s, there was Skeezix.
See also: Dad buys me a n*ked man for Christmas
