Dearest Reader,

Among my father’s papers is this small newspaper clipping from the comic strip Kerry Drake. There is no date, no newspaper name and nothing written on it to explain why he chose to cut it out and keep it. All that remains is this fragment of a story.

Kerry Drake was a popular American detective comic strip created by Alfred Andriola and first published in 1943. The strip followed Kerry Drake through stories involving crime, mystery and police work and would remain in newspapers for decades. This scene shows a woman identified as “Miss Gee Gee String” reacting to someone ringing the buzzer at her apartment. Along the bottom of the clipping, we can also see the beginning of another well-known comic strip, Terry and the Pirates, suggesting that the two appeared together on the newspaper’s comics page.

I remember that my father liked cartoons, which may be the simplest explanation for why this survived. Perhaps he followed Kerry Drake regularly. Perhaps there was something about this storyline or character that amused him. Or perhaps he clipped it for a reason that has now been lost.

There is something interesting about finding an object like this among the more easily explained things he saved. Military papers, photographs, letters and programs often tell us immediately why they mattered. This little piece of newspaper does not.

All I really know is that my father enjoyed cartoons and, for some reason, this one was worth cutting from a newspaper and keeping. Sometimes that is all an object can tell us—and perhaps that small glimpse into something he enjoyed is enough.