On August 25, 1913, Walt Kelly, a clear-eyed youth of honest Scotch-Irish-English-French-Austrian blood found himself in Philadelphia, Pa. He was one day old, and although his ancestors had been rooted along the shores of the Delaware for 150 years, he immediately hatched a plan. Two years later, he was in Bridgeport, Connecticut, complete with father, mother, sister and sixteen teeth, all his own.
Ten years later to the day, he was twelve years and one day old. He had survived fire (fell into the coal scuttle with a jack-o-lantern in 1919), flood (homemade boat struck a swimming duck and splintered, 1923), starvation (lost the lunch on a fishing expedition with father, 1924), savage beasts (rabid rabbit shot to death on other side of town, 1924), disease and pestilence (chicken pox and mumps, 1918), and education (6 years grammar school).
Sometime in the next four years he studied French and the French teacher at Warren Harding High School in Bridgeport. Thus fully prepared for life, he arrived at a factory that made ladies’ underwear around 1930 and got a job sweeping floors. Three weeks of this and he decided money did not count. He abandoned his lucrative position and took a job with a newspaper as a reporter.
