This week Cherry continued her attempt to convince Violet Cheshire to cancel Honest Ernest’s contract to pave over a portion of the grounds and garden of the Sunny Soleil Society because of environmental issues. Unfortunately, currently married Violet declaimed her love for currently married Ernest and flatly refused to cancel his contract. Cherry was shocked as much by the apparent insult to traditional family values as she was by Violet’s decision. Stymied by this defeat, she stomped away to dig up rose bushes before the concrete arrived.

But now, a bit of history and contrition:  When this strip began in 1946, Cherry led a feisty lifestyle but eventually married Mark and landed a new role as stay-at-home wife and mother to adopted son, Rusty.  With few exceptions, Cherry’s appearance was limited to welcoming Mark home and despairing over his departures. One of Jules Rivera’s important innovations was to give Cherry more options, including her own adventures.

I opined earlier this week about a supposed over-emphasis on emotion and reaction as might be heard in a soap opera. However, my wife reminded me that women, in general, are more likely to discuss feelings and relationships than men. Fair point. Even a blockhead like me recognizes that Cherry’s adventures add an additional—female—spotlight on this male-oriented adventure strip. So, I was wrong to get overly snarky about the dialog. Anyway, I’d still like to see a story costarring Mark and Kelly Welly, since Rivera made a big deal about Kelly when she started out.

My usual quick-and-dirty research confirms most of what Mark reports. But he fails to report that some major concrete companies are working on solutions to reduce CO2 emissions, while there is a lot of research into developing safer alternatives to concrete. I’d be happy for that, because concrete is not only a health hazard, it also usually leads to ugly, prefabbed architecture, inflexible sidewalks and driveways, and sore arms from mixing it for home projects.