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Little known, but read every day, Al Taliaferro's daily Donald Duck newspaper strips were published daily in hundreds of newspapers all over the world. Al drew a brilliantly crafted strip every day from 1938 until his death in 1969. That's a full 30 plus years of strips, day in and day out, and yet I'll bet most of you have never heard of him. That's because like all Disney print artists, he had to sign Walt Disney's name on each strip even though Walt had little influence on the design and characters of the strips.

Each of these little strips is like a beautiful jewel with unerring perspective, brilliantly crafted characters, and each one was a self-standing gag. The continuing adventures typical to that era were left to Mickey Mouse. Al had to come up with a funny gag every day.

Those facts and much, much more are why I love Al, and I suggest all of you look him up on that Interweave thing. Today's blog is about something Al and I shared. You see, Al spent most of his youth in a tiny Colorado town called Montrose. Guess what? That's the exact town I grew up in. We both left the little berg when we were about 13, so I can reflect on some of the aspects of that typical American small town that probably shaped Al's attitudes.

I think I can call him Al, too, since we practically grew up together -- well almost anyway. Al lived there from 1905 until 1938. I lived there from about 1953 until 1959. These were different eras, true, but little Montrose didn't really change that much during the first half of the 20th century. Let's take a look at the little berg circa 1905.

Yep, that's the old Main street I remember, minus the horses. It would have been very familiar to Al. Below is the way the little town looked from the air. Corse' it was a few years after Al was born that they had airplanes. My guess is this was taken right around when Al graduated from the 7th grade.

Oh, yea, before I forget, here's a shot of Al as an adult. Handsome, wasn't he? Must have been a real lady killer.

This is where Al and I could be found every Saturday afternoon (not at the same time, of course). It's still there, but sadly reconfigured as a three-plex. One thing for sure back then, it was the coolest place in town during the summer.

I don't know what neighborhood Al lived it, but this is a very rare aerial of my neighborhood. My house is on the left, just behind the church. Notice the DC3. It flew over every day at noon. Good, ole' Emerson Grammar School can barely be seen in the top left -- just part of the playground shows, but that was the best part anyway, wasn't it?

There wasn't much to do in Montrose except have parades for the high school homecoming. The few Indians who still lived there would come out. It must have been somewhat daunting for them to be totally surrounded by us palefaces. Everyone was always friendly, though. I loved seeing the Indians. I'll bet Al did, too.

Well, that's about it from me and Al. Check out his book on Amazon. It's the coolest thing out this fall.

Your friend,

W.H. Matlack