Charlie Brown and the Liberty Tree

With cultural appropriations redefining what is and isn't acceptable in our lives today, my passion for eating Neapolitan ice cream may be coming to its culinary end. You see, I savor the taste of all three flavors without prejudice from one delectable flavor to the next. I love the decadent taste of chocolate as much as I do the mouthwatering flavor of strawberry and enjoy vanilla with equal amounts of impartiality and vigor. On the surface, eating ice cream seems like an innocuous thing, if not a most enjoyable endeavor. But it appears that even "ice cream" is now linked with systemic racism!

In this topsy-turvy world where symbols of white supremacy seem to lurk in every corner of our society, one can ill-afford their reputation sullied by racist accusations. I know this overused indictment of racism buttresses absurdity, yet it is bandied about like one of the proven absolutes in life. But then, why do we allow our lives to be bullied by these habitually offended malcontents anyway? After all, if you can find racism in anything and everything, perhaps it only exists in the minds of the race-baiting antagonists in the first place.

All of this has become increasingly overwhelming, if not intentionally confusing, leaving me with one inextricable question to answer. To eat or not to eat Neapolitan ice cream? Should I ask Auntie Nancy, the anointed magna cum laude of ice cream? With her $20,000 deep freezer brimming with the most nuanced flavors of ice cream imaginable, surely Nancy will know. On the other hand, if Nancy Marie Antionette Pelosi had her way, we would all be eating cake, not ice cream.

So, in keeping with the holiday spirit, who better to ask about the follies and frivolities of life than Charlie Brown? After all, he's experienced these kinds of intellectual absurdities before. Perhaps he will shout out for all to hear from Boston harbor to the streets of Charleston, "No Neapolitan ~ No Peace," the same rallying cry so eloquently delivered by Samuel Adams that sparked the American Revolution?

Will Charlie Brown refer this controversial question to his thumb-sucking binky brandishing buddy Linus? Is it possible that Lucy will resolve this daunting matter for a mere five cents from her prized psychiatry booth? No, I think not, especially if history repeats itself, and indeed it does. Rest assured, Charlie Brown will settle this cultural appropriation conundrum with two words of wisdom we have all heard from him so many times before, "Good Grief!"

Dave Maynard