A14 East Oregonian PEANUTS COFFEE BREAK Thursday, March 25, 2021 DEAR ABBY BY CHARLES M . SCHULZ Widower fears impotence will kill new relationship FOR BETTER OR WORSE BY LYNN JOHNSTON B.C. BY JOHNNY HART PICKLES BY BRIAN CRANE BEETLE BAILEY BY MORT WALKER Dear Abby: I am a faithful male of people because I’m afraid of big reader of your column. I lost my groups, but I still want to be friends beautiful wife of 40 years last year. with her. When I told her I’d think During our marriage, I had pros- about it, she suddenly turned cold. tate cancer and decided to have the I’m confused. I don’t know what surgery to remove it. I was told by I should do. She was there for me my doctor that there was a chance I since third grade, and I was there for her, and now she seems to be fading would never again be intimate with Jeanne my wife, and she was OK with it. really fast — six years of friendship Phillips Now that she’s gone, I have grown just forgotten. Please give me some ADVICE close to her childhood best friend. I advice. — Friend Drama in Mich- don’t know whether a relationship igan is in the making, but I’m afraid once Dear Friend Drama: Some- she finds out I’m unable to perform, the rela- times when a person says “I’ll think about tionship will die. it,” it comes across as a negative reply. Your I have tried every pill on the market, friend’s feelings may have been hurt because pump, etc. Is it possible to have a good rela- she interpreted it as a rejection. It would have been better if you had explained that you are tionship with someone without intercourse? Or do you think I’m doomed? — Going uncomfortable in large groups and would forward in Virginia prefer to see her one-on-one if she was will- Dear Going: I do not think you are ing. It may not be too late to get that message “doomed.” If you are under the impression across to her. If the price of her company is that all women your age (and younger) would that you will have to learn to be more social, reject you because you can no longer have you will then have to decide which is more sexual intercourse, allow me to reassure you. important. Many women would value warmth, affection, Dear Abby: I have a co-worker who compatible ethics and morals, and an intel- just built a house. When I asked her what lectual equal to share their life with. So be she would like for a housewarming gift, she honest, and you may be pleasantly surprised told me a nice wine carafe with a stopper. So to discover that not only are you eligible, but that’s exactly what I got her. that you are also in demand. I recently found out she had a housewarm- ing party, and I wasn’t invited. I had asked Dear Abby: I have a friend who is really popular. We have been best friends since her when it was going to be, and she didn’t third grade, but when we started ninth grade, mention a word about it. Am I still obligated she really changed. She started hanging out to give her the gift I got for her? Or should I with the “cool” kids and acting weird. She write her off and give it to someone else? — told me that because I was her friend, I had Excluded in Corpus Christi the automatic right to hang out with them. Dear Excluded: Ouch! Write her off and regift it. I don’t like to hang out with large groups DAYS GONE BY From the East Oregonian GARFIELD BLONDIE BY JIM DAVIS BY DEAN YOUNG AND STAN DRAKE 100 Years Ago March 25, 1921 Frank Branch Riley, who has been able to break into very exclusive organizations in the East and tell millionaire bank presidents and habitual world travelers the story of Oregon and the northwest was the chief speaker at the Pendleton Commercial Association banquet. Mr. Riley spoke for an hour or longer and his listeners did a strange thing. They applauded vigorously for several minutes and gave him a “curtain call,” an honor never before accorded a speaker in this city during the last 16 years. In a straight from the shoulder talk on community cooperation Mr. Riley made it clear that to hold membership in the local commercial organization is not merely a duty but a privilege every clear thinking business- man, professional man and farmer will enjoy without much urging. The speaker extolled Secretary Claud Barr as a man who went to Astoria when the town was asleep and inside of four years had made it a community that is now knocking chips off both shoulders of Portland and getting away with it. 50 Years Ago March 25, 1971 Several Mac Hi girls are sporting, or soon will be wearing, a simple bracelet with the name of a serviceman and a date inscribed on it. To the average onlooker it looks like a “going-steady” bracelet given them by a boyfriend. In fact, however, the name of the serviceman and the corresponding date refer to an individual who is either a prisoner of war in North Vietnam or missing in action. The date tells the wearer when the service- man was last seen or heard from by the allies. The amulets are sold by a Los Angeles firm, Voices in Vital America, which is dedicated to determining the status of America’s POWs and its missing men in action. The girls pledge to VIVA they will not remove the bracelet until the Red Cross is allowed into Hanoi and can assure the prisoner’s family of his status and that he receives humane treatment. 25 Years Ago March 25, 1996 Spring is almost a week old, but the temperature didn’t reflect that this morning. This morning’s low of 17 in downtown Pend- leton was a record for the date. The previ- ous low for March 25 was 19 in 1927. The normal Pendleton low for the date is 36. It was also a record-breaking morning at the Pendleton airport, where 19 degrees broke the previous record low of 22 in 1955. Other lows in Eastern Oregon included 13 in Bend and Redmond, 14 in Burns, and just 9 in Prineville. But that was downright toasty compared to this morning’s national low: minus 21 at Butte, Mont. TODAY IN HISTORY DILBERT THE WIZARD OF ID LUANN ZITS BY SCOTT ADAMS BY BRANT PARKER AND JOHNNY HART BY GREG EVANS BY JERRY SCOTT AND JIM BORGMAN On March 25, 1911, 146 people, mostly young female immigrants, were killed when fire broke out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Co. in New York. In 1634, English colo- nists sent by Lord Baltimore arrived in present-day Mary- land. In 1931, in the so-called “Scottsboro Boys” case, nine young Black men were taken off a train in Alabama, accused of raping two white women; after years of convic- tions, death sentences and imprisonment, the nine were eventually vindicated. In 1965, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. led 25,000 people to the Alabama state capitol in Montgomery after a five-day march from Selma to protest the denial of voting rights to Blacks. Later that day, civil rights activist Viola Liuzzo, a white Detroit homemaker, was shot and killed by Ku Klux Klansmen. In 1985, “Amadeus” won eight Academy Awards, including best picture, best director for Milos Forman and best actor for F. Murray Abraham. In 1987, the Supreme Court, in Johnson v. Trans- portation Agency, ruled 6-3 that an employer could promote a woman over an arguably more-qualified man to help get women into high- er-ranking jobs. In 1988, in New York City’s so-called “Preppie Killer” case, Robert Cham- bers Jr. pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter in the death of 18-year-old Jennifer Levin. (Chambers received 5 to 15 years in prison; he was released in 2003 after serving the full sentence.) In 1990, 87 people, most of them Honduran and Dominican immigrants, were killed when fire raced through an illegal social club in New York City. Today’s Bir thdays: Feminist activist and author Gloria Steinem is 87. Singer Sir Elton John is 74. Actor Brenda Strong is 61. Author Kate DiCamillo is 57. Olym- pic bronze medal figure skater Debi Thomas is 54. PHOEBE AND HER UNICORN BY DANA SIMPSON BIG NATE BY LINCOLN PEIRCE