I wanted to make up for being gone several days in succession by showing you something really unusual. This Sunday comic strip from 1986, barely one year into the run of A&J, has not appeared in any medium since it was published in newspapers over 25 years ago. I hope it illustrates that the artwork and the joke writing both have progressed. It turns out to be one of those mornings, however, when whatever happens here doesn’t seem that important. When I turned on the television yesterday afternoon, after reading initial reports on the Internet, the first footage was from a horse farm. As bad as that appeared, I hoped maybe the Oklahoma tornado had not hit a densely populated area after all. Then, I saw the helicopter shots of entire streets where the only things visible from the air were concrete slabs and grass, as if nothing had existed there for years, and my heart sank. I watched until the same footage had looped countless times and the commentary was becoming innane, then I went outside. The birds were singing; the sky was blue and the trees green; the air was soft, and the wind was calm.