Dear Dennis the Menace

To, 

Dennis the Menace, 

C/o Mr Hank Ketcham, and after his death, his assistants, Ron Ferdinand and Marcus Hamilton, 

2251 Pine Street, Carmel, California



Dear Dennis,

When I was a kid, I thought you were adorable. I admired the manner in which you sent grownups scurrying for cover. I marveled at your ability to blow up your own world (and Mr Wilson’s too, more often than not) with that look of pure innocence on your face. I thought Mr Wilson was a little too harsh on you. You were just being a kid. Sure you were mischievous, but you didn’t deliberately set out to ruin his garden or disrupt his coin and stamp collections or even to damage his possessions and property and other things that he held dear. It just happened.

Things have a way of happening when you’re in the neighbourhood. And for reasons beyond your control, you end up annoying your best grownup friend. Still, no big deal. If things got a tad bit too hot, your parents should have been able to handle it. It is their responsibility to discipline you. That’s what they signed up for. That’s what I used to think.

Before I had my own.

Now I’m a mother and while I am appalled at your behaviour, particularly at the thought of all the explaining that might be required and the messes that will have to be straightened out, I know better. I no longer judge your long-suffering parents. My sympathies to your mother, who will no doubt be reading this letter out loud to you.

But my affection for you remains.

Besides, you have your own challenges to deal with, particularly the one called Margaret. I agree with you; she’s quite insufferable, and too pretentious and self-important too. Who gave her the right to judge your manners? Or to believe herself qualified to improve them?

The good thing about living in a comic creation is that no matter how often you blow it, Hank Ketcham could make it all right again.

I’m grateful for that.

For the fact that the world can be set right again, even if for a brief while, while you load up your ammo (read: snakes, frogs and your slingshot) and prepare to assault us again. Unintentionally, of course.

I am also grateful for your wide-eyed curiosity, for your well-meaning efforts to help that somehow end up going wrong, for your tactless honesty, even if it causes the grownups to go ouch, your energy and exuberance, all gifts of childhood that we have lost.

Parts of our ears are still jangling with horror at the sheer loudness of the noise you can generate, when you sing cowboy songs loudly or when you bang your toy drums or blow into your toy horns. And there are department store Santas, babysitters, sales staff, barbers and postmen who suffer nervous breakdowns at the mere mention of your name.

Beneath it all, you’re just a little boy who believes in the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus,

Just a five-and-a-half-year-old boy.

And that’s why everyone loves you.



Good Ol’ Mr Wilson too, though you’ll never catch him admitting that.