Looking back, he smiled when he referred to his senior year at Oak Glen, as the “Year of the Dead Dog’s Eyeball.”[1] He drew “dead dog’s eyeballs” all over school and all over town, and they became an unforgettable feature of Daniel’s persona and, for a time, of the towns that were filled with graffiti that featured them.[2]
Mabel cited the drawings of the eyeballs as the beginning of the terrible rift that developed between mother and son. With perspective, it’s difficult not to sympathize with her and it is difficult not to sympathize with Daniel. (As Mabel put it, “When you started drawing those Satanic cartoons… And when you started drawing those eyeballs all over… Other people can laugh and say ‘Dan Johnston’s crazy’ but I can’t laugh. I don’t want my son to be a laughing stock.”)[3] [4] It is not uncommon for such a rift to develop between mother and son, as the son goes from adolescence to young adulthood, and comes into himself or begins to assert a personality that is distinct from the one with which his mother was familiar. In the case of Daniel and Mabel, as with all things concerning Daniel (and Mabel), this phenomenon was just ‘turned up a little too loud.’
[1] Ron Harris Video Interviews, 1991
[2] NB79E, pp. 61-66
[3] Preamble to “Scrambled Eggs,” an extended, more intense, version can be found here: CS0552 Philosophy Class April 82 More Domestic Talk
[4] Unrecorded Ron Harris Interviews, p. 44, NB79E