RATS! By Jerry Touger

HALLIE EPHRON: As most of you who've hung around this blog any amount of time know, my sweet husband, Jerry Touger, was a brilliant cartoonist.

He was never without a pencil or his weapon of choice: a BIC pen. And in a life filled with boring academic meetings, after completing the day's crossword puzzles in record (and recorded) time, he had ample opportunity to doodle. 

As far as I can tell, he never threw any of his doodles away. I love them all, and this leaves me with the onerous task of trying to figure out what to do with all of them.

I've scanned ALL the Christmas, New Years, Thanksgiving, birthday, Valentines Day, and Mother's Day cards he made for me and copied them onto flash drives for my daughters. 

Add to that a gazillion printed meeting agendas with doodles all around the edges, some are recognizable colleagues.

My favorites are the many miscellaneous drawings of highly opinionated rats. 

Why rats, you ask. Beats me. 

Today I'll share some of them with you... Largely his rats were dyspeptic, as this pair...

But they could also be graceful.

And affectionately parental, as in this Mother's Day card.

(One of his pet names for me was SMEDLEY. Why? Again I have no idea.)

He even illustrated his INTRODUCTORY PHYSICS text with cartoon rats 

Do you doodle? Have a loved one who does? I'm sure you agree those drawings are not only a precious legacy but a window to the soul. 

Jerry's was a goofy, sweet place.