Crunching across the gravel driveway to Cathy Runyan-Svacinca’s home, bright spots of color pop in the otherwise gravel gray. Before you have time to investigate, your eyes are drawn to a pile of bowling balls in the flower bed.
Just before knocking on the front door, you stop, hand mid-air. Wow, this is some wild, colorful front door. It swings open revealing Cathy’s big grin and she invites you in. You may take the steps downstairs – or take the slide. Yes, a slide.
We all have finite resources, primarily time and money, with which we can invest. Most devote their time to family, community, or work. Some choose money markets, CDs or the stock market for their investments.
Cathy Runyan-Svacinca has invested her resources in fun.
Many people in the Northland may remember Cathy as The Marble Lady. As a child, she collected and played with marbles. When she became the mother of five, she was determined that this generation of kids would learn to knuckle down and enjoy the colorful world she loved as a child.
“My father and grandfather taught me how to play back when girls weren’t supposed to play marbles,” said the now 72-year-old grandmother of 17.
Starting with her own childhood collection, Cathy began visiting schools, scouting troops and church groups, reviving a game that many only see today on black and white reruns of the Andy Griffith Show.
She wrote a book, she sponsored tournaments, she traveled the world talking about marbles. Colorful marbles blend with the gravel in her driveway. The pull knobs on her kitchen cabinets are marbles. She has a bathroom devoted to marbles.
Cathy entered a contest for a custom designed door for her home and she won. The design shows a bag of marbles open and tumbling down the door.
Among her many accomplishments, this industrious Platte County woman inspired a Charlie Brown cartoon. How many people can say that?
Apparently, Charles Schulz, the creator of the Peanuts comic strip, had received a copy of Cathy’s book, “Knuckle Down! A Fun Guide to Marble Play.”
“He wrote me a letter and said he had not thought of marbles since he was a child and for me to be looking for an upcoming comic strip featuring marbles,” Cathy said.
Sure enough, in a few weeks, Charlie Brown appeared in the papers on his knees playing marbles with a new character in the strip and Charlie Brown, the perpetual loser, won that game of marbles.
“It’s the only time Charlie Brown ever won at anything,” Cathy said.
But marbles are not Cathy’s only investment in fun. As a child of the ‘60s, she became a fan of Charlie the Tuna, the commercial spokesperson for StarKist Tuna. Remember him? The beret-wearing blue tuna, who thought he had such great taste and style that StarKist would surely want him for their product.
“Sorry Charlie. StarKist does not want tunas with good taste; they want tunas that taste good” was a popular line.
“My mother subscribed to Better Homes & Gardens Magazine and they would have these coupons in the back where you could mail off for free things,” Cathy said. “I sent off for this salad mixer for your tuna and other ingredients.”
That was the first of more than 300 Charlie the Tuna items in her collection that includes watches, cameras, soccer balls, an inflatable raft, a working telephone, a talking Charlie the Tuna, and so much more. She has an autographed picture of actor Herschel Bernardi who was the voice of Charlie.
Cathy’s laundry room is home of her Charlie the Tuna collection. The floor tiles create the illusion of blue ocean waves, although a Charlie the Tuna bath rug covers part of the floor. A Charlie the Tuna kite flies on the sky blue ceiling.
The big can of StarKist tuna that appeared in a Seinfeld episode (Season 7, episode 11) is also in Cathy’s laundry room, as are very rare animation cels from Charlie’s television commercials in the 1960s-70s.
Amidst it all, an unpleasant period in Cathy’s otherwise joy-filled life resulted in a national holiday to be celebrated this month. She went through a difficult divorce. She was rejected and dejected. Like Charlie the Tuna, she was not good enough.
“So I wrote a letter to the StarKist company offering to start a ‘Sorry Charlie Fan Club’ for everyone who has ever been rejected,” Cathy said. “And they rejected the idea.”
Never one to be discouraged for long, Cathy founded the “Sorry Charlie, No Fan Club for You Fan Club.” There are no membership dues, just sharing a story about how you have been rejected in your life, as Charlie the Tuna has been for more than 60 years. She developed a large following in the California prison system.
Cathy’s next step was to reach out to the National Day Calendar company in Mandan, North Dakota, to establish a national holiday.
National Sorry Charlie Day is April 6. According to the National Day Calendar, Sorry Charlie Day encourages us to view rejection from a positive perspective. Whether it was a job interview that didn’t go well, a broken romance or whatever, we’ve all been rejected. Take this day to celebrate survival and how we have grown from it.
As you might have ascertained at this point, Cathy Runyan-Svacinca’s home is not your typical Platte County dwelling. In 1981, it was, in fact, the first earth contact home approved for construction in Platte County.
When you arrive on that gravel driveway sprinkled with colorful marbles, you are at the top of the house. As you step into the front door, accented with marbles, you may walk down the stairs. While practical, what fun is that?
Building code required the stairs, but Cathy also installed a slide to go downstairs. It was primarily for the kids but she has certainly had her day on the slide. Not recently though. She’s nearly 73 years old and has a dislocated shoulder.
Instead, she climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. She was 71 when accomplishing that feat.
Whatever else Cathy has in her future, we know it will be a lot of fun.
Cathy’s book Knuckles Down! A Fun Guide to Marble Play, is available for $8 at themarblelady.square.site/product)
To connect with Cathy about a marble presentation or other requests, e-mail themarblelady@aol.com
“So I wrote a letter to the StarKist company offering to start a ‘Sorry Charlie Fan Club’ for everyone who has ever been rejected,” Cathy said. “And they rejected the idea.”