Just once, in the current story, although considering Walt Wallet is now more than half as old as the United States repeat pharmacy visits aren’t too out of line. The first visit, in early February, was Walt and his caretaker Gertie going to get vitamins on sale. The second visit, this past week, has been Gertie alone trying to get something for Walt’s headache. The timeline for all this is vague but these visits have to be on separate days. Walt gets mail after his pharmacy visit, and is at church right before Gertie goes out for aspirin. It just seems like this is one continuous long day of incidents featuring guest star The Jack Benny Show’s own Frank Nelson, the “yyyyYYYYYEEEESSSS?” guy.

If I’ve done my job right, this will catch you up to late April 2026 in Jim Scancarelli’s Gasoline Alley; if it’s after about July 2026, try checking this link for a more up-to-date essay. Also there: everything I’ve written about Gasoline Alley unless I failed to tag it. Good luck.

Gasoline Alley.

1 February – 25 April 2026.

As foretold back in early February, the story was moving on from Rufus and Joel back to Walt Wallet, a man half as old as the United States, and his caretaker Gertie. It starts with the two going off trying to buy vitamins at a buy-one-get-one-free sale. Since this involves an extremely old person the attempt to pay by card goes terribly wrong, and every person in the world gets stuck in line behind them. There’s an excellent chance you’re still in the pharmacy line despite your not being particularly fictional.

Staggering finally out of this they get a late and mauled Christmas card from Rufus and Joel, along with a note apologizing for it being late and mauled. Walt is so old the post office still attaches an apology for delivering mail late and mauled.

Once that’s done, they go off to church so Walt can fall asleep in church. The pastor’s homily trying to make some train analogy leads Walt to dream that he’s getting a train to heaven. Except he misses the train, gets the next one, and solidly refuses to take the hint when the conductor is The Jack Benny Show’s own Frank Nelson.

Nor does he pick up on it when the gatekeeper has horns and a Mandrake the Magician mustache and is Frank Nelson again. That there’s alarms that go off when the gatekeeper says “Heavens no”, and later when Walt talks about his family Bible, also don’t register. Frank Nelson Devil figures that Walt’s supposed to be going to heaven, which is probably the best thing you can hear from a Frank Nelson. Then Gertie wakes him up.

Off now to Corky’s Diner where the menu is all food with devil names in it, and Walt wants to go home. He’s got an awful headache, and traffic cop Frank Nelson Again pulls them over for speeding. But Officer Again is happy to escort them home at speed, saying he loves running the siren and going fast without getting a ticket, which, have to admit, does sound like the good part of being a traffic cop.

Back home, Walt’s got a headache, so Gertie heads off to the pharmacy alone this time and somehow buying baby aspirin is hard. Well, that’s life for you.

Next Week!

How’d that Woodsman Olympics turn out? How about Rusty Trail’s competitive photograph-taking? Jules Rivera’s Mark Trail gets some time unless I get the wrong train ticket and should have reason to take a train somewhere.