Charlie Brown, 55

Charles Brown.

The round-headed kid died late on Friday night, missing his first weekend in two years. He was run over by a ice-cream truck while the signal was red outside the McDonalds he had worked at for the last 25 years.

The son of a barber, Charles tried working at Disney World for a few years before being fired because children were uncomfortable around him.

He lived a quiet life with his rock collection and coached the junior league whenever he found the time. He bequeathed his baseball mitt to Peppermint Patty and her partner Marcie.

The hip hop artist Snoopy, his childhood companion, spoke at his funeral: "I remember when I was a World War-I flying ace, meeting all the ladies, going to all those far-away places, Charles here would always wait up with a marshmallow sundae."

After Snoopy left to chase his hip-hop dreams, Charlie took solace in his therapist Lucy Van Pelt. They grew dependent, and Lucy eventually left her life on the road as a groupie for the Beatles to move in with him.

Contrary to popular assumption that the song 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' is about a painting made by John Lenon's son, it was actually Lucy and her satchel of prescription drugs that inspired it.

Charles dreamed of being a rockstar, an ambition Lucy never encouraged. His friends blamed her for stunting his potential growth in the music industry, and many of them had distanced themselves from the couple in the last years.

His family was alarmed when the autopsy reports showed that he suffered from syphilis, since they knew him to be a virgin. His little sister Sally, who teaches at Harvard, came to help Linus build a stone wall around the grave.

A unidentified red-haired girl was heard saying at the funeral held on the pitchers' mound, "I wonder if he ever got my valentine."

Lucy has been helping family members overcome their grief, and is charging 5 cents per session.

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Mitali Parekh