10. You’re Never Too Old for Nuts and Berries (1976?)

This collection overlaps with the next book and reprints 124 daily strips from:
Aug. 4 1975 to Dec 20 1975
Jan. 26 1976 to Feb. 14 1976
14 strips from these blocks are not included (see comment for list).

This book again shuffles content between what should have gone here, if these were done completely and chronologically, and what ended up in the next book. It looks like there was a little logic to it. The skipped storyline – the first chunk of the epic with Duke as the new ambassador to China – ran for a full four weeks, but the editors only had seventeen pages left at the end of this book, so they brought forward the three week series where Joanie meets and falls in love with Andy Lipincott, and Ginny decides to run for congress, cutting one of those 18 strips for space reasons.

The rest of the book is very Uncle Duke-heavy, as he continues his domination of the strip. He’s forced to temporarily leave Samoa after Rolling Stone takes his name off the masthead, and is reassigned to the Cher-and-Gregg-Almann Bureau, but quits the magazine after oil is discovered in Samoa. After hefty negotiations and bribes, he sells the mineral rights to Jim Alexander and Universal Petroleum for a reported $500 million.

The other major storyline sees Zonker’s father turning up at the commune after his wife leaves him. This leads to another three-week flashback to the days of Zonker’s colonial ancestors Nate and Amy, reflecting the contemporary fight for the ERA, and to Zonker forcing a reconciliation between his parents after Mark takes his dad out partying.

Also in this book, Scot Sloan resigns as the university’s chaplain. Nobody but Mike seems to care, and even he botches the speech at the testimonial dinner.