SALISBURY — Thelma Leviner brought two old scrapbooks to the Post newsroom recently.

Stuck away for decades, the scrapbooks contain hundreds of little “Love is …” cartoons.

“Love is … phoning him from anywhere” shows a cartoon girl in a bubble bath, talking on the phone.

“Love is … spoiling her” shows the cartoon boy presenting the girl with a present.

“Love is … being his ‘mate.'” Here the two of them are riding in a boat named, appropriately, “Dream Boat.”

Thelma says she received the cartoons decades ago in the mail, one by one, from a man she met at a furniture factory. She used to work for a furniture company herself.

Their meeting was complete happenstance, she said, but they hit it off.

They lived in different parts of the state, Thelma said, so each day he mailed her the “Love is …” cartoon from his local paper. As wide as a newspaper column and about 4 inches tall, the drawings feature a cartoon couple sharing the ups and downs of love — mostly ups.

Love is … when your absence makes his heart grow fonder. 

Love is … a little candlelight. 

Love is … a song that reminds you of him. 

Thelma, divorced at the time, looked forward to the daily letters. She saved the cartoons and put them in scrapbooks.

Eventually the relationship — and the letters — ended. Some things are not meant to be.

Now in her early 80s, Thelma thought she should start cleaning out some parts of her house to save her family the trouble later. And she came across the two scrapbooks.

“I didn’t know if I’d just need to dump them or what,” she said almost apologetically as she pried the pages apart to show the cartoons.

Love is … singing her song. 

Love is … massaging her shop-weary feet. 

Love is … wondering how and why she picked you. 

The “Love is …” cartoons have a story of their own. They started with an Australian-born artist who came to the United States and fell in love. She created the cartoons as love notes to the man who would become her husband, Roberto Casali. Eventually the cartoons were syndicated around the world with her distinctive signature at the bottom, “kim,” with a bubble dotting the i.

Love is … finding you’ve married your best friend. 

Love is … watching her while she sleeps. 

Love is … having someone’s  arms around you. 

The first “Love is…” cartoon was published in the Los Angeles Times on Jan. 5, 1970. Long after the Casalis’ deaths, the cartoons continue in syndication even today, drawn by cartoonist Bill Asprey.

The cartoons stopped long ago for Thelma, until she opened the old scrapbooks and the memories came flowing back.

Love is … your dream come true. 

Love is … opening your heart. 

Love is … sometimes elusive. 

 

Elizabeth Cook is editor of the Salisbury Post.