The Inimitable Mrs. Melmac

Every once in a very long while one is priviledged to meet a person of unswerving ideals and iron-core strength, a person who lives life according to her beliefs, and makes no compromises for the sake of us lesser beings. Just such a person is Mrs. Velma Melmac, the defacto Queen and Tidiness Czar of the Yosemite Valley.
I first met Mrs. Melmac in the cartoons of Phil Frank, who was drawing Mrs. Melmac's home cartoon, Farley, exclusively for the San Francisco Chronicle until his untimely death a couple of years ago. Although I have not heard anything new about Mrs. Melmac since then, her exploits, as documented in Frank's Fur and Loafing in Yosemite, continue to inspire, entertain, and educate me every time my son requests this book for his bedtime reading (His other bedtime favorite is Jeff Smith's Bone, as long as I skip the parts with the rat creatures and Kingdok. But I digress...)
Mrs. Melmac lives in Manteca, California. Every summer, she fires up her Wapama motor home, loads up her Tojo Vac 'n' Blo, and with Max, her hairless chiuaua, as copilot, she drives to Yosemite to take up residence, where she will stay until some time in Autumn, when the first acorn lands in her vodka tonic (this last event may in fact be staged by park personnel desperate to get her to leave).
Mrs. Melmac runs a very tidy camp. Her motto--tatooed on her arm--is, "Death to Dirt," and she has often been known to utter the words, "Mother Nature is a slob." (I have to admit that she has a good point: have you ever been in a forest after a windstorm? Sheez! But I digress. Again.) Once the Astroturf and rocket-propelled canopy have been deployed, Mrs. Melmac does not just sit on her duff and pop a cold one like any other camper would do at this point. No, she does not rest until her campsite is devoid of all pine needles, dirt, and bugs, the bugs most likely having been dispatched by highly-explosive bug bombs. Indeed, one of the local bears even mentions her having deployed a neutron bug bomb some time ago.
Mrs. Melmac has a heart of gold. After the flood of January, 1997, Mrs. Melmac, knowing that she was desparately needed, made a special winter trip to Yosemite to help with the cleanup. With her Tojo Vac 'n' Blo plus 1500-foot extension cord, she was just the person for the job, although she did encounter some difficulty when her Vac 'n' Blo locked onto a boulder and held her pinned in place. Luckily, Max ran for help, and ranger Stern Grove, who had studied Barkphonics and so was able to understand Max, rescued her just before she had finished her last Pall Mall.
Mrs. Melmac is also a former champion of the State Parks Olympics (held in Asphalt State Park), often having won her competitions through sheer forfeiture-inspiring intimidation.
I am looking forward to enjoying more of Mrs. Melmac's exploits, and lucky for me, I have not yet read Eat, Drink, and be Hairy. I suppose that after reading that book, I will have to content myself with re-reading her adventures with my son, as I have been doing with Fur and Loafing.
I still miss Phil Frank's daily (except for Saturdays) cartoon in the Chronicle. While he was alive, I had his cartoon set in my web browser as my home page. Mr. Frank was a shining star, having given so many of us a daily (except for Saturdays) laugh for many years.