It wasn’t just a trip to Eugene that my wife and I made Saturday. It was a trip back in time.

That morning, we drove over to Eugene to visit our daughter Lucy. She’s a senior at the University of Oregon, where the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art is hosting — and only for a short while longer — the exhibition “It’s (Still) A Magical World, Hobbes, Ol’ Buddy; Selections of Original Art and Strips of Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes, 1985-1995.”

Lucy made us aware of the retrospective show about the short-lived comic strip a few weeks ago, but I’ve been aware of the comic strip turned cultural phenomenon for jeez, 40 years. I was 17 when Bill Watterson’s comic strip debuted in 1985, and like most, if not all who were lucky to stumble upon it, became a fast fan. Anyone who has even read a few of them knows that Watterson’s comic about Calvin, a prescient, mischievous and charismatic 6-year-old schemer and philosopher, and his best friend, Hobbes, a stuffed tiger that comes to life only when alone with Calvin (including stalking and tackling the poor kid every time he came home from school). Hobbes dwelled in a fun space, somewhere between being Calvin’s friend and sometimes being his frenemy.

As depicted by Watterson, “Calvin and Hobbes” was something rare and magical. It’s probably doing Watterson a disservice to even try and explain the magic of his comic strip, its preciseness and concision. Calvin could share some of the wisest words you’d read that day, the next, Watterson would convey an entire story wordlessly, such as the Sunday cartoon in which Calvin excitedly bundles up, panel by panel, to play in the freshly fallen snow, only to step outside and immediately head back indoors, shed said layers, and head into the bathroom.

Spanning generations

It was rad being a newspaper reader in the 1980s, such a rich time for newspaper comic strip readers, with Gary Larson’s “The Far Side” and “Bloom County” sharing space with “Calvin and Hobbes.”

Dear fellow Generation Xers: Please shut up

Truth be told, there have been times in my life when the comics page and its adjacent Jumble, perhaps still the best word game ever, were the main draws for me as a newspaper reader. Would that I had devoured all the literary classics, but then “Calvin and Hobbes” did go on to become an American classic. And as the nuns at my Catholic elementary school finally concluded after their failed battles against the obsession certain classmates and I shared for comic books, at least I was reading.

Though it is not forever recycled like certain nostalgia-inducing strips, the strips are available in book form, which for our family meant Lucy and her two sisters also grew up with “Calvin and Hobbes” in book form, including “Yukon Ho!” “The Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes: A Calvin and Hobbes Treasury” and “The Days are Just Packed.”

Arranged in chronological order, the exhibit features placards describing where Watterson was at as far as his process, development and victories over the limitations of the format and his steadfast rejection of commodifying Calvin and Hobbes via tchotchke such as toys and collectibles.

But what remains most impressive is simply Calvin’s daily adventures, imaginings, his playfulness and epiphanies and takedowns of the rigors and demands of modern life. Time and again, Watterson proved himself the rare artist with something to say and the ability to get each installment perfectly right.

Included in the show is a personal favorite of mine among Watterson’s oeuvre: a large and brilliant single-panel Sunday strip, one I vaguely remember making me choke up when I read way back in late August 1988. In it, the two pals zip down what looks like a mountainside. Calvin laments to Hobbes the coming end of summer, and how quickly it went by: “There’s never enough time to do all the nothing you want.”

Even though I was 20 at the time, it made me miss being a kid in a visceral way. Calvin cherished his youth, and because of the magic of comics, was able to hold on to it in a way no one quite can in real life, try as we might. I noticed Lucy, 22, get a little sniffly herself as we made our way through the 10-year journey of “Calvin and Hobbes.”

If you’re a fan, too, you might want to make a day trip to the museum on the U of O campus by or before Sunday, the last day the exhibition is up, because there are still lessons to be gleaned from the concisely brilliant strip about Calvin and his ol’ pal Hobbes.

Admission is free for students and $5 for adults. Catherine and I couldn’t believe it was our first time taking in the museum and its impressive collections, and agreed we’d happily return. We’d better hurry, too, at least if we want to see Lucy when we’re there. She’s graduating soon and won’t necessarily be a couple of hours away forever.

As Watterson might say, the days are just flying by.