Pickles by Brian Crane for July 11, 2020

That is so sweet Nelson. If you live near a creek, the two of you could explore it. Amazing how many creatures live in creeks and ponds.

Yeah. I bet Earl would like to be that age again… Though the mere thought of going through school again gives me virtual hives.

oh, the likes of living childhood again

Too bad that NONE of this is allowed anymore, Nelson… – “Cow-boys and indians” : Cultural appropriation, colonialism and racism. – “Raft”: Breach of child transportation safety rules. – “Pirates”: Incitement to criminal activities. – “Hunt for lizards and frogs” : Animal cruelty, speciesism and endangering of protected species…

Hunted for frogs yesterday, found a nice green one! Never too old, Earl!

Used to go to the woods which had a creek. Would catch tadpoles, crayfish, newts and salamanders. At night we’d catch lightning bugs.

That’s what time machines are for.

I’m with you, Grandpa, but we would hop a freight and ride out about 10 miles to a pond. We’d spend the day playing on a raft (a recycled barn door), then we’d hop another freight back.

We used to go out to the quarry and climb around, jump off the edges and roll down the sides. Now the quarry is off limits but kids still go there with their all-terrain vehicles and tear around like crazy. (Every year or two someone has a bad accident and ends up para- or quadriplegic.)

A gamer the other day was saying how much he loved just one game, and reckons he has spent 15,000 hours playing it over the years. Equivalent of 7.5 years of a full-time job.

Now if a kid tried that, the cops would arrest them.

With none of the gadgets back then that we have now one had to create things to amuse one’s self ! … Thus a real exploration of nature not seen on a 2 by 3 inch screen ;-)

Sad , today again no puppy .

Earl loves to reminisce about his childhood….those WERE the good ole days….

The big advantage we had as kids was no electronics. Our imagination helped us have great fun and invent things. Invent things? Inventing through imagination built countries. Just ask Walt Disney.

I got to grow up in the country: swam in the Susquehanna River, local farmer’s pond (w/permission) or ice skating on it in the winter, fishing, frogging, played “snipe hunt” in the farmer’s corn fields, made forts out of pine needles, leaves or an old abandoned truck, and the list goes on. Great memories!

Sorry kid, at least two generational squirts away.

Not all neighbor’s have creaks. Where I live there is a culvert owned by the city.As a kid even when we went to the grandparents, there was no creak or pond.

I am saddened at how that deep forest we played in, as kids, shrunk to a modest copse of trees as adults. Likewise, the rivers we forged and mountains we climbed became small brooks and modest hills.

Good observation. Reminds me of a novel which had a scene at a “Psychics’ Convention”. The protagonists is stuck in the elevator with a pair of reincarnationists. By the time he got out, he was convinced they had been a lot more interesting in their past lives.

i’d be that age again without the school part.

Aaaaand this comic is now canceled due to Earl’s appalling behavior as a kid.

Oh Concretionist I am chuckling over going to school. You wouldn’t have liked me as I loved it when I got to Jr. High and got to take all my secretarial courses, along with my business law. However I hated it when we moved from Queens to L. I. and I had to start a new school with a very snotty teacher that would make fun of me saying “Oh let’s ask the NYC girl”; plus a whole lot more. I would tell my mom I was sick and I got to stay home a lot. It finally all came out and she was “fired”…..I was so happy. Due to my 5th grade teacher that called my mom and we had to go in to see him and it all came out and she was fired.

Forgot to say it took many years before I had any close friends there. Diane (girl that was a tomboy but also big and strong). I gave her a quarter and she wouldn’t let Michael or Duane off the bus till I got a head start going home, running all the way. Sometimes they somehow caught me and knocked me down. Gosh I hated living there.

When I was a kid in the 50s…only 5 TV channels, 2 radio stations that were good, nothing high tech or even low tech. But we had fun.

Nelson is UNBELIEVABLY ADORABLE!!!