Pickles by Brian Crane for March 20, 2024

Did Nelson dive under or just leave?

♫♪ My bucket has a hole in it …♫♪

I don’t blame you Nelson!

Most people sit at the other end of the tub.

The old chip heater

Oh, I don’t think so, Grampa! Even old as you are,heating bathwater on a wood stove is well before your time!

And let me guess, Earl walked to school up hill both ways….

Just as well that Nelson doesn’t enjoy soap operas.

I would have thought he was born before they learned to heat water.

Just how old is Earl, or is he simply spinning another yarn?

Three cheers for indoor plumbing!

Yes, Okay Earl, and I think you nose is starting to grow!

Earl’s tale of redundancy…

We also threw a lot of bull…

And he walked through snow uphill to school while he was chopping. And he liked it! Now git off my grass!

Never ending cycle…

Before this Grandpa “Tall Tale” is done, Earl was in competition with the legendary Paul Bunyan … and winning!

What a vicious circle.

\\//_

I didn’t live in a house with indoor plumbing until I was 17.

Poor Nelson being bored to death by Earl. Drown or listen to Grandpa’s stories?

Is he 150 years old?

I can’t imagine Earl bathing with Calgon.

Nelson, come up for air and change the subject.

ENOUGH with the chopping story..!!!!!!

Poor poor Nelson! He’ll never be the same after hanging with his grandparents! LOL

Well………….Earl speaks the truth.

How old is he anyway? I am 77 and never had to do any of that. We had hot water and all the comforts we have now. Maybe he’s thinking of his great grandfather, lol!

The circle of life…

If Earl was a sailor, it would’ve been a sea story!

Benjamin Franklin said “Cut your own firewood, and it will warm you twice.”

How old is this guy???

When I was a kid we’d go to Vermont to see my great aunt. She had indoor plumbing, but being a boy I had to have fun using the old outhouse. haha

Earl should know that not a lot of people (let alone a kid like Nelson) want to hear about how it was “in the good ole’ days”. Very boring unless kids really want to listen – I doubt.

I spent yesterday chopping a truck load of firewood wood, with a log splitter…HAH! no sweat.

Funny, my grandpa and his family took a bath every Saturday night before they were going to go to Church on Sunday. Every other day that took a sponge bath from a gallon sized basin.

We had a kerosene stove to heat our bath water on. We were in high cotton. Of course, the #3 wash tub was still our bath tub. It was quiet an event.

How long can Nelson hold his breath under water?

The original cause of deforestation…..

Drown Your sorrows.

That’s the problem when you have a comic that’s been around for 26 years. Earl’s describing a childhood that was actually pretty common in the US during the 1920s and 1930s. If he was born in, say, 1920 (just for argument’s sake) he was a reasonable 78 when this all started. Because everyone is engaged in that Comic Strip Aging he would be approximately 104 years old now,

Children now days haven’t a clue no matter how many times you tell them. The only way they learn is to make them do that the “old” way!

You saved the ash and slowly ran water through it. You added it to the saved fats and oils and rendered it into homemade soap.

hope he can hold his breath, cuz this is gonna take awhile………

Aah, yes wood burning. The old adage is that wood warms you three times – when you cut it, when you split it, and when you burn it, is pure baloney. This old guy added: Stacking it in the far back yard to keep the hatching insects far away; Hauling a winters-worth load to the cold garage; Hauling in the designated fireplace amount for the day; Hauling the remaining garage amount to the back yard for the warm weather. But, then, we added gas.

I’m over 80 and have lived in some primitive circumstances. I praise and thank God for indoor plumbing and hot water heaters. The washing machine and dryer are a blessing.

Don’t forget the part about having to haul the water from the creek a quarter mile, In a couple metal pails,. Outrunning the ornery bull, both ways.

Come on Earl, you got one hot bath a week, usually on Saturday night, that was how I grew up. And yeah you heated the water on a wood stove.

A vicious cycle, indeed.

I had heard on the radio where people who grew up in the mountains and rural areas and before the Tennessee Valley Authority and Rural Electrification and other programs that these people lived in areas where there was no electricity had to boil their own water and had outhouses and lived like pioneers and were ok with it. I believe you Earl!!!

reminds me of five year old Sean Lennon’s story, I think it was on a Yoko record just after John died. ………. A little boy asked his father ….. “can you tell me that old, old, old, old story?” ……the father began, “A little boy asked his father…. Can you tell me that old, old, old,old, story?” …….so the father began…… Sean, in his little boy voice YOU SEE, IT CAN END ANYWHERE!