Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for September 22, 2011

What if she had a whole class full of Calvins?

It’s your own fault. You could’ve used a different name for floating.

A strong will to stay alive!

i never did float – deadman or otherwise. never understood why, either. if i try, the feet sink first and i eventually wind up vertical and dropping to the bottom of the pool. still managed to learn to swim, though.

Oldest daughter was a Calvin. Now she can scuba-dive.

“Rat’s tail”,… “Deadman’s float”… Calvin is learning quite a lot from his baby sitter

I was the fat kid and I couldn’t float. Around 12 I figured it out enough to float even if my feet dropped. Seemed to be calm yourself, get excited and your a rock.

I so hope that is some kind of water surface tension issue instead of nature’s commentary….

Separate thought-

We had Calvin.Then we had bart simspon.Now we have stewie girffion.Now I have a gun in my bedroom.

(it’s a joke before anyone goes insane with their agenda)

alivemans float

This should make Rosalyn think twice about having kids.Calvin = Birth control.

Dead mans float is face down.Live mans float is face up.

Calvin is feel excitable.. So why call Dead man float?

Can call Face up float ?

With a name like dead man’s float, I’d have thought that would be the sort of thing Calvin would go in for. With a name like Smuckers, it’s got to be good.

yyyguy: Too much muscle and bone, and too little fat. (And some fat kids like JohnM do have a heavy frame and muscles underneath.) Try keeping your lungs nearly full, with shallow breaths. When I was a scrawny kid, that provided barely enough added floatation to keep eyes and nose above water, although I did float mostly vertically, just slightly face-up. The hard part was not panicking when I could see the water rising onto my face out of the corners of my eyes. When you panic, you empty your lungs, and down you go. YMMV – there are some men that are just plain heavier than the water they displace

Even if you’re heavier than water, active swimming will add hydrodynamic lift to keep you near the surface. The only problem is, you can’t rest if you can’t float. And swimming all the time also makes it hard for the swimming instructor to tell if you’re listening.

“Well, the complete name is “Deadman’s Face Down in the Pool Float” but I’m sure that wouldn’t comfort Calvin at all.”

Really? I’d think Calvin would love the idea – as long as he could watch the rest of the class all doing it.

At Cub Scout camp we refer to it as the Jellyfish Float for just this reason.

That was our son. Spent the whole class yelling for help. GREAT childhood…………..

Looks like Suzy Derkin is one of the kids in the pool with Calvin. This won’t impress her, Cal, my boy.

The other name of it is “Save Your Energy and Live when you are Dead Tired in the Water” Float. So, deadman’s float for short.

This sent a shiver down my spine.

How to make a Dead Man Float -

Two scoops of Dead Man, add Root Beer.

@yyyguy,Ditto, more or less! I don’t think I dropped to the bottom, but my head wasn’t above water enough so that I could breathe.

How do you pronounce “helpp” differently from “help”?

You’ll thank her later Calvin when you become a teen and join the swim team!

I never really learned to swim either, but have a plan for not drowning until help arrives: Hold breath, underwater, vertical, and use arms to propel head above water for a quick breath, hold it, sink back down and repeat when another breath is needed. This uses very little energy and can be repeated for some time. If you panic and start flopping, you lose.

Got to love this kid’s imagination! hehe

poor calvin

dogsniff: Back in my day (late Pleistocene) it was called jellyfish float.

That scared me!

Calvin shouldn’t be forced to swim if he doesn’t want to.

LOL LOL xxx

just let him drown

With a kid like Calvin involved . . . right about now, poor Rosalyn is wondering if college is even worth it with everything she has to go through in order to save up for it!

Suzie is in the class too, I see…

Rosalyn your putting up with this to go to collage. Just think what Mom and Dad are putting up with Calvin for?

Dead men float face down. Dead women float face up.

If the scam was successful she would already be in college. Perhaps the first time wasn’t, so now she has to try it on Calvin and his group…..

Well at least the girl is earning her keep; not going to college on her parents dime & partying & wasting it. She’ll appreciate her diploma so much more. And maybe she can be Calvin’s high school teacher someday and wreak her revenge.

What I put up with to earn a living. I’m a teacher (not of swimming, thank-goodness) and I’ve had “Calvins” in my classroom.

I don’t see why so many people think it is so terrible that he learns to swim. Or do anything else. Is he supposed to remain an ignorant, uncontrolled brat all his life?

I looked up ‘dead man’s float’ on dictionary.com. It said it was also called ‘prone float’.

go back one panel and change what’s there.

How much does she pay? I don’t get it.

Is it just me or is Roslyn looking HOT in this strip?

When I was about 11, my stepdad taught me how to float in the public pool. I was able to go round the edges of the pool so I could touch the wall if I felt nervous. It was a good thing to learn. :D

Turn off your mind, relax and float down stream It is not dying It is not dying

Lay down all thought Surrender to the void It is shining It is shining

-The Beatles, Tomorrow Never Knows

“yyyguy Some people are floaters and some are sinkers. Our son was a sinker. We had him in moms and tots swim class at about 18 months. They did a fun thing where they dropped the tots of the diving board into the lifeguards arms and on to mom. The kid loved it except one time the lifeguard didn’t catch him right, straight down. Course the kid loved it and right back at it for another turn.”

++++

“It’s all fun and games until someone drowns and demonstrates the dead-man float.”

Maybe she sould save that one till calvin is 18.