Frazz by Jef Mallett for February 11, 2021

I came back the next day and the river was still there!!

One of the better life guides: A place for everything and everything in its place.

My parents grew up in northern Michigan in the 1930s in a town called Charlevoix. The middle six or eight blocks of town are quite flat, but both ends go up rather sharply probably 50 or 60 feet in two blocks. The road (Bridge St) was and still is the main highway up the eastern side of Lake Michigan. But in winter, the fire department would spray water on the entire 10 or 12 blocks every Thursday. On the weekends, people would gather at the top of the hill on the southern end of town, and ride sleds as far as they could. One person sleds could get about half way, but there were some large sleds that could hold eight people that could go all the way through town and up to the top of the hill on the north side.

Although there were alternate routes out the south end, anybody going north had to go by rail. I don’t know when they stopped doing this. I lived there in the mid 50’s, and it had stopped by then,

When Wayne Gretzky was a boy, his father would hose down and ice over the backyard so that Wayne could practice his skating.

People around here build skating rinks in their yards. Unfortunately there’s not as many skating days as there used to be.

Ooooo! That has concussion and lawsuit written all over it… What! you sprayed the court on purpose? (I know… it’s a comic strip)

That’s how I got stitches in my chin when my brother tripped me while sliding on the ice at recess, still have the scar. These days I expect the administrators would be having strokes at the thought of a purposeful ice for kids to play on. Most places won’t even allow a hockey team.

Kids take their fun where they find it. Adults only remember doing it when they were kids. They forget in the years between.

And then the parents of all the precious snowflakes will sue you, and the school system, because their precious snowflakes got a boo-boo.

We used to skate on anything frozen. Once we skated on a tennis court someone had hosed down

Good for you, Frazz. Best answer to a problem is to present the solution.

Metaphysical vs Physical reality

Why did he have to say where the basketball court is? Do they have them all over?

You’re a good man, Frazz.

In elementary school in the 50’s in MI they flooded the tennis courts (4, one for hockey, one for PomPom Pullaway, one for Send Rover right over) we went crazy at recess.