When I was a kid I was out there collecting snakes, with today's kids it's the iPad. Playing on Mom's smartphone the next gen is gonna be more techno-literate than I was. Having this discussion here recently should the Gov't teach kids about sex or Mom and Dad? Well today there's a third option - Siri.
When I was a kid, cellphones were something Dick Tracy had on his wristwatch. Had I a cellphone or I-pad back then, I would have missed out on making a bow and arrow from
ReplyDeletewillow, catching poison ivy and falling several dozen feet from a tree fort high in a cottonwood,
falling through lake ice and almost drowning, reading the entire
elementary school library and carving BB on nearly every tree
in the local woods. Dunno, maybe
the How R U, Me OK bunch is missing
out on something? BTW, back then,
you could trade a small garter snake for a Milwaukee beer cap collection and a couple of Baby
Ruth candybars... :)
When me and my buddy went to the local swamp and brought back some garter snakes we thought nothing of being bit, all in a day's work. I remember bringing home a rather large cranky specimen in a bag, got home and took it out on the sidewalk and the thing bit me on my hand and wouldn't let go and I had to pry his jaws off. Didn't hurt him though but my mother was not amused. I remember having a spill on my bike, hit some type of rut in the concrete in the park and went flying and still have the scars near my right knee to prove it. Playing catch with my Dad once and his pitch accidentally hit me in the nose and broke it and he took me to the local hospital. Geez it would've been so much safer to have an iPad back then but then again I wouldn't have that much in my bag of anecdotes.
ReplyDeleteLittle background on the last two pics. My LG840G's camera has a digital zoom but you still have to get fairly close. Got fairly close to the snapper but not too close but with the garter snake got really close. First off it was about two feet in length, not the largest specimen and secondly I was wearing thick denim jeans so go ahead and bite me sucker! Actually in my experience as a snake-avid kid the smaller garters are less aggressive and you can even handle them if need be. Basically he was wandering out onto the bike path, opportunity for a picture but then kinda coaxed him with a twig to get the hell out of harm's way after all those kamikaze bicyclists even pose a threat to humans. If I encounter any wild coyotes I'll get back to you, probably better just to google the subject.
ReplyDeleteNoticed the other day on of the TV channels ran a show on some swamp
ReplyDeletepeople stalking and killing alligators, flipped the channel and there was some folks going around saving alligators. (?)
BTW, how'd you know that garter was a "he"?
Your cell phone takes great pictures! I can't imagine the stories today's kids will be telling their kids about, maybe their high score on Candy Crush or something. My kids today with their cousins used my niece's iPhone to film a movie they wrote, so at least they are using some creativity there but still the technology with it.
ReplyDeleteI used "he" in a generic sense, I have no idea. Oh yeah in Catholic grade school me and my buddy Ralph won first prize at the Science Fair. We collected a couple of medium-sized garter snakes, put 'em in a terrarium with some water and a couple of rocks which one used to later shed its skin (that was a bonus) and we fed them worms as their diet. It was our entry in the school Science Fair and we wrote up a nice scientific explanatory display folder and included the shed skin on one page. Though only a grade school accomplishment I'm proud of it to this day.
ReplyDeleteThere's a solution though Beth, use the current technology like the iPhone to go out and hike and photograph Nature and her critters (in a safe way of course). Then later on the kids can use the phone's mobile browser to look up the specimen they saw that day whether it be plant or animal. iPads too can be educational the trick is weaning them away from the video games.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like an excellent Science Fair project. In the time
ReplyDeletesince then there has been a movement to use live animals. For example, some states outright ban
it and the National Assoc states,
“No projects involving live non-human vertebrate animal experimentation will be eligible.”
...which, if I read it correctly,
permits natural displays. The
experimentation clause, by banning
non-human, appears by default to
permit human experimentation. Dunno, Frankenstein may have an
entry....
I judged many Science Fair projects and still remember the little girl who stood by the road
while her father drove by at 50
mph, laying on the horn. She recorded the sound, transliterated
it to piano, used a tuner to elucidate wavelength, plugged in
the numbers and did
the calculations that proved the Doppler Effect. Probably because little girls dislike snakes....
I was big on salamanders too but they didn't hold well in captivity. The girl was how old? a girl like that can find the cure for Cancer.
ReplyDeleteBack in the day kids were wont to use the local swimming hole during hot summer days. If you're ever traveling in NJ and want to take a local dip stay away from this place though.
ReplyDeleteLottsa strange stuff in the woods.
ReplyDeleteYears back, we used to canoe the
N fork & main fork of the Eau Claire River. Area full of deer,
bear, eagles and vaunted muskellunge. There was a five mile
stretch called 'troubled waters',
a granite boulder field the river
ran through-all rapids and pools.
We left a car where we would end
the trip and take out the canoe at a rusty old bridge. Last year a
local told me the dang bridge was
haunted . BTW,
did you know that big water snakes
will try to get into your canoe and
you have to flip them out with a paddle? (unless one is herpetologist Z-Man)
It is my understanding that when paddling a canoe the proper way is to assume a kneeling position. According to my very old Red Cross book seats that are put in a canoe make it more unstable. The haunted story, I think in most cases folks just want it to be true.
ReplyDeleteHave you spotted the Black Rat Snake ?
ReplyDeleteSaid to grow up to 8 ft. long..
Indians used to kneel in their canoes. The more modern versions have the seats slung about 4-6" lower than the side, so the center of gravity is about the same as kneeling (kneeling is good for bigger than class III rapids, as it
ReplyDeleteis the posture for praying.) On the
other hand, I've seen guys standing
in the front position, bow hunting
for carp or poling in slow water.
Their important quality is weight, if one is going to be portaging. One time in upper WI,
a HS buddy and I ran into a bend on the Clam R. which was full of
snags and sunken trees. We noticed it was only about 200 yards to carry, short-cutting the bend. However, the woods were full of man-eating mosquitos and we had to run full speed with the canoe
over our heads, much like a very
fast turtle. We hit a tree about
halfway and the mosquitos had a
real feast....
That sounds like a really awesome science fair project, and you should be proud of it!
ReplyDeleteMy son uses the computer, I kid you not, to teach himself calculus, and how to program using C# language, and then creating programs. He also has designed a web page about the weather. My daughter on the other hand, Facebook and games, sadly.
Z-man, you are putting hyperlinks in your comments, I could never figure out how to do that! Sweet!
And so I'm just DYING to hear how you feel about this new Christian Domestic Discipline thing in which people claim that it's religiously mandated that a husband spank his wife.
ReplyDeleteThis is yet the newest example of a religious group taking something (50 Shades) and legitimizing it by making it into a religious mandate.
Because now you have an excuse to do it AND an excuse to feel morally superior about it.
You will notice that this 'movement' never surfaced until AFTER 50 Shades and actually some of the websites promoting it REFERENCE it!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The moral of the story is: if you really want to do something, no matter what it is (slavery, polygamy, misogyny, gay-bashing), find a way to claim it's part of your religion.
Now I have never had issues with letting one's freak flag fly high and proud.... but I have never tried to claim that all my personal recreations are somehow religiously mandated. Cause they're not.
That's what the difference is.
Disclosure: I have never read 50 Shades and have no plan to.
ReplyDeleteBB: you writing about the Doppler effect made me wonder if you had ever seen anything like this:
ReplyDeletehttp://youtu.be/yTsoP3WWgU4
There's also one in Lancaster California made by Honda but unsurprisingly it isn't quite as good. They should have used Beethoven's 9th.
Christian Domestic Discipline...
ReplyDeleteDaily Beast calls it "Spanking for
Jesus".
...domestic abuse, by any other name....
(sorry Z-man, you knew my position
on fundies...)
What the hell kind of last meal was that that Gandolfini had?
ReplyDelete"Gandolfini guzzled four shots of rum, two pina coladas, and two beers at dinner with his son — while he chowed down on two orders of fried king prawns and a “large portion” of foie gras, a hotel source in Rome said."
ReplyDeleteReminds us of Henry I .
With a heavy emphasis on the Fried. Maybe he was doing a real-life PSA for Mayor Bloomberg.
ReplyDeleteOh, I don't know that I'd label it 'domestic abuse'..... I'm more of the opinion that they're just finding religious justification for their sexual fetishisms.
ReplyDeleteI don't have issues with people's sexual fetishisms. What I do take issue with is the religious justification part.
If you wanna be a freak, BE ONE. You don't have to make moral justifications for it... you don't have to bring Jesus into it... just be who you are.
I think they're secretly turned on by it is my opinion. It's like with porn some Christian activist groups can tell you exactly what was in the Aug. 93 issue of Hustler magazine and know more about the subject than you do.
ReplyDeleteExactly. But they can't admit it, so they manufacture religious sanction for it.
ReplyDeleteEffing hypocrites.
'Effing hypocrites, sums it nicely.
ReplyDeleteBTW, I googled the phrase and found
5,420,000 articles
on the term. Curious about the theological historical relation with these modern sort-of Christians, I googled 'what would Jesus say'...158,000,000 hits.
Sacre bleu!
The only other problem I have is it makes other Christians look bad. We're not all hypocrites you know and I like to also look at the positive inspiring side of Christianity like the work they're doing in Africa.
ReplyDeleteAre they spanking the natives?
ReplyDelete(jk)
No, there are plenty of really good things that really good people who happen to be Christian are doing.
And you're right: it does make other Christians look bad. Just like 'prosperity theology' makes other Christians look bad, and Paula Deen makes southerners look bad, and McCrory's North Carolina is staging a reactionary, racist, piss-on-the-workers attack that hopefully the nation will continue to monitor while it also makes Southerners look bad.
At least DOMA is over.
Yeah I try not to follow the SCOTUS these days. Paula Deen...yeah I wonder if Lydia Bastianich has ever said anything back in the day.
ReplyDelete