CSotD: Random ponderings
Skip to comments
The first point to ponder today came from Rip Kirby, who is being targeted by a rich, beautiful woman who has asked for his help with an extortion threat, but we know she's setting him up, and now he has apparently tumbled to the scam, or, at least, he knows it's not all kosher.
What struck me this morning was that, given the means of delivery, fans of the strip have 24 hours to figure out what Kirby is talking about and where he'll be taking it. That's a different level of involvement than waiting for Columbo to come back from a commercial and perhaps an indicator of why continuity strips were so popular then.
The next thing that struck me was a Part Two in the Pajama Diaries exploration of dealing with teens.
Our last encounter was with a young teen bridling under curfew and today's is with one at the higher end of becoming independant.
And the message from this old man is "Don't sweat it," though I realize that this would not be an appropriate response to a kid who is panicking in front of you.
Still, it's all so unnecessary.
Guidance counselors and some parents push the notion that you need a plan, and there's a pinch of truth in that, but only a pinch.
You should have some idea of where to go after high school, but I'd put it less in the category of having a well-laid-out career ladder and more in the line of "you don't need a plan, but you can't stay here."
I didn't give a damn what my kids majored in. I just wanted them close enough that they could come home for a three-day weekend if they wanted to, but far enough away that they had to do their own laundry. The further details would work themselves out.
Stepdaughter graduated summa in International Relations and took the departmental award, but had begun volunteering at the campus chapel as an undergraduate and is today a happy, successful parish priest.
Eldest son wandered by the volunteer fire department the summer after his freshman year in college and, through a somewhat convoluted trail of first-responderism, wound up as a nurse.
Younger son was required to take on a service project senior year and so volunteered at a Head Start that, since it was in the K-12 building, easily fit into his schedule. He is now an elementary school teacher.
The gods laugh at plans, and offer happenstance instead.
As for those classmates who had it all worked out ahead of time, well, my grandfather served with a fellow who got all the way through law school and hung out his shingle before he discovered he didn't want to be a lawyer. The First World War gave him an excuse to hit what a later generation would call the reset button.
You should not require a global conflagration to offer you a graceful exit from a plan that was probably hatched to please your parents and teachers.
And so the solution to parents is to learn to nod, smile and say, "That's nice" because it will work itself out, and probably more smoothly if you don't help.
Speaking of which
Sally Forth/Medium Large/Judge Parker scribe Francesco Marciuliano just turned nine years older than the gob in this 1930 Thimble Theater, and he's a good deal more chatty about where he's been, where he's at, where he expects to be by next year when he hits the half-century mark.
And he did have some plans that have carried through, though, as he explains, not necessarily on a straight, well-lighted path.
He doesn't mention any women making a sap out of him, but I liked the above panel anyway, mostly because I didn't know how old Popeye was and, from this end of the timeline, the idea of being a cranky old veteran at 40 is pretty laughable.
I had barely left wet-behind-the-ears pupdom at 40, and still had a couple of lovers and several career shifts ahead of me.
My take-away being that 40 is a good age to stop blaming others for making a sap out of you, since it's a job you are fully capable of doing on your own, but also that I agree with Ces that 49 is a pretty good vantage point from which to take a look around.
But don't make plans. The gods have not yet lost their sense of humor. I've moved three times and had four career changes since I turned 49.
All that said, Ces's reflections are well-worth reading, whichever side of the half-century mark you are on.
More globally
For those who prefer to ponder larger matters, Cartoon Movement has been on a summer break, but is back, headlining the Olympics but with a sidebar that leads to this reflection on satire and post-coup Turkey.
I've been flailing a bit on the topic, because, to start with, Turkey is and has been a crossover nation between the Middle East and the West, and it takes a lot more background than I have to figure it all out.
Or maybe it's an impossible task, since it's not entirely clear that the Turks themselves are clear on this, having one foot planted on each shore of the Bosphorus.
From a Western perspective, the coup was frightening because having Turkey remain a secular Muslim nation seems, on the whole, to be in our best interests, and anytime a government in that part of the world gets overthrown, the danger flags fly.
On the other hand, as the linked article and quoted cartoonists suggest, Erdogan isn't exactly the model for free expression in a democratically open society.
On the whole,then, I'm glad to get their input, but one shouldn't expect to walk away with a firm grasp on much of anything.
In fact, for outsiders, I suspect the more certain you are of anything, the greater the likelihood you've got it all wrong.
We've been through this before.
(Not sure they need this kind of help again,
or that they needed it then)
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
Comments
Comments are closed.