Another cotton picking post

Comics, huh?  It appears that the Institute is unanimous in it's positive opinion of comics.  Well done, Uncle Ken, in starting the ball rolling with your memory of war comics.  I'm trying to nail down the time frame, I'm guessing that you're talking about the mid-50s, the peak years of war comics.  The three year difference in our ages is a big gap when you're a kid.  Unless your were family, I think the third graders were ignored, if not shunned, by the fifth and sixth graders.  The war comics I remember most strongly came a few years later, Sgt. Rock of Easy Company.  Where else is kid going to learn about SNAFU and FUBAR?

The mid-50s were a turning point in the world of comics (comic books, not newspaper comic strips) with the outcry against the sex, violence, and gore in some of the comics.  EC Comics was a big target of the goody two-shoes and they lost a lot of their titles, but they did keep MAD, which was nice.

The newspaper comics were a big treat for me with the Sunday Tribune, all those big color pages with Dick Tracy leading the way.  Smilin' Jack, Smoky Stover (Notary Sojac!), too many for me to remember right now and the Sun-Times had their own goodies.  It was a golden era and we didn't know it, and that's a different rabbit hole.

-----

Good oblique reference to the song "I never picked cotton" with the quoted lyric but the version by Johnny Cash has the line "long legged girls" which none of the other versions had.  But the Man in Black left the guy lying and not dying in Memphis, so go figure.  An even better line, I think, is the previous one, "I stole ten bucks and a pickup truck;" reminds me of a hillbilly haiku, if there is such a thing.  I lost track of all the versions I listened to on YouTube and I think the live version by Johnny Cash in New York is the best and I never expected Roy Rogers, of all people, to sing a song like that, maybe there was a hidden bad boy that caught the eye of Dale Evans that we never knew about.  But who is your favorite songwriter, Uncle Ken?  That song was written by two guys.  And what's the deal with the real tiny type in that lyric?

-----

I read that article by the "French guy" you both mentioned and it was okay, but another article he wrote is better, talking about how college isn't all it's cracked up to be.  And you know that French guy was born in Oregon, right?

-----

Is there any post-winter report from the environs of Beaglesonia?  I like to keep up with what's going on "up there," and since joining the Institute I've made Cheboygan my fantasy home away from home.  It started with a few glances at the Cheboygan Tribune, and then signing up with their daily alerts and limited digital access, and now, dammit, I'm on the hook for the digital subscription but I can afford the 6 month deal for one dollar, even in these troubled economic times.

So, Mr. Beagles, did they ever catch the guy who left the burning bed near Alpena Road?  I'm a little behind in my reading but I like what I see in your local news, a slice of a reality that us city folks sometimes fail to appreciate.  And the fact that you are so close to a designated Wilderness Area boggles my mind.  Have you ever been to Round Island?