Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for December 26, 2015

I hope the tree wasn’t hurt.

That’s the well done slide into New Year!!

That’s how I feel cross-country skiing, no brakes, no straight trails, and lots of hills. I fall down a lot. Very relaxing outdoor activity.

Is this Calvin’s version of Charlie Brown’s kite eating tree?

Suddenly, we have jumped back two weeks, to a rerun from December 11, 1995. Now it is unclear when GoComics will publish the final two strips of Calvin and Hobbes. I’m guessing it will be next Saturday and Sunday, coinciding with the new year.

For my wife’s car too.

Hit a tree. Works every time.

Yes, hit the breaks, a black hindrance appeared! Clear it away!!+

When I was learning to ride a (third-hand) bike, my brakes were also trees. Or gravel roads.

When I was a kid, there was a line of trees a few feet past the bottom of my regular sledding hill, and a six-foot drop on the other side of them. Trees WERE my brakes, and I always hoped I’d run into them, since it leveled off enough that any impact with them was usually pretty gentle. Usually.

if I remember correctly that type of sled with metal runners and a crossbar in front were steerable. my favorite path was sledding down a path through trees, across a road and down another hill.

Straw bales frozen to the ground work well too.

That’s the breaks.

I used a van once as the brakes (what it was doing parked on a hill, I never found out). Amazing shades of black and blue from knee to hip.

“I brake forebodes…”

I think we all wish that WE had brakes. I’ve hit a few too many “trees”.

Didn’t work out so well for Sonny Bono…

Calvin must have given my teenage daughter driving lessons

Having a tiger airbag helps

Years ago they would not import any more care onto Maui. A friend told me when the brakes failed on the old Pontiac, they would steer into the cane fields.

Ill bet he broke something…

Your taking a break on the snow that’s for sure.

Hobbes has cute paws.

Never noticed before.

xxx

Decades ago, the Readers Digest published a short article purporting to define terms commonly used in skiing (such as alp: a cry for help; common reply: “What’s Zermatter?”). There were two terms that began with t that ended the article. One, which I can’t recall (and can’t find on line) was defined as one of two ways to stop very quickly while on skis. The last entry was “tree: the other method.”

One of the reasons I gave up downhill skiing several years ago. There are more, but this is one…

Calvin thought he said, “There’s a break! Hit the tree!”

What did you break?