Over the Hedge by T Lewis and Michael Fry for August 02, 2023

Must’ve been in Florida.

Tree likes that paper isn’t being used as much and doesn’t want anyone getting any ideas of going back.

Cries of “Hold my beer” rang out over the land.

We used to make phone calls [land lines] and write notes and letters.

How exactly is that different?

Same thing I do now without social media (gocomics comments excepted).

Alcohol and firearms are with us more than ever.

We usually just watched TV, used the Internet and played video games. Sometimes, we even read books or played with toys.

I used to play Monopoly or Risk with my brothers…chess, checkers, cards. Used to take bike rides to the park or go to the library. Now I read my comics online, play games with my brothers online, and take virtual bike rides on GTA…

Sadly, since Social Media, it seems Alcohol and Firearms have become MORE prevalent…

They drank, and wrassled, and blew things up with dynamite you could buy at the general store. Good times.

Firearms use seems to be up; alcohol use seems to be up; the jury’s out on sex.

There were socials before there was social “media.” I’m thinking sewing circles, quilting bees, book clubs, menfolk sitting around Mr. Drucker’s general store chewing the fat about Jed moving to the big city.

Some still do …… only now they post on social media their antics ……. (and wonder “WHY” they get in trouble) …….. ;0

What if the Internet evolved from firearms and alcohol (I mean they at least have violence in common).

That’s disproves evolution because we still have alcohol and firearms.

If you need to look it up, sarcasm is spelled … Boy! Talk about sarcastic. I’ll go back in my hole now.

Phones (real phones, not pocket computers) and fences were the primary social connections

Blockbuster Video Rentals and Cable TV

I’m old enough to recall when we got our first TV – Fall, (1949), the same year I got my first bicycle. Before that, as I recall, I walked where I wanted to go – which mostly was to one of my ‘best buddies’ homes to play. That Fall, I also started grade school. Some of our assignments in classes were – for the first time ever – to watch certain shows on TV and report about what we had seen and what we thought about them. The reports, of course, were hand-written in ink, and were graded onlanguage use, spelling, and penmanship, as well as content.

‘Play’ (at least for boys) consisted of teaching each other where the best hiding spots were, teasing girls (mostly to get their attention), chasing each other around with cap guns in games of ‘cowboys and Indians’, occasional games of ‘war’, watching fathers and older brothers work on cars, watching new houses in our neighborhoods being built (which involved dynamite blasting into limestone bedrock to form basements), farming, and other such ‘normal’ pastimes.

About that time and age, a very few of us also had first brushes with the law, mostly for pilfering liquor from parental bottles, or minor merchandise from local stores. Our county judge was pretty good about redirecting miscreants, though. The usual penalty was to sit locked in a county jail cell for about 4 hours, through lunch time, then to be released into parents’ custody, on probation for 3 weeks with a 5PM curfew. Those 4 hours and then the 3 weeks seemed like eternity … or so I was told … … … ;^| .

Tree, aren’t you centuries if not millennia old?

They tried that in a small town

Read the newspaper, played board games, played with Army men, inflated plastic dry cleaner bags with candles attached to straws which kept the bags open then when inflated let them go over the neighborhood at dusk so people would call the police reporting UFOs. Made the newspaper — which we read about the next day

It’s no coincidence that families used to have more children. I’ll let you figure out what adults did to combat boredom.

It hasn’t gotten any better, today is Thursday 8/3/23, a littile after 6 am pacific coast time, it is the 215th day of the year. So far there have been 11,243 gun murders, of that 1,059 have been young people ages 0 – 17. There have been 423 mass shooting. The above figures do not include 14,190 gun suicides. We are on track to kill more than 40,000 people with guns this year. Between guns and the climate we are also on track towards making ourselves extinct by our own hands.

Where would you guys be without social media!?