Nancy Classics by Ernie Bushmiller for December 23, 2024
December 20, 2024
All caught up!
Transcript:
Sign reads: CITY DUMP
Sluggo: I wonder if I can hit that old dresser with this rock.
Nancy: Oh---You broke the mirror---That means bad luck.
Noise: CRASH
Sluggo: OH, YEAH?
I remember trips to the dump when I was about Sluggo’s age. It was the one place where one tear up everything but couldn’t damage anything. (Except one’s self for it was a dangerous playground.)
One visit I remember vividly — or rather one act during that visit. Friend Ernie (not his real name) and I discovered a large TV picture tube atop one pile. We essayed to shy rocks at it to bust it. Somehow I understood that an intact picture tube was a sort of shrapnel bomb; being under high vacuum, shards of glass would fly everywhere if we shattered it. So we took up a position at some distance, about 25 feet, I think. (You should understand that these picture tubes are aluminized on the inner surface, like a mirror. Also it was a sunny summer afternoon and the sun was at our backs) From that range, it was a bit difficult to score a hit, but we did thump it with fist sized rocks several times without results. At length one of us — I don’t recall which — heaved a larger missile which shattered the tube with a respectable boom. It seemed like hundreds of fragments erupted in all directions, shooting perhaps as much as 15 feet high. The sunlight reflecting off them was remarkable, even pretty. Huck’s night time description of steamboats belching a world of sparks out of their “chimblies” and drifting down to the river comes to mind every time I recall this episode from my youth.
snsurone76 about 7 hours ago
It’ll be bad luck when the IRS (or the SEC) catches you, Sluggo.
Calvinist1966 about 4 hours ago
Christmas seems to have come early for Sluggo.
A# 466 about 3 hours ago
I remember trips to the dump when I was about Sluggo’s age. It was the one place where one tear up everything but couldn’t damage anything. (Except one’s self for it was a dangerous playground.)
One visit I remember vividly — or rather one act during that visit. Friend Ernie (not his real name) and I discovered a large TV picture tube atop one pile. We essayed to shy rocks at it to bust it. Somehow I understood that an intact picture tube was a sort of shrapnel bomb; being under high vacuum, shards of glass would fly everywhere if we shattered it. So we took up a position at some distance, about 25 feet, I think. (You should understand that these picture tubes are aluminized on the inner surface, like a mirror. Also it was a sunny summer afternoon and the sun was at our backs) From that range, it was a bit difficult to score a hit, but we did thump it with fist sized rocks several times without results. At length one of us — I don’t recall which — heaved a larger missile which shattered the tube with a respectable boom. It seemed like hundreds of fragments erupted in all directions, shooting perhaps as much as 15 feet high. The sunlight reflecting off them was remarkable, even pretty. Huck’s night time description of steamboats belching a world of sparks out of their “chimblies” and drifting down to the river comes to mind every time I recall this episode from my youth.
Gent about 3 hours ago
When you destroys the illusion, you will finds the treasure.