Frazz by Jef Mallett for June 05, 2019

I’m sorry, but does Malley really think this even remotely resembles a conversation middle schoolers have ever had in the course of human history? I’m grown adult and this seems decades more mature than any conversation I ever have.

Kids today are quite aware that there’s lot of discussion between older kids like highschool and university students and older people going on about those older ones burning through limited resources and ruining the world. They ask their parents and teachers about it and will remember who lied to them.

Worry about your own options and your generation’s options will take care of themselves.

Good point…

Regardless of the choice of words in today’s strip, children often possess a seemingly more mature and pragmatic view of the world than adults. Mallett has tapped that vein for years and he mostly gets it. Now, whether he actually accepts it on an adult level is another story.

Watch out for tarp, sticks, and rope vacationers.

Frankly, I’m amazed that, in this strip, they aren’t asking about whether they’re going to spend their vacations hiking, bicycling, swimming, or mountain climbing.

If you don’t travel at all in any fashion, you may save money, but you’ll pay for it in quality of life.

To the young lady’s question: When I was younger, I had no middle ground; it was either a tent where cars can’t get to, or an all-inclusive Caribbean resort.

Now I just alternate between where the grandkids are :) And they’re in CO, CA, and AK, so it’d be a great vacation from the Midwest even without them.

All of the conversations in this strip are way deeper than any real middle schoolers have. Kind of like the preschooler’s conversations in Culdesac. That’s what’s makes it interesting.

I remember reading Peanuts in the 50’s, as a kid, Charlie Brown and his friends often had discussions I had to ask my parents about. But then, my friends and I would also talk about some of the same things.

When I graduated from high school in 1962, my husband and I bought a house and two cars within the next few years, on what he was making on a job he got right out of high school. Most of the guys I graduated with did the same. I didn’t work, few women did, and those who did usually chose to do so. Now, it isn’t really a choice for most women, unless they don’t mind living in poverty. When I decided to become a teacher, my first quarter’s tuition at Southern Illinois university was $79, and we rented any books we needed for $20. Anyone could go to college with just a part time job to pay for it. Since that time, the GNP has skyrocked and the American worker is acknowledged to be the most productive in the world. But, all of the value they are producing is going to the top 1%. The Middle Class standard of living is declining, and a college graduate hasn’t anywhere near as easy a time as we had with just high school. We produce the highest quality goods on earth, and we can’t afford to buy them. A young person told me a while back that I couldn’t really understand why their generation was so angry. What I actually don’t understand is why they aren’t rioting in the streets.

This was exceptionally well done today, IMO. Bravo.

When push comes to shove… for me… I guess I am more of a budget hotel sort. Upkeep on an RV and driving an RV is not something I would enjoy, nor is having a cottage because of the maintenance, cost, and being stuck in one location.

The reality is that for a whole helluva lot of us…. young AND old… the financial changes that have occurred since the 80s have squeezed most of us folks who were middle class down at least a few if not several rungs of the economic ladder. compared to those earlier times.

Hotel person. Definitely.

Car camping tent person….when it comes to vacation.

I’ve had this conversation lately, because we are getting closer to that “do we want to snowbird” age. I like the kids being more playful but I don’t mind when they act like us Old Farts. Hey, some times we Old Fart get to act like playful kids.

But a canoe and a home within walking distance of a lake or lazy river – problem solved.

Blog PostsFrazz17 hrs ·

Without question, I am the person who burns up too much of his vacation time working, though I don’t think it’s necessarily to pay off any of the other three. I certainly don’t have a cottage or an RV, though I do stay in hotels now and then. It’s probably because I’m bad at budgeting my time, though spending a lot of time on a job I like doesn’t always feel like such terrible judgment. I spent a lot of time wondering if I was making a mistake doing too much training for too many races, but it made me happy, kept me fit and expanded my world, much like travel. And since I made the decision to scale back — when all that competition threatened to narrow my world more than it expanded it — my available travel time hasn’t changed that much. Which may be because I didn’t do the best job of scaling back.

All I know is I’m grateful to have that for what passes as a problem. And my wish is for future generations to have access to the same neuroses. They deserve it at least as much as I ever did.

I can’t help but be amazed at people who continuously come to the comics expecting to find realism and consistent logic, and then complain when they don’t find it.