NEW STRIP :: What Would Dharbin Do?
This is actually an old strip I did a few years ago in a sketchbook, but I have redrawn the last crappy panel and fobbed it off as new to you, my adoring public. Hey, sue me--I'm super busy this week and probably for the next two as well, but I'm determined to have a new/old strip up every week, because I love you.
This is a totally true story, without embellishment. I was probably 6 or 7 years old at the time--it's weird to think that in the early 80's it was totally fine to let your kids roam around the neighborhood unsupervised like this. Today if you saw a 7 year old untethered on the street you would call Social Services. I feel bad for my future children that they will be unable to enjoy this sort of independence in their own childhood(s).
I do still vividly remember the feeling of confusion I had when my mom's advice didn't work. I did just like I do today when something goes wrong--I have to stop and work my way backwards to figure out where the mistake was. There I was, sniffly-nosed and sore-headed on a curb (there were no sidewalks in Hemby Bridge, just rounded curbs; although this made it easier to steer your roller skates into someone's yard to stop) wondering what I did wrong. Do you remember the days when your first impulse was to presume that you were the wrong one? That all adult advice was perfect?
I wonder sometimes if the reason that so many teenagers (myself included times a million) are such jerks to their parents is that they are inwardly upset at discovering that adults don't know everything--the obvious conclusion being that therefore all their new teenaged ideas must therefore be correct. It's like you have to make all your new ideas fight with all your parents' old ideas and see what wins. In my case mainly my parents won--they're pretty smart parents. One of the many lucky breaks in my life, to have been raised by such fine people, so tolerant of my many dickish impulses.
Feel free to click on the image above or right darn here to revisit your own early confusion at the fallibility of the world around you.
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