Swamped With Cache

In this post I will finish up writing about my trip to southern Illinois to see the total eclipse. This will describe my first day there, August 18. In previous posts I described my second day (To Heron Back), my third day (The Pre-Eclipse Garden of the Gods), and my last day (Great Eclipse), the day of the eclipse. It made sense to do the eclipse first while it was still a news item and fresh in people’s minds. And the full reverse order just arose from that.

On the 18th I went canoeing in a bona fide swamp.

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Saturday Comic

Today’s comic is from June 10, 1971. It’s from Muggs and Skeeter, drawn by Wally Bishop.

Muggs and Skeeter, June 10, 1971

Hey, I can do that!

 

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To Heron Back

I’m continuing to write about my trip to southern Illinois to see the eclipse. I was somewhat undecided whether to make the nearly 500 mile drive there, but what tipped the balance was that I knew there was a bald cypress swamp there.

So here I’ll describe my second visit to the Cache River State Natural Area.

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The Pre-Eclipse Garden of the Gods

Let me continue writing about my trip to the Shawnee National Forest to see the eclipse. One of the nicer geologic features at Shawnee is The Garden of the Gods, a sandstone rock formation.

I went there the day before the eclipse and they shut down the place around me.

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Great Eclipse

We now interrupt our non-regular and completely unscheduled set of Out West posts (yes, I’ll get to them later) for my quick trip to southern Illinois to view the eclipse in its totality.

And of course I found time to do other things.

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Saturday Comic

Around here school started back up on Wednesday. Way back when, that would have meant complaints from wearing shoes again after having gone barefoot all summer long. Here’s a comic from September 6, 1946. It’s from “All in a Lifetime” by Beck.

All in a Lifetime, September 6, 1946

Just some thoughts: it looks like his mother let him mow the lawn all summer lawn barefoot if it’s only now that he’s complaning—I guess that wasn’t considered too dangerous. Also, I’ve never heard that wrinkled sock excuse used in tandem with stuffing feet into shoes that are probably too small. And finally, just think about how common it was to force kids into doing something that hurt so much, just to conform.

 

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Saturday Comic

Frank and Ernest is a comic strip thats pretty much an excuse to draw bad puns. This one, from this past July 12, is no exception. It was started by Bob Thaves but is now done by his son, Tom.

Frank and Ernest, July 12, 2017

It’s not specifically barefoot-related, but it’s close enough (and I like it).

 

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Saturday Comic

Our comic for today comes from Free Range by Bill Whitehead. It appeared this past July 23, 2017.

Free Range, July 23, 2017

The standard trope for lost-in-the-desert is raggedy clothing and no shoes. It just suddenly hit me: why? How is it that people crawling through the desert always lose their shoes? How does that happen? Or is it that they think that only barefooters get lost in the desert?

And of course, there’s another mismatch here: gyms almost overwhelmingly don’t let barefooters in (because, supposedly, you could drop a weight on your foot—like a shoe would help that). How’d he make it past the door?

 

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