I agree it’s probably a leftover water balloon from a fight he had with Hobbes on a hot summer day!
Yukoner:
If Calvin’s Dad works in an office maybe he works 9-5pm where alot of buses load between 7-7:30am. This goes along with my theory that the kids should be the ones to go to school 9-5pm so they can get more sleep and be able to learn better during the day. If the kids kept these hours too wouldn’t more businesses start later and their employees also be more rested and more productive? They were thinking of starting the school days later and extending the hours for just such a reason a few years ago but it got voted down.
Your hypothesis lacks a big chunk: You are pressuming 100% of children would get up late,or go to bed late. Wrong in both counts.
IMHO, it was voted down because many more children go to bed on time and wake up on time. They do have responsible parents who teach the right habits.
Changing the schedule to suit the lazy ones will greatly disturb the schedule of the majority that does things the right way, sending the message that laziness will make the world adapt to you.
Spaceman Spiff - product tester for Capsule Corp (TM).
mexdr - some people (like me) are simply on a different schedule, so thanks for calling me lazy and wrong (since early is right). For my entire life I’ve worked hard at forcing myself to go to bed early so I can get up early, and it just doesn’t work. But when I have time off (a week or two), I can easily fall into a routine that is just a couple of hours shifted later than my normal routine. Go figure.
RE: the time kids get on busses.
Research has shown that teenagers have hormonal changes that turn them into natural night owls. They wake up later and traditionally are half asleep during the first morning classes because they stay up so late. It has happened that way pretty much forever. Younger children, on the other hand, generally do not have much trouble getting up early (too early for a lot of parents, in fact).
Schools run into trouble largely because we insist on having the teens go first (7:00 for my high schooler) while the younger kids go later (between 8:00 and 9:00 around here, depending on school). Most research suggests simply flip-flopping the times so that the younger kids go in first while the older kids go later.
It’s a logical solution, but it runs into problems because a lot of folks keep saying, “That’s not how it should be….”
“and go to the lavatory …” - yes Monthy forever!!!!
Dino, I agree with you a starting school a bit later would be better - and by the way this is no sign of lazyness the amount of work would remain the same - the only thing is that there are “day or night active” human beeings ;-)
And not to forget Spiff:
Run Spiff run, or the aliens are going to take you to “prison” with their private spaceship…
Talk about being detached from reality–if I had Calvin’s fantasies when I was his age, I’d probably have been drugged with Thorazene and been sent to the school psychiatrist for all my childhood! Good thing I was very good at concealing my fantasies.
cdward:
Now that sounds more like it to me. I agree my granddaughter wakes up every morning between 6;00-6:30am.
mexdr1958:
Did I ruffle some feathers or what? Did somebody call you lazy when you were a kid? Gee whiz it was just a suggestion meaning to spark a free flowing forum of ideas.
This would also cause logistical problems for families where the parents both work (or for families with single parents). If the kids go later, the parents get to work even later than that. Many families also have older (high school) kids who get their younger siblings off the bus. The afternoon schedule would have to remain the same for that reason. If the morning schedule were then reversed, the younger kids would have a longer school day than the older ones.
Why don’t we just have each individual child start the school day when he or she feels awake and ready to learn, and go home when he or she feels he or she has learned all that he or she can for the day?
One of my prized possessions is my leather bound collection of the Complete Calvin and Hobbes. I never had a son, but my hubs and I figured if we did..he’d be a cross between Calvin and Sid (the demented toy destroyer in Toy Story.)
What did we get? A Suzie.
“…suspenders and a bra?!?!” - hopelessly drawn to Python humor.
This is Mom & Dad’s big chance! Let him escape! In fact, I could see them buying him the bus ticket! It’ll seem like a good trade instead of the huge headache that this is turning into. Hobbes would then get to read all of Calvin’s comic undisturbed.
By the way, did any fan here notice that Merriam-Webster’s online “Word of the Day” (http://www.m-w.com or better: http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/mwwod.pl) today is “transmogrify”? Etymology says its origin is 1656! I always thought it was coined by Watterson/Calvin.
Hey CH fans - just received my ‘Word of the Day” from Merriam Webster – “transmogrify”. All these years I thought this was Watterson’s (i.e., Calvin’s) invention. To quote from M-W, “…but we don’t know the exact origins of “transmogrify.” The 17th-century dramatist, novelist, and poet Aphra Behn, who is regarded as England’s first female professional writer, was among the first English authors to use the word.”
Who’d a-thunk that Calvin’s been reading 17th-century English poets – and a GIRL, no less.
Our rural school district makes one bus run to collect all students at the same time. Classes start at: elementary building at 7:40, high school building at 7:45 and middle school at 7:50. Their days end on the same schedule. They do offer a grant funded “homework club” for two hours a day, four days a week, after school where some teachers are available to help the kids. Bus transportation is then provided. It works out good that the kids can get extra help on their homework and not have to come home to an empty house.
In the school district where I live the kids share buses. K - 5 is usually picked around 7 am, 6 - 8 around 7:45 am, 9 - 12 around 8:30 am. With a similiar drop off schedule.
When I was in Jr High, the school had a split schedule. Half the students started school at 7 am and the other half started their day at 10. It made the day longer for the teachers, but the students either got off school early or were able to sleep in a little later.
I’d say that since Calvin is attempting to skip school, he’s keeping a close eye on the window where he knows his parents are sitting, still having their breakfast, to make sure they don’t see him and know what he’s done (which was to not get on that school bus). Therefore, he saw his parents notice him and now knows he’s busted.
Given that … how his father could possibly have seen Calvin when his back is to the window, I do not know. If anyone should have seen him first, it should have been mom.
This business of being there/not being there reminds me of a story I once heard: somewhere in a government office complex a manager had a hat/clothing rack set outside his office door. Every day he would come in, put his hat on it, and go inside, not to be disturbed by anyone. At the end of the day, he would emerge, put his hat on, and leave the building. Turns out that he would leave his office by a side door unnoticed by the other employees and go outside to do whatever for the balance of the day. This went on for years…..
Sorry if my words were not properly written. Getting up late is not lazyness or wrong.
It is just that the world is scheduled as such, and we gotta live in it, like it or not. You can make your best effort to change it (we are all expected to do that at one point or another). I have been always an early riser (3:30 to 4:00 a.m. is my norm), yet my wife and kids are all late risers (10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.), yet they were never late for either school or work.
Alisha 1112 has summed up several good reasons to conserve the status quo. There are many others.
As a doctor and a professional investigator, I am well aware of the circadian rhytms that every person has, for lack of a better term, “factory-installed” since birth.
Many scientific studies notwithstanding, the fact remains: Most people (greater than 50%) can wake up early without too much trouble, kids and teenagers included.
As a matter of fact, I am now supervising a scientific study into the sleeping habits of some well-to-do high school kids to see what is the percentage of kids who arrive late into school due to late sleep-in, or suffer in their grades due to falling asleep in class, in order to make recommendatiosn to the school board of directors about the convenience of keeping the present school schedule or modify it.
Study should be ready for completion and presentation for May 1st. of this year. I´ll keep you posted.
My personal opinions are left out of this study. the hard data will be the hard data, and I will base my recommendartions on the data, not on my personal opionions.
“…It’s a logical solution, but it runs into problems because a lot of folks keep saying, ‘That’s not how it should be….’ ”
A similar argument occurs on when we should teach foreign languages. Children are naturally learning their first language; it doesn’t add much difficulty to learn a second one in the primary grades. But no: we have to wait until High School, if not college or grad school. Why? “Because that’s how it’s done.”
As the Oopuloompas in “Willie Wonker and the Chocolate Factory” said: “who is to blame when your child is a brat? The mother and the father!” Bring back old fashion spankings!
margueritem about 14 years ago
This I gotta see!
GROG Premium Member about 14 years ago
It’s a bird! It’s a plane!. It’s Spaceman Spiff!
Good Morning, Marg!
Miss.Fit about 14 years ago
aha! caught you!
Vista Bill Raley and Comet™ about 14 years ago
Ya’ gotta love Spaceman Spiff!
WoodEye about 14 years ago
He better get into orbit soon!
drwatson about 14 years ago
SPOILER! http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1989/01/19/
COWBOY7 about 14 years ago
Calvin’s playing hooky at 6yrs old! Go Calvin…er Spaceman Spiff!
Good Morning Marg & Grog!
MontanaLady about 14 years ago
Naw………that wasn’t Calvin darting behind that tree….
It was……
The LumberJack!!!
Ohhhh, he’s a LumberJack, and he’s OKAY…
carmy about 14 years ago
Go Spiff Go!
margueritem about 14 years ago
Good morning, ALL!
00andy about 14 years ago
uh uh trouble emerging
Ooops! Premium Member about 14 years ago
Calvin is advanced I didn’t play hooky until I was 8. My little brother ran away from school when he was 5 though.
Calvin surely you have an invisibility shield! If not Run!!!!
yyyguy about 14 years ago
i’m wondering what the inflatable jet pack is in real life (so to speak).
alviebird about 14 years ago
Trying to achieve ‘escape’ velocity, Calvin?
rentier about 14 years ago
Will he escape again?
rentier about 14 years ago
Good morning everybody!
kreole about 14 years ago
The jet pack may be his lunch box—-or bag? He did say it was inflatable….
kreole about 14 years ago
Hmmmm, he has a balloon in his pocket? A stand-by water balloon which could be used as a jet pak?
Bittermelon of Truth about 14 years ago
The rockets in James Bond’s jetpack face down but Calvin’s face to the rear. Wouldn’t he have a better chance to escape if he went up?
Yukoner about 14 years ago
Why isn’t dad at work? If Calvin has to go to work (school) you would think that dad should be doing something more than the crossword over coffee.
Dino-1 about 14 years ago
I agree it’s probably a leftover water balloon from a fight he had with Hobbes on a hot summer day! Yukoner: If Calvin’s Dad works in an office maybe he works 9-5pm where alot of buses load between 7-7:30am. This goes along with my theory that the kids should be the ones to go to school 9-5pm so they can get more sleep and be able to learn better during the day. If the kids kept these hours too wouldn’t more businesses start later and their employees also be more rested and more productive? They were thinking of starting the school days later and extending the hours for just such a reason a few years ago but it got voted down.
mexdr1958 about 14 years ago
Dino,
Your hypothesis lacks a big chunk: You are pressuming 100% of children would get up late,or go to bed late. Wrong in both counts.
IMHO, it was voted down because many more children go to bed on time and wake up on time. They do have responsible parents who teach the right habits.
Changing the schedule to suit the lazy ones will greatly disturb the schedule of the majority that does things the right way, sending the message that laziness will make the world adapt to you.
Yikes!!!
Herocoder about 14 years ago
Boy is Spaceman Spiff in some serious trouble!!!
APPLESCRUFF about 14 years ago
Hello Montana Lady! Great to see another Python fan here!
“He chops down trees, he eats his lunch…” :)
jrbj about 14 years ago
If Mom and Dad are Zogwargs wouldn’t that make Calvin a Zogwarg too? Oh, of course, that’s not Calvin, it’s Spaceman Spiff.
NoBrandName about 14 years ago
Spaceman Spiff - product tester for Capsule Corp (TM).
mexdr - some people (like me) are simply on a different schedule, so thanks for calling me lazy and wrong (since early is right). For my entire life I’ve worked hard at forcing myself to go to bed early so I can get up early, and it just doesn’t work. But when I have time off (a week or two), I can easily fall into a routine that is just a couple of hours shifted later than my normal routine. Go figure.
cdward about 14 years ago
RE: the time kids get on busses. Research has shown that teenagers have hormonal changes that turn them into natural night owls. They wake up later and traditionally are half asleep during the first morning classes because they stay up so late. It has happened that way pretty much forever. Younger children, on the other hand, generally do not have much trouble getting up early (too early for a lot of parents, in fact).
Schools run into trouble largely because we insist on having the teens go first (7:00 for my high schooler) while the younger kids go later (between 8:00 and 9:00 around here, depending on school). Most research suggests simply flip-flopping the times so that the younger kids go in first while the older kids go later.
It’s a logical solution, but it runs into problems because a lot of folks keep saying, “That’s not how it should be….”
LukeandPu about 14 years ago
“and go to the lavatory …” - yes Monthy forever!!!!
Dino, I agree with you a starting school a bit later would be better - and by the way this is no sign of lazyness the amount of work would remain the same - the only thing is that there are “day or night active” human beeings ;-)
And not to forget Spiff: Run Spiff run, or the aliens are going to take you to “prison” with their private spaceship…
alan.gurka about 14 years ago
Talk about being detached from reality–if I had Calvin’s fantasies when I was his age, I’d probably have been drugged with Thorazene and been sent to the school psychiatrist for all my childhood! Good thing I was very good at concealing my fantasies.
Dino-1 about 14 years ago
cdward: Now that sounds more like it to me. I agree my granddaughter wakes up every morning between 6;00-6:30am. mexdr1958: Did I ruffle some feathers or what? Did somebody call you lazy when you were a kid? Gee whiz it was just a suggestion meaning to spark a free flowing forum of ideas.
aleisha1112 about 14 years ago
Someone’s in trouble…
Re: times kids get on the bus
This would also cause logistical problems for families where the parents both work (or for families with single parents). If the kids go later, the parents get to work even later than that. Many families also have older (high school) kids who get their younger siblings off the bus. The afternoon schedule would have to remain the same for that reason. If the morning schedule were then reversed, the younger kids would have a longer school day than the older ones.
vardeman62 about 14 years ago
Re: times kids get on the bus
Why don’t we just have each individual child start the school day when he or she feels awake and ready to learn, and go home when he or she feels he or she has learned all that he or she can for the day?
[/sarcasm]
V
mik1of3 about 14 years ago
One of my prized possessions is my leather bound collection of the Complete Calvin and Hobbes. I never had a son, but my hubs and I figured if we did..he’d be a cross between Calvin and Sid (the demented toy destroyer in Toy Story.) What did we get? A Suzie.
treBsdrawkcaB about 14 years ago
“…suspenders and a bra?!?!” - hopelessly drawn to Python humor.
This is Mom & Dad’s big chance! Let him escape! In fact, I could see them buying him the bus ticket! It’ll seem like a good trade instead of the huge headache that this is turning into. Hobbes would then get to read all of Calvin’s comic undisturbed.
lazygrazer about 14 years ago
Being captured by the evil Zogwargs leads to a fate worse than torture—they make you eat your vegetables and take baths!!
FLY, SPIFF, FLY!!
dsom8 about 14 years ago
By the way, did any fan here notice that Merriam-Webster’s online “Word of the Day” (http://www.m-w.com or better: http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/mwwod.pl) today is “transmogrify”? Etymology says its origin is 1656! I always thought it was coined by Watterson/Calvin.
opa6x57 about 14 years ago
Good one @MontanaLady …
jackmatt about 14 years ago
Hey CH fans - just received my ‘Word of the Day” from Merriam Webster – “transmogrify”. All these years I thought this was Watterson’s (i.e., Calvin’s) invention. To quote from M-W, “…but we don’t know the exact origins of “transmogrify.” The 17th-century dramatist, novelist, and poet Aphra Behn, who is regarded as England’s first female professional writer, was among the first English authors to use the word.”
Who’d a-thunk that Calvin’s been reading 17th-century English poets – and a GIRL, no less.
Trainwreck_1 about 14 years ago
Not going to end well… Dads going to warm up your backside again!
http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1987/12/05
bald about 14 years ago
calvin (errr spaceman spiff) you better hope your jet pack has enough fuel to get away from mom (i mean the zogwargs)
josh_bisbee about 14 years ago
How did Calvin even know that his dad noticed him?
Ed in Toledo Premium Member about 14 years ago
Our rural school district makes one bus run to collect all students at the same time. Classes start at: elementary building at 7:40, high school building at 7:45 and middle school at 7:50. Their days end on the same schedule. They do offer a grant funded “homework club” for two hours a day, four days a week, after school where some teachers are available to help the kids. Bus transportation is then provided. It works out good that the kids can get extra help on their homework and not have to come home to an empty house.
ratlum about 14 years ago
Ready for lift off ,destination to be determined later
coffeeturtle about 14 years ago
this escape will be very short-lived. ;-)
Ooops! Premium Member about 14 years ago
Dino - 1
In the school district where I live the kids share buses. K - 5 is usually picked around 7 am, 6 - 8 around 7:45 am, 9 - 12 around 8:30 am. With a similiar drop off schedule.
Maybe they read the research as cdward.
mrslukeskywalker about 14 years ago
My parents used to know what kind of day it was going to be when my little brother woke up with that same look on his face.
I hope the great escape is going to be worth the ride to school with DAD!
1148559 about 14 years ago
When I was in Jr High, the school had a split schedule. Half the students started school at 7 am and the other half started their day at 10. It made the day longer for the teachers, but the students either got off school early or were able to sleep in a little later.
Gretchen's Mom about 14 years ago
Josh:
I’d say that since Calvin is attempting to skip school, he’s keeping a close eye on the window where he knows his parents are sitting, still having their breakfast, to make sure they don’t see him and know what he’s done (which was to not get on that school bus). Therefore, he saw his parents notice him and now knows he’s busted.
Given that … how his father could possibly have seen Calvin when his back is to the window, I do not know. If anyone should have seen him first, it should have been mom.
khpage about 14 years ago
This business of being there/not being there reminds me of a story I once heard: somewhere in a government office complex a manager had a hat/clothing rack set outside his office door. Every day he would come in, put his hat on it, and go inside, not to be disturbed by anyone. At the end of the day, he would emerge, put his hat on, and leave the building. Turns out that he would leave his office by a side door unnoticed by the other employees and go outside to do whatever for the balance of the day. This went on for years…..
Rakkav about 14 years ago
All well and good, but it’s inflating the emergency jet pack kept in his pocket that I’d really like to see!
mexdr1958 about 14 years ago
To all of you who have commented on my post:
No, you didn´t ruffle any feathers.
Free flow of ideas has been accomplished.
Sorry if my words were not properly written. Getting up late is not lazyness or wrong.
It is just that the world is scheduled as such, and we gotta live in it, like it or not. You can make your best effort to change it (we are all expected to do that at one point or another). I have been always an early riser (3:30 to 4:00 a.m. is my norm), yet my wife and kids are all late risers (10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.), yet they were never late for either school or work.
Alisha 1112 has summed up several good reasons to conserve the status quo. There are many others. As a doctor and a professional investigator, I am well aware of the circadian rhytms that every person has, for lack of a better term, “factory-installed” since birth.
Many scientific studies notwithstanding, the fact remains: Most people (greater than 50%) can wake up early without too much trouble, kids and teenagers included.
mexdr1958 about 14 years ago
As a matter of fact, I am now supervising a scientific study into the sleeping habits of some well-to-do high school kids to see what is the percentage of kids who arrive late into school due to late sleep-in, or suffer in their grades due to falling asleep in class, in order to make recommendatiosn to the school board of directors about the convenience of keeping the present school schedule or modify it.
Study should be ready for completion and presentation for May 1st. of this year. I´ll keep you posted.
My personal opinions are left out of this study. the hard data will be the hard data, and I will base my recommendartions on the data, not on my personal opionions.
ChukLitl Premium Member about 14 years ago
Many need the teens to get out of school early so they can get jobs.
bmonk about 14 years ago
cdward said, about 10 academic hours ago
“RE: the time kids get on buses.
“…It’s a logical solution, but it runs into problems because a lot of folks keep saying, ‘That’s not how it should be….’ ”
A similar argument occurs on when we should teach foreign languages. Children are naturally learning their first language; it doesn’t add much difficulty to learn a second one in the primary grades. But no: we have to wait until High School, if not college or grad school. Why? “Because that’s how it’s done.”
pintcape about 14 years ago
calvin you’re going to be one punished little guy when your parents finish with you,keep going,don’t look behind you,lol.
Dberrymanal1 about 14 years ago
As the Oopuloompas in “Willie Wonker and the Chocolate Factory” said: “who is to blame when your child is a brat? The mother and the father!” Bring back old fashion spankings!
lindz.coop Premium Member about 14 years ago
They have to have the day start early so they can keep kids after school for being late.
Jbbenton about 14 years ago
Hey Mr. Watterson. Do you “reuse” past strips that you have created. I remember seeing this particular strip years ago. It is still good.