NP Comic Thursday January 20, 2022

[Darth Fluffy 302]

3 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

Kindergarten was half a day for me as well. My memory of it is a little vague (I haven't thought much about it in years) but I'm sure we had chairs and either desks or tables (I remember finding depictions in fiction of kids sitting on the floor in school a bit odd the first time I encountered them). We also must have had recesses where we could do whatever we liked outside, as I don't remember recesses in primary school feeling novel compared to kindergarten.

I recall the mornings before first grade being free play in the school yard; in contrast, I do not recall playing unsupervised in kindergarten. I think we went right to our room when we arrived, but I don't actually recall. We did not get grades, but we had a list of skills we had to demonstrate before we passed, although I doubt they would have held us back. I think I recall sitting on the floor and being read to, not sure. There was a toy kitchen that the girls played in, and there were huge, sturdy wooden blocks and board that I suppose all the kids would have liked, but the boys took them over. If I recall correctly, we had four classes of kindergarten, two teachers, and both morning and afternoon.  I have a vague notion that we may have had an occasional combined activity with the other class.

5 hours ago, mlooney said:

If you cross a valley it is up hill both ways.  Just saying.

'Uphill both ways' is a generational trope. But, yes, I walked down a hill and up another. The phrase is doing double duty.

[mlooney 3,425]

26 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

5 hours ago, mlooney said:

If you cross a valley it is up hill both ways.  Just saying.

'Uphill both ways' is a generational trope. But, yes, I walked down a hill and up another. The phrase is doing double duty.

I am aware of this.  I frequently add "in the snow! Up hill both ways!  And we liked it" to some of my posts.

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,586]

My Alimentary school was on the other side of a hill

To get to my Middle school, I had to walk past the Elementary school, over a second hill, and up a third

My route to the High school was also past my Elementary school, and then down a hill almost to the lowest part of town

The snow was just there to make you a little more miserable in case you ever "got used" to the walk

[Darth Fluffy 302]

2 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

My Alimentary school was on the other side of a hill

Was it near a culinary institute?

[mlooney 3,425]

1 hour ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Was it near a culinary institute?

Of America?

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,586]

15 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Was it near a culinary institute?

Actually it was near two funeral homes and a monument retailer

14 hours ago, mlooney said:

Of America?

Only if you consider small town Michigan as part of this place called "America"

Growing up back there, I usually had at least one coin in my pocket with a picture of Liz at any given time

[mlooney 3,425]

I was riffing on the Culinary Institute of America and it's CIA abbreviation.   They used to say something like "not that CIA"

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,586]

1 hour ago, mlooney said:

 They used to say something like "not that CIA"

That sounds like something the Real CIA would say

[Darth Fluffy 302]

The public schools I've attended were the opposite of alimentary, as I'm fairly certain most are. I have yet to meet anyone who raves about how great their school's lunches were.

OTOH, I've had some really good meals in military chow halls. Good to know someone gets feeding the masses right.

[The Old Hack 2,450]

On 1/23/2022 at 6:59 PM, Darth Fluffy said:

OTOH, I've had some really good meals in military chow halls. Good to know someone gets feeding the masses right.

In the Danish Army this seemed to vary wildly. In Boot Camp the cafeteria seemed desperate to live up to the name because it mostly served boiled boots with mushy shoestrings. When I later transferred to the Infirmary of the 1st Logistics Battalion, the food at the local cafeteria proved to be quite decent and at times rather good. At least it was a significant improvement on boiled boots.

[mlooney 3,425]

I was lucky during my military career.  The unit I spent the most time in had a mess sergeant that was planing on opening a fine dining restaurant when he got out of the army.  He used the mess hall to test recipes out for how well they would do when you needed to make a lot of them.  Resulted in some very good suppers.  And of course, the standard US army breakfast is hard to mess up.  Lunch was the only meal that was iffy and most of the time it was fairly good.

On the other hand, the 8th Engineers battalion (the first missile site I was assigned to in Germany was co-located with them) mess hall was horrid.  Enough so that they offered c-rations (the was before MRE were a thing) as an option for lunch and dinner.  I though when I first saw this that they were just being hardcore.  Nope.  Their food sucked.  Fortananlty I didn't spend much time there.


 

[The Old Hack 2,450]

Just now, mlooney said:

I was lucky during my military career.  The unit I spent the most time in had a mess sergeant that was planing on opening a fine dining restaurant when he got out of the army.  He used the mess hall to test recipes out for how well they would do when you needed to make a lot of them.  Resulted in some very good suppers.  And of course, the standard US army breakfast is hard to mess up.  Lunch was the only meal that was iffy and most of the time it was fairly good.

On the other hand, the 8th Engineers battalion (the first missile site I was assigned to in Germany was co-located with them) mess hall was horrid.  Enough so that they offered c-rations (the was before MRE were a thing) as an option for lunch and dinner.  I though when I first saw this that they were just being hardcore.  Nope.  Their food sucked.  Fortananlty I didn't spend much time there.

"Our old mess sergeant's taste buds were shot off in the war.
But his savory collections add to our Esprit de Corps
To think of all the marvelous ways
they're using plastics nowadays
It makes a fellow proud to be a soldier."

-- Tom Lehrer, "An Evening Wasted"

[Darth Fluffy 302]

5 hours ago, mlooney said:

Enough so that they offered c-rations (the was before MRE were a thing) as an option for lunch and dinner. 

That was quite a while ago. Wiki says MREs were released 41 years ago, but existing rations were used up.

[mlooney 3,425]

30 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

That was quite a while ago. Wiki says MREs were released 41 years ago, but existing rations were used up.

1979.  Just before MRE became a thing.  Of course my "real" unit never went to the field so we didn't get C-Rats all that often, frequently not even for our big evaluations.  The mess hall made meals and transported them to the tactical locations.