The Slice: Dodgeball will never be the same

The difference between old-school summer vacation and contemporary summer vacation can be summed up in two words.

Dirt clods.

At least from the perspective of young scholars released from the rigors of public education.

Once, dirt clods defined summer. Well, for certain boys.

Now I suspect clumps of earth hardly merit passing notice.

Maybe it was just on my childhood block. But here’s what we did.

We would spend seemingly half the day arranging intricate outdoor battle scenes. You know, underground bunkers, camouflaged tanks, and dug in toy-soldier infantry.

Such attention to detail, you never saw.

Sometimes a backyard garden would be the field of battle. Sometimes the loosely historical conflict with 10-year-olds commanding great armies would take place next to a house’s foundation.

Then we would stand back and wreak havoc on the other side’s positions with salvo after salvo. The weapons? Dirt clods from on high, of course.

The soundtrack? Armageddon. (Or at least what little boys imagined that sounded like.)

Destruction would rain down on the most painstakingly fortified positions. Oh, the carnage. Oh, the humanity.

It was, put simply, a blast.

A college memory: Bank executive Wade Griffith shared a yesteryear moment.

“Squirt Gun + Rubbing Alcohol + Bic Lighter = Death to flies in mid-flight.”

Also death to papers posted on dorm bulletin boards and the occasional eyebrow.

Slice answers: Carlene Chase shared this. “Where I come from (the South Jersey shore), the sun comes UP over the ocean, the gulf stream keeps the water comfortable, and we call fireflies ‘lightning bugs.’ There are more hoagie shops than coffee stands, we eat scrapple, and couples young and old park near the ocean to watch the submarine races after a date. It was a great place to grow up.”

John Petrofski didn’t offer an endorsement. He just wrote, “In a blue collar New York neighborhood, mother was half of a word.”

Today’s Slice question: What’s something kids today are way better at than children of previous generations?