Page 11 - 201004 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - April 2010

April 2010_june_july_2009.qxd 22/04/2010 11:26 PM Page 11 Kids now days need more sea monkeys 11 Kids now days need more sea monkeys by By: Nathan Kitzmann I spent Easter at my grandparents’ house, which is always a treat. Indeed, some of the fondest memories of my childhood revolve around time spent in Zumbrota — especially the two weeks I visited every summer. I spent Easter at my grandparents’ house, which is always a treat. Indeed, some of the fondest memories of my childhood revolve around time spent in Zumbrota — especially the two weeks I visited every summer. Flying kites in the back yard; staring out the graffiti-covered Covered Bridge at the Zumbro River below; updating my grandparents on everything that happened to me in the time since we had last been together, over a piece of my grandma’s legendary blueberry bread — which took about 15 minutes. them to dance in harmony and recite Mom in balloon boy hoax But sometimes, my grandparents needed Shakespeare in their gurgling underwater to take a break — from me — and that’s when voices. to begin community the comics came out. My uncles and dad had Sometimes, the anticipation of service each contributed to a massive collection of something is better than the reality of it. vintage comic books — published between My dad was one of the 50 or so people Associated Press 1960 and 1980 and costing anywhere from 15 who invested in Sea Monkeys, and his dreams cents to, in the later years, $1.25. were sunk when they arrived and turned out to Richie Rich was encouraging to read, be little more than tiny dried up shrimp that — with its assurance that it’s not all fun for the rich depending on the angle — might have moved a kids. Archie was pure escapism: I would have little when you dropped them in the water. given anything to have the problems that guy I can see, by looking through these had. MAD was always a riot, especially when it comic books, that the children of the past — at came to the illustrations of toothless idiots least the ’60s and ’70s — gained much of their putting their wives through meat grinders and happiness from expectation and promise and The Fold-In, which never let me down. imagination. Maybe it was the UFO Detector But the part of these comic books that that guaranteed it would “continually scan the always interested me the most were the full- area for electromagnetic anomalies that are page ads. They weren’t like the ads you see in typically associated with UFO sightings.” Sports Illustrated for Kids: big, glossy, artless What childhood, or adulthood for that things that we’ve trained ourselves to avoid matter, could be complete without a UFO looking at. No, these ads had some pull of their Detector? FORT COLLINS, Colo. — The Colorado own. It would take enough Chocolate Frosted mother who, along with her husband, told Sometimes, they were the most Sugar Puffs to suffocate a horse for that pair of authorities that her son had flown away in a interesting feature. Decoder Glasses to come in the mail, but when runaway balloon will begin her community My all-time favorite is a full-color ad it did, boy, when it did, life would finally make service sentence this weekend for her role in the inviting me to Enter the Wonderful World of sense. You’d just put on the glasses and see the hoax. AMAZING Live SEA MONKEYS! Always meaning of your existence written on the back Mayumi Heene will spend 10 weekends clowning around, these frolicsome pets swim, of a cereal box. It is vain self-promises like working at nonprofits. stunt, and play games with each other. these that got many kids through their early Her husband, Richard Heene, completed There was a disclaimer at the bottom, in childhoods. his 90-day sentence Sunday. It included jail nearly unreadable type: caricatures shown not Without today’s overload of truth and time, work release and home detention. intended to depict Artema Selina — Latin for fact and information at their fingertips, kids had Sheriff's officials say the couple's Oct. Shrimp People. But when kids saw those to take what they knew and fill in the rest 15 report that their son had floated away in a smiling families of six-inch tall alien creatures themselves. Today’s 5-year-old would scoff at UFO-shaped helium balloon was a stunt. with Mongolian faces, their eyes glowed with the thought that they could see through people’s Richard Heene pleaded guilty to falsely promises of companionship, social observation, clothes with X-Ray vision or check out the influencing authorities, and his wife pleaded and a massive power trip. bottom of a lake with a $4.99, fully operational guilty to filing a false report. They were allowed At the promised rate of one family Yellow Submarine. to serve their sentences separately so one could hatched every five minutes, an entire But in the day of moon-travel and a care for their three sons. [] civilization of Sea Monkeys could be raised in youth seemingly bent on taking over the world an hour, and then scooped out of the water and and no Internet to prove anything true or false, brutally suffocated in five minutes. nothing could have seemed impossible. Most kids never did get around to Maybe what today’s generation needs is sending in the mail-order form. Most could do less cold knowledge and more speculation, nothing but fantasize about these mysterious more black holes in the universe of their minds, otherworldly creatures and speculate that the more room for the impossible. neighbors down the street were raising colonies Nathan Kitzmann is a junior at Detroit of sea-monkeys in their basement — training Lakes High School []