Seahorses

Back when I was a child and loved comic books, my brother and I had a huge stash of them. I’d read and reread them till the next issue would come out.  Time couldn't pass fast enough for each new issue to hit the stand. Whoever saw the new issue at Swan’s Drug Store on North Avenue would alert the neighborhood.  Of course there were the kids who weren’t allowed to read comics like the Falloy’s.  They are my memory's example of why I regard many religious people in a negative light ("You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean") and want nothing to do with them.  They profess religious faith in earnest and yet are in many, many cases are some of the most uncharitable individuals I’ve found walking the earth.  The fact that they couldn't read comics had nothing to do with my opinion of them, it just reminded me of them.  But I digress.

Another black and white ad that one always found on the inside back cover of comics was for seahorses.  Somehow they were shipped to you “ in stasis” and you put them in your fishbowl upon arrival and they came to life and went bobbing happily along.  That ad always kind of creeped me out though.  I don’t know if it was the idea of rehydrating seahorses (and not really believing it would happen) or the look of seahorses. For some reason it seemed an invitation for death to arrive in the mail on your doorstep.  I wonder how many people bought them and what their little lives were like?