I graduated in 1976, bought my first deer rifle with my trapping proceeds from the winter.

I bet there is a black & white polaroid pic...of me ...in a

Pair of those pant....somewhere .

160...your folks must have been well off...with a color photo..lol

The Mines paid quite well in the late 60's and early 70's. My Dad was into photography. After the mines shut down lots of "toys" were put up for sale cheap but no one could afford to buy them.

Cool picture and cool stories, 160.

How did you go from poor prison pants kid to wealthy retired govt. Worker?

What kind of mines,Iron ore?

I just gotta know...... what was that rabbit singing about??

It's the "Captain Song". A silly song that used to be a hit decades ago:


There lived a brave captain,
He's been to many countries,
And traversed the ocean many times
He almost drowned 15 times
and almost died among sharks
But never even blinked
In trouble and battle
He sang his song everywhere

Captain, captain, smile
Your smile is the flag of your ship
Captain, captain, cheer up
Only the brave subdue the seas

But one day the captain
In a country far away
Fell in love like a simple boy
He blushed 15 times
and stuttered, and went pale
But never dared to smile
He became sullen
He lost weight
And no one sang to him caringly

Captain, captain, smile
Your smile is the flag of your ship
Captain, captain, cheer up
Only the brave subdue the seas



The whole series was originally intended to mimic various American series such as Tom & Jerry, but in the USSR, cartoons and kids' movies/books were often the only type of art/creativity not subjected to heavy censorship, so the creators used the opportunity to put various subtle things and innuendos into them and touch upon forbidden things, and this series ("Nu pogodi", ~ Wait, I'll get you) is no exception. There are many allusions to the popular culture, musical bits, etc., but some things just don't make sense unless one admits that there's a ton of homoerotic tension between the two main characters. The bunny is not a girl obviously, probably a young male. The wolf always tries to catch and eat him, but on several occasions, it's shown that the wolf's stalking urges and aggression stem from chronic rejection frustration; the rabbit doesn't avoid the wolf and prefers to tease him for no good reason; in dire situations, they often help each other, and on several occasions, they spend time together and even go on a date (that goes wrong due to a cider bottle malfunction). And while the wolf is shown to have pictures of she-wolves a couple of times (a magazine centerfold, a picture on the wall and a sticker on his bike), he's never actually seen with any females. Also, the bunny is sort of artsy/bohemian, and the wolf, despite being seemingly unemployed, has a ton of skills and is familiar with various equipment/machinery.
low-key James Bond stuff.

Come to think of it, the choice of the song confirms it. The wolf is having a depressive episode alone in his bachelor apartment, lashes out on an inanimate object, sees the love of his life on TV singing the captain song, and next thing he's running around the Ostankino TV studios in Moscow looking for the rabbit which requires a lot of energy compared to his isolated degradation before that.

While the wolf is supposed to be mean, and often gets in trouble with the law, most kids always sympathized with him because the bunny is a stuck up narcissist (he's got his own portrait on the wall) who most certainly understands everything yet chooses to torture the poor wolf. There's a total of 17 episodes I think. It's culturally important because everyone in the former USSR who's now middle-aged grew up watching it. Most episodes don't even have any speech so they're universally watchable.

Good post. I love childhood trapping memories.

That is a great photo, Rob. It must have launched your career as a chick magnet!

Those were tough times when the mines shut down for everyone up there. Great photo, nice rat, interesting story. Thanks for posting it.

LOL Tatiana...... you put a lot of thought into analyzing that cartoon. How do you know the rabbit is not female? The rouge on its cheeks led me to think it was....

Haha, no, I just summed up the hivemind's ideas on the subject. Like I said, we all grew up watching it so there are opinions/discussions.

It's kind of interesting how the relative value/weight of individual creations (books, movies) and celebrities (authors, actors, ...) has been dropping so fast with how fast humanity has been generating and hoarding information lately. Takes much more to get noticed, remembered and discussed now. As for the bunny, it's easy, all nouns in Russian are gendered grammatically and semantically (Old English used to have it, too, but you guys got lazy), meaning that a hare (zayats) is always a he, and dependent words (adjectives, verbs) are inflected/conjugated accordingly. Plus he's dressed like a boy, sort of, and all other anthropomorphic characters are quite obviously gendered. And in one episode, he's a part of a "little bunny boy chorus" (khor malchikov-zaychikov). So the rouge is just gay.

Well then judging from the pics you posted above, that certainly is a gay cartoon. I don't recall us having any so obviously gay! At least not back then!! Who knows these days.... sure there is now.

Thanks for sharing the cartoon... enjoyed seeing something from a different part of the world like that.... pretty cool!

Besides.... it's only natural that a 160user post would turn gay, LOL.

Hey now! You mentioned gay so that gal from WI and the Canadians should be along anytime.

Tatiana I remember hearing about Volk and Zaetz when I took Russian in high school!

Your high school offered Russian??? All mine offered was Spanish and French. I was mad as I wanted to take Latin.

Ripple effect too. I grew up in the twin ports and railroad, ore docks, shipping were all affected. Great pic 160. Had similar clothes in our house too

Not until my senior year. I wish I had four years of it. I did pretty well with it. I downloaded Babbel and I tried but it’s harder when you’re older…

I was tapped out with a C- in English so I saw no sense in trying to fail in another language.