Darwin was right

Most of you probably already know of Charles Darwin and his famous theory about the evolution of the species but for those of you needing a memory jog due to aging synapses, it goes something like this.

He basically said that all of life is dependent upon what he called “natural selection,” which means that only the smartest and strongest of a species will survive. This process leaves only those best suited to survival to breed and better their kind.

In actual practice, it pretty much means that someone dumb enough to jump off a cliff to their death won’t be around to leave such inferior brain cells to another generation through subsequent breeding efforts. Of course, this does not factor in that that same person may not weed themselves out before procreating but you get the gist anyway.

Now I don't know if any of it is even true but back when Ol’ Dutch was growing up we had our kind of weeding out the inferior of the species. This took the form of riding bicycles without helmets, playing in the street, drinking from the garden hose, playing football without gear, shooting fireworks and BB guns at one another plus eating school cafeteria food.

Today if a person was to even suggest that kids do any of the above you would be met with protest signs, news reporters on overdrive harassing you, and Child Welfare acting.

But let me tell you something. Through trial and error, those of us who survived soon learned what to and what not to do to live with the least amount of pain in our lives. We still fell and got hurt but a little mercurochrome (aka Monkey Blood) applied by our mothers was enough to send us out seeking another adventure and injury to learn from.

Just the other day Ol’ Dutch saw an ad on the boob tube about the new Tide Pod container being child-proof. This is to get women to buy a more expensive bottle of the magic cleaning potion in hopes of preventing their little Johnny from eating some soap.

Which brought to mind my own experience of ingesting soap at an early age. It seems that Lil’ Dutch was prone to having a naughty mouth and my mother was not the type to put up with such shenanigans for too long. You see we did not have an extra corner to put me in for a time out like they do kids today, so she did the next best thing. She attempted to clean up my sassy mouth with Lifebuoy soap.

Many a time she applied her form of behavior change on Lil’ Dutch only later to find out that I actually liked the taste of it. You would think that would have stopped her from trying to cleanse me from unrighteous behavior, but I still recall the day she grabbed the dish soap and gave me a good snort right in the old kisser.

Now I don't know what kind that was, nor does it matter but it did the trick and from then on Ol’ Dutch became a model citizen of the household. And I learned then and there that soap in sufficient amounts and quality is not to be ingested. Hence, yes you got it, survival of the species had taken place.

I do realize we don't want to let kids eat Tide Pods but maybe if more of them had a taste of the green blobs at an early age, fewer of them would try the latest fad of ingesting them wholly and dying as teenagers. It's just a theory, of course.

You may find it interesting that Old Darwin himself died from heart issues after a rock-climbing expedition at the age of 74. This goes to prove his theory, albeit a tad late for him, to have avoided leaving progeny who will then later attempt the same feat and die all due to his very own theory about the survival of the species.

Kevin Kirkpatrick and his Yorkie, Cooper, fish, hunt, ATV or hike daily. His email is [email protected]. Additional news can be found at www.troutrepublic.com.