More Than a Month of Sundays: Browse The Strips

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Lynn's Comments: I think the idea for this one came more from my babysitting days than it did from our family. The people next door to us on 5th street had four little girls. They were sweet, well behaved kids, but the excuses they made to keep from going to bed were inventive, effective and unending. When one was down, another was up with a request or a need or a fear or SOMETHING! This was all so frustrating- both because my disciplinary skills were rudimentary and because Mrs. Benn always left chocolate cake in the fridge and I couldn't get to it until the kids were asleep. I always wondered how they could stay awake for so long when they were so tired...but I think we did the same thing to our babysitters... a rite of passage for the sitters and the sat!

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Lynn's Comments: I don't know who came up with this disgusting, yet satisfying little prank... my brother or me. I think I'll take the credit. Mom was a stickler, as I've said, for cleanliness. Long before the clinical admonishment to wash our hands as often as possible, Mom inspected our digits with surgical scrutiny. She once told me that her mother fired a maid because she said that making bread was a good way to clean her nails! Mom regularly washed walls, countertops, baseboards and knobs to make sure we were as germ free as possible. Naturally, it was our prerogative to return these surfaces to their germ-laden norm. The long socks we wore bore the remnants of rubber, road salt, floorboards and feet by day's end and smelled wonderfully wicked. I remember pulling up my dirty socks, rolling them down my leg and thinking, as the end popped off my foot, that it looked a lot like a fetid kind of hat. When these "hats" didn't do much for my dolls, I decided to put them on the doorknobs- to the great annoyance of mother, who refused to touch them, much less turn the handle. Her British admonishments were worth hearing. "Dreadful, dreadful, dreadful!" and "You miserable recalcitrant!" and "This is the very LIMIT!" made us giggle behind our hands. I look back at it all now and wonder how she put up with us... perhaps it's because, despite her militant need for order and discipline, she had a really good sense of humour.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Lynn's Comments: My dad was not into discipline and ran from having to do it. He delivered his style of direction with sarcasm and humour and more often than not, won the battle hands down. This exchange I remember clearly. On a rainy day, when the cure for boredom was war, Dad intervened with a raspberry and a smile leaving my brother and me in stitches. He was the one who taught us how to pratfall like the comedians in silent films. He could make farting noises with his hand cupped into his armpit and could whistle like the guys on the ferry dock, hauling in the lines. He could burp "God Save the Queen" and he showed us how to spit off the back porch without dribbling on our chins. Stuff like this other kids had to learn from each other. We were coached by the best. Mom probably knew about our alternate studies with Dad...if she did, she didn't let on. Dad might not have been a disciplinarian, but he sure knew how to get our attention and defuse a fight!

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Lynn's Comments: Heaven was lying on our living room couch, eating and watching TV. With the old wood and coal furnace, our house was always cold and the warm spot on the couch was something my brother and I fought over. Yes, we fought over the warm spot! So, once ensconced on the sofa, I hated to remove myself and lose that precious bit of heat! If Dad was the one to order you off the couch, you might be able to beg a few more moments of repose. An order from Mom, meant immediate compliance. In this strip, John uses the "ferocious" method of kid-removal. I used it, too. When all else fails, we parents often resort to animal behaviour. I stopped at taking them by the scruff of their necks with my teeth, however!

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Lynn's Comments: Like most kids, I believed that all the drudge work belonged to Mom...the repairs and the maintenance belonged to Dad and that I was there to be fed, clothed and endured. I hadn't ASKED to be born...and therefore I was a perpetual guest. Seems that my parents didn't order a princess when they brought me into the mix and I was soon expected to clean up my squalor, help with the dishes and generally make myself useful. I rebelled. I felt cruelly done by. I lay down on the floor and howled at the injustice of it all. Despite the hardship and the unfairness of it all - I do remember having a distinct sense of pride and satisfaction once a chore was done.

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Lynn's Comments: I hate ironing. I am not alone here...I can hear a cry rising from the masses - men and women alike screaming "I HATE IRONING!!!" And so, I don't do it - unless I absolutely have to. This means hanging stuff in the bathroom as I take a shower, hoping the steam will do the trick. I buy clothes that can be stuffed in a suitcase and worn immediately. I buy clothes with stripes to camouflage the wrinkles. I get a friend to do it. Anything to keep myself from having to handle that spitting, hissing demon in my laundry room that always seems to have some crud in it. You know...that "scale" or whatever it is that will spit out of those little steam holes onto your cherished garment and stain it permanently with some brown smudge, right at the crotch or some other really visible place. I hate ironing. Having said that, however...if I could iron the wrinkles out of my face, I would definitely change my tune. I would embrace that miserable device and use it daily - singing its praises to the end of the earth! But this is not possible. There is no iron for the wrinkles on my countenance... the fabric of my face must remain as nature decrees. I am au natural, gracefully declining in my retirement, accepting wrinkles with confidence and dignity. I can't iron my face, but the irony (iron-y?) is....... those #**!*% spots come anyway!!!

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Lynn's Comments: My dad, reading the paper while relaxing on the couch, is a classic image. Mom always read at the table where she could spread the sheets out evenly; Dad preferred to hold them up to the light. The snap and crackle of him flipping to the next page is a sound I can still hear clearly, recorded in some archive buried deep within my private mental files. It was nice to sit, warm against his side, and read the news with him. My knees on the cushions, my shoulder against his, we'd read together in silence. I learned to read at his fast pace and when it came to the "funny pages" we studied together the panels, the pranks, the precision that made us smile. Mom on the other hand did not like us to read over her shoulder. It bothered her to share what must have been a rare private time and, this, of course, offered me the opportunity to ruffle her feathers. I would climb the rung on her chair and read, with my chin on her arm until I could sense a sort of vibration...an electric exchange that happens between mom and kid that says "that's all I can take!" I knew I was pushing her buttons - the trick was to escape before she blew. Funny isn't it how little things drive folks crazy. My dad loved the company, my mom wanted to be left alone. Both of them loved to read, however - which impressed me greatly. I love to read now, because it meant so much to them.

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Lynn's Comments: My dad made up words to stories and songs all the time: "When shepherds washed their socks by night", "We three Kings of orient are trying to smoke a rubber cigar" and "round John virgin" were all part of our holiday hymns. Naturally, when I read to my brother, it behooved me (a good word at reindeer time) to change the words. Part of the game was in our having memorized the book or song sheet, so a funny alteration was a challenge and something of an expectation. Every so often I will see a youngster reading from memory, hardly looking at the words and these scenes come back to me. Thank goodness for memories.... and Christmas memories are some of the best!

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Lynn's Comments: When my dad went to the dump, we always wondered if he'd bring home more than he left there. The North Vancouver dump was about 6 miles from home, then a circuitous drive down a long dirt road. Going there was as exciting as anything we ever did on a weekend and my brother and I would fight for the front seat when we saw the folks pitching stuff into the back end of the car. A great chain link fence ran around the "nuisance grounds" and the "dump man" would meet us at the gate. He'd roll his cigarette into the side of his mouth and ask what we were bringing in. Then he'd direct us to the appropriate space in the compound and Dad would steer the old green Volvo into position for the drop. After we'd made our deposit, we were free to check out the scattered offerings hoping to find some treasure. The smell of wet paper, burning fabric and decay was not too bad - considering the fact that stuff here was FREE, so we happily climbed over the rubble on our quest for the perfect thing to rescue and take home. Our shoes took a beating, but all for a good cause. The dump man was cool. He didn't have a uniform, but he had a sort of military air. He enjoyed his place of authority and the fact that dad brought him a beer now and then improved our chances of getting out with something big! The score I remember most was the goose-neck lamp that dad found. It was a sort of greeny-grey....brass, I think, and not too badly scarred from the fire. The cord and plug looked good and Pop figured this was just the thing to go on his workbench downstairs. Mom, of course, was unimpressed and quietly told me later that she expected it would be gone in a fortnight - if she had anything to do with it. Advance to the year they sold their house and moved to Hope. The lamp went too. When our parents passed away, there in the basement on Dad's workbench was the goose-neck lamp. It had followed them for 40 years and was now an heirloom. The trouble with heirlooms is...the heirs have to decide what to do with them. Alan and I thought about taking it to the dump, but we couldn't. Alan is retired from teaching, now and has a workshop in his basement. He makes one-of-a-kind kayaks. He has a nice workbench where he cuts the wood and copper, which he carefully sets into the sides of his kayaks... and, illuminating the workbench, is the goose-neck lamp. Going to the dump has lost its luster for us now, but our memory of Dad's "hunt for treasure" and the goose-neck lamp still remains!