Elizabeth: Browse The Strips

Sunday October 30, 2022

Lynn's Comments: In Lynn Lake, Manitoba (where we lived for six years), there was a Halloween tradition called, "Trick or Drinking." Lynn Lake was a tiny town. You could walk from one end to the other in about half an hour, so you could visit a friend, drink your fill and not have to worry about driving home. "Trick or drinking" happened after the kids were done with their rounds and had gone to bed. It was a time for the grown-ups to have some fun by dressing up, going to a friend's house and demanding a drink. If the host couldn't figure out who you were, they still had to invite you in, give you a drink and then wait until the next morning to find out who had been in the house! One Halloween, a gorilla walked into our house and demanded a drink. I gave him a beer and watched as he worked it into his head. No matter what we said or how hard we tried, we couldn't determine the gorilla's identity. Around noon the next day, we found out it had been the bank manager—one of the shyest and most unlikely pranksters in town! This just goes to show you that a costume not only changes the way you look, but can change your personality as well.

Sunday November 6, 2022

Lynn's Comments: A neighbour in Lynn Lake used to take in foster children. She had just accepted a little boy who had been left in a backyard. His mother knew that the people who lived there would feed him. She had left him there before. Charlotte asked me if I wanted to see a truly malnourished baby. This little one had an enlarged tummy and all the features of a starving Third World child. She told me he had to have a cookie in each hand before he could go to sleep, and that he constantly hid food in his clothing, so she always had to check the pockets and cuffs of his pants. He hid food in his bedclothes and around the house. He was like a little squirrel: making sure he would have something to eat, making a cache, preparing for winter. With this in mind, I did this drawing...knowing that my own children were lucky to be safe and cared for and fed and loved.

Saturday December 10, 2022

Lynn's Comments: When I later came up with the "rescue" storyline where Elizabeth is threatened by a co-worker at the garden centre where she is working, I had forgotten about this bit of foreshadowing. People criticized me for keeping all the characters in play this way, but I also wanted to avoid having too many new characters as well. You can't win!