Elly: Browse The Strips

Saturday July 28, 2018

Lynn's Comments: My first husband had Phil’s philosophy. We saved and saved for the down payment on a house and when we were ready to buy, he suddenly wanted to spend it on a sailboat. We bought the house.

Sunday July 29, 2018

Lynn's Comments: My partner hates to shop for clothing. If I am lucky enough to steer him into a men’s wear store, I have to be careful not to be too enthusiastic, too desperate or too demanding. A few weeks ago, we were successfully collecting things for him to wear on a Mexican vacation. Miserable, he had tried on shorts, shirts and two pairs of light pants. Some of these were going to work!

As I waited outside the changing room, I could hear him mumbling about the music. It was the awful boomf-boomf you hear everywhere; the kind with a wailing auto-tuned voice and repeated lyrics, repeated percussion. Suddenly, he burst out of the cubicle and sprinted for the exit door. I ran after him with the clothing and he told me to leave it all behind. "What’s wrong?" I hollered as he headed for the car. "I can't stand the music any longer!" he cried. "It’s driving me crazy!"

It had been driving me crazy, too. As we drove away without our purchase, I wondered who in the world chooses that awful music, and if anyone had done a study on the economic loss to retail shops, bars and restaurants since this stuff began to "stream"!

Tuesday July 31, 2018

Lynn's Comments: We once bought a house that had been lived in by lady who had cats. After a year of cleaning and painting, we had to remove the drywall to get the smell out of the bathroom.

Saturday August 4, 2018

Lynn's Comments: When I cleaned out my mother’s house, the downstairs was filled with cooking magazines, plastic containers and canning jars. "You never know when these things will come in handy!"

Saturday August 11, 2018

Lynn's Comments: When I was a child, I looked at many things as if they were animate objects. Drawer pulls, for example looked like smiles. A bathtub faucet and handles could look like a face with a long curved nose. A radio dial looked like a smile with many teeth. Houses, to me, had personalities, and some, like this one, even had a "face."

Sunday August 12, 2018

Lynn's Comments: My mother had a garbage philosophy: "Put one human being in a house for one hour and there will be garbage." I think she was right.

Tuesday August 14, 2018

Lynn's Comments: In panel 3, if you check out the way Elly’s hair bunches up at the back of her neck it looks like an ampersand. It interferes with the word "an" —as if it was the word "and." When I saw this strip in the paper, I realized I'd forgotten to white out the error and redraw her hair!

Friday August 17, 2018

Lynn's Comments: When I read this stuff, I can hear myself lecturing my kids. I can also hear my folks lecturing me. My grandkids aren't old enough for this kind of lecture, but it will come. Oh yes, it will come. We parents all sound exactly the same!

Sunday August 19, 2018

Lynn's Comments: I know the kids today are wearing a lot more than shorts and a helmet when learning to ride a skateboard. We've tried many times to bring the strip up to date by adding seat belts and helmets, and removing sexist remarks and cigarettes. I thought about adding kneepads to Elizabeth’s gear here, but then there would be no gag.

I know I will get comments, so let’s add another family truth to this: Elizabeth has knee and elbow pads and has been told to use them. It’s just too much trouble to do so, however, and now she is learning a good lesson about safety and protection. And the ice cream is not her favourite flavour.

Sunday August 26, 2018

Lynn's Comments: Ahhhh, 39. It seems so long ago. A friend of mine has just turned 40 and I told her that she is beginning the best years of her life: "You're mature and confident, you've found your career, your children are old enough to feed themselves, you're still young and active and you still recognize yourself in the mirror!" Yes, 39 was a great year, turning 40 is fine, too…and you have 10 years until the dreaded 5-0. Amazing how quickly those 10 years will fly by!

Monday September 3, 2018

Lynn's Comments: I once had to write a letter of apology to a girl whose finger I broke. We'd had a bad fight. She pulled a chunk of hair out of my head and I twisted her finger. It was a difficult few words to write. About 6 months ago, she and I met at the funeral of a mutual friend. It had been over 65 years since the incident…but it was the first thing we both had to talk about! Isn't it amazing how situations like this carve themselves into our memories. The apology, though hard to make, allowed us to maintain a friendship. We are both now in our 70s.

Saturday September 8, 2018

Lynn's Comments: A fun story: One year, my husband and I flew out to Santa Rosa, California to visit Charles and Jeannie Schulz. "Sparky" was proud of his home and he asked us to come and walk about his property with him. I just had flats to wear, so he said I could borrow a pair of his sneakers. To make them fit, he stuffed the toes with Kleenex and off we went. There was a thick wooded area, a pond and a scenic ridge to walk along and we were gone for over an hour. When we got back to the house, I said to my hero, the creator of Peanuts, “Guess what, Sparky. I've walked a mile in your shoes!”

Sunday September 9, 2018

Lynn's Comments: You can't do strips about a dog if you've never had a dog. It’s just not possible. Farley was a load of work, but he provided me with a load of laughs!

Sunday September 23, 2018

Lynn's Comments: Stuff that really happened was fun to write about and comforting to share. When this strip appeared, I got mail from folks who said that what happened in our bedroom, happened in theirs, too.