Michael: 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!

Monday, October 4, 2010

Lynn's Comments: When Farley came to live with us, my thinking was "leftovers disposal unit" but my husband had other ideas. A dog was not to be used for recycling; he was to eat foods naturally consumed in the wild. This meant regular trips to a mink farm to retrieve freshly ground and frozen meat by-products. This unpleasant stuff was then mixed with a special kibble, which Farley ate without relish. Whenever I could get away with it, I'd break down and slip him a treat...ham, beef with gravy, you know, the GOOD stuff. Eventually, I discovered that my husband was doing the same and once he had tasted people food, Farley held out for the goods. He became a little choosy - and I didn't blame him one bit!

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Lynn's Comments: When this strip originally ran, folks asked "What in the world is a GARBURETOR?" Well, in Canada, that's what we called a garbage disposal installed in the sink. I was told it was called "insinkerator" and a variety of other things, but I was not about to change a Canadianism and so the word stayed. Whatever it's called, I have never owned one. The dog and I took care of the leftovers.

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.

Monday, October 11, 2010

Lynn's Comments: Elementary school relationships were intense and serious. A "best friend" was validation that you had worth. Best friends gave you confidence, security and status. There was serious competition here and if a third person came onto the scene- the change in chemistry could be explosive. The old adage "three's a crowd" is never more true than in early grade school. I remember adding a new friend simply because I was offered the opportunity to use a bike or share some candy. I bought into others' friendships, too when I had stuff to share. Allegiances morphed, changed and regrouped according to the mood of the day, but the "best friend" was always at the centre of the relationship.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Lynn's Comments: Gordon was a year ahead of Mike and Lawrence when they met, but a slow learning curve and troubles at home made school work difficult. He was later moved back a year, giving him a chance to catch up. Easy going and non confrontational, Gordon was likeable. He was the kind of kid who always saw the bright side. He could make the best out of a tough situation. He was a survivor.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Lynn's Comments: Kids can accept an intrusion, but if the "best friends" status is threatened, it's serious. Sharing toys and time, games and secrets makes your connection intimate. Nothing is trivial when you're a kid- it's all about relationships. From Kindergarten until grade school I hung out with a girl called Arlene. She was my best friend until Caroline was around, and then Caroline took my place. When Caroline was around I became the odd number three. I lived with the knowledge that I wasn't Arlene's favourite and it was OK. Still I wished I had a VERY best friend and when Lucia Messina's family came from Sicily and moved across the street, she and I formed a bond that lasts to this day!

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!

Monday, October 18, 2010

Lynn's Comments: Deciding what we were going to be on Hallowe'en was always a challenge. Everything depended on what was cool, what could be made out of found materials and what would survive in the rain. Vancouver weather was a factor in all outdoor activities, but nothing could keep us from our quest to score the most loot possible on the 31st of October. Ours was a neighbourhood rich with pickings. Lower middle class, mostly new immigrants and Canadians "home from the war"; the folks around us were generous, kind and imaginative. All you needed was a costume, a pillow case and energy to run up and down the steep hills of the North Shore.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Lynn's Comments: My Mom could make anything. She was artistic and creative and like Dad, she loved theatre. Since our choices were endless, it was hard to come up with an idea ourselves. My brother and I would waffle from one thing to another until the last minute- but somehow, our parents would come up with the best costume ever and out we would go into the night- on our own. Hallowe'en was a safer time, then. At least it seemed to be!

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Lynn's Comments: The small school annex that housed our grades one and two classes was 3 blocks from home. I would often forget or lose things and Mom would make me trudge down 5th street to search for whatever it was that had been left behind. It was a short distance to go, but en route were several neat houses we had to check out, hedges with secret openings in them, dog houses, a corner store and a small vacant lot. It's no wonder we were often late coming home. It's no wonder that books, jackets, lunch pails and even socks would vanish on the way home! Mrs Hardacre really did exist. This was a salute to a memorable lady and a fine teacher- with an unusual name!

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Lynn's Comments: Like household chores, homework was approached with the cry of "Do I HAFTA???!!!" The more you rebel against a chore, the bigger it becomes. From time to time our folks would sit down and do our schoolwork with us and this made it fun. Once, over a long weekend, I had to find a bug, draw it, find out where it lived, what it ate and how it benefited the earth. I was in elementary school...and wondered how long it would take me to do this thing. As I recall, Dad and I spent an afternoon chasing down grasshoppers, learning about them and he even helped with the drawing. It was a big project for a little kid...but with Dad as my biology partner, the time went all too fast.

Friday, October 29, 2010

Lynn's Comments: My son, Aaron had a great cowboy costume- right down to the vest, chaps and 6-guns. He would get into this even if it wasn't Hallowe'en, bounce around the house as if he was on a horse and shoot everything in sight. We bought the hat, gun, Sheriff's star and plaid shirt in Winnipeg. I made the chaps, vest and neck scarf. He was just another kid until the outfit was on and then he turned into the wildest of the wild. This was his costume of choice until he grew out of it. This, too, I have preserved in an old trunk, waiting for someone else to make it come to life!

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!

Monday, November 1, 2010

Lynn's Comments: During the years when my children were very young, I did not have the option of going back to school, although I would have liked to. My life in a tiny remote mining town in northern Manitoba provided an education of another kind! The character "Elly" is not me. She is someone I MIGHT have been, given other circumstances. My real life wasn't nearly as plausible as Elly Patterson's. Putting myself in her position, I imagined what it would be like to have not accomplished my educational goals and in the soap opera of life, to be playing a minor supporting role. Aside from her identity as a loving, caring and competent mom, Elly was "Mrs. Doctor so and so"...and she wanted more.

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Lynn's Comments: My kids were born almost 5 years apart. When you have a little kid - one you can pick up and cart around...and one the size of a St. Bernard, the littlest always seems to get the most affection. Older kids sort of shrug off the hugs and wriggle out of cuddles, but they need them nonetheless. I guess the love wasn't being distributed evenly when Aaron asked this question and it really hit home. I put Katie down and gave him the biggest cuddle right then and there. A lesson well learned. He's almost 40, now and still not too big to hug!

Monday, November 8, 2010

Lynn's Comments: In Lynn Lake, all the kids played hockey. I was surprised when Aaron declared his interest in joining the juniors - he had never been interested in sports before. Because there were no sporting goods shops, we all relied on hand me downs and the Sears catalogue. The sports exchange happened in the church basement; you could tell it was happening as soon as you went in the door - just by the smell. Everyone was keen to get there early for the best pickings and if you were lucky, you could make a deal with a neighbor before the season began.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Lynn's Comments: My husband wasn't a hockey fan. He'd been a figure skater though and believed the exercise would be a good thing. Despite the availability of second hand gear, equipping a kid with uniform, gloves, padding and skates was expensive. I wanted to make sure my son was going to enjoy the sport and stick with it for awhile. Aaron did play for a few years - until the coaches became serious and really wanted to win. This is when the good players get to play and the kids who are there for the fun of it get to sit on the sidelines.

Friday, November 12, 2010

Lynn's Comments: In order to tie up the hockey scenario, I wrote this. Game over. Subject closed. There were no sidewalks in town and my kids never did roller skate. This is when the town of Milborough began to evolve. Lynn Lake, where we actually lived, was a northern mining town of about 1200 people. The next community of Leaf Rapids was 60 miles away and Thompson Manitoba was 300 miles of dirt road south from there. We were isolated. Our small Cessna aircraft was a regular every day vehicle as much as it was a luxury. We needed it for work: Rod went into the native communities one week out of every month and my work took me out of town quite often, too. We had a good airport, but the "sked" (scheduled flight) was expensive and often inconvenient. Not many people could relate to the actual life we lived, and so houses, streets, bridges, and the business district where "John Patterson" had his dental office began to take shape in my head .... and therefore, in "the strip".

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Lynn's Comments: If Katie had a tricycle, I don't remember it. The town was so small, there were few sidewalks and I wouldn't have let her go too far on her own. This is really an image from my own childhood. My brother had a tricycle to which he was welded. He was on it constantly and because we didn't own a car, mom trundled us to the corner store - she and I on foot with Alan on his trike. I remember having to wait for him as he sat and watched bugs on the sidewalk or stopped to check out a parked car. It was maddening. Likewise, he would pedal like crazy down the hills and we'd have to run after him. Balancing groceries and hollering at the top of her lungs, Mom would fly at breakneck speed down to the stop sign where she'd put herself between Alan and the busy intersection ahead. It wasn't until I had kids of my own that I realized how many times we'd put Mom's life in danger as she tried to protect ours!

Monday, November 15, 2010

Lynn's Comments: When Aaron was born, Farley the dog was well established as part of the family. Certainly my first introduction to "training" another living thing was the DOG, and from time to time, I clapped my hands and shouted "NO!" to both kid and canine. (I stopped at spraying the kid with water or using a choke chain). Aaron was crawling around the same time he was teething, so kibble and other Farley fare was readily available. When I discovered Aaron teething on a Milkbone and enjoying the grit on his gums, I happily allowed him to indulge. Milkbones, after all, didn't disintegrate into mush like other teething biscuits and it was cheap. The smell of it on the breath of both my charges didn't bother me in the least. Compared to some of the other odors emitted, this was "kissing sweet".

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Lynn's Comments: Farley the dog - in real life - had come from champion stock and had a list of names a yard long (aside from the names I called him). For a while, my first spouse and I belonged to the Old English Sheepdog Owner's Association. We attended shows, meetings and picnics and I did the heading for the monthly newsletter. We thought about breeding Farley and happily chatted to members about all the caveats involved. He was a beauty. Unfortunately it was discovered that he had mild hip dysplasia and we had to make other plans. I often wonder how life would have changed had we become more involved with the serious business side of dog ownership!

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Lynn's Comments: Michael needed a love interest and so Deanna Sobinski appeared. She was blonde, sweet, slender and smart and not too interested in his goofy attempts to get her attention. Her first name came from my friend Nancy Lawn's daughter, Deanna - a playmate of Kate's... and the name Sobinski was from an art school friend - whose first name, sadly, I forget! I liked the sound of these two names together. It was never my intention to have this relationship be rekindled in later years!

Friday, November 19, 2010

Lynn's Comments: I well remember how horrifying it was to reveal an elementary school crush. We would, of course, tell our best friends - who would then prove their loyalty (or not) by passing on the news. I don't think I was too upset when others found out who I liked...but I was always aware of those whose faces would go crimson, should the object of their affection be announced to a crowd. This was powerful ammo and could be used against an enemy just as easily as it was whispered to a friend. "I'll tell them you love GARRRRRYYYYY!!!!" could send a rival for the best seat in the theatre into a panic. The response of "NOOOOOO!" was like the winning chime on a slot machine and I'd wind up in the first row. I wasn't a mean kid, really ....just an observant one.

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Lynn's Comments: We did have detentions in elementary school, although they weren't for long. Usually it was a talking to and perhaps a note to take home to Mom. We also got homework. It was never much more than to read ahead in our "reader" - and, yes, I'm talking about "Dick and Jane" (which was a painful bore to those of us who were into The Wizard of Oz and other more challenging books!) Being born a kid was something I thought about a lot. Adults often treated us as if we didn't understand or were "too young" for things like...good explanations to good questions. We quickly separated the dismissive grownups from the cool ones and for these, we'd do our best. Always. Many years later, when I had kids of my own, remembering what it was like to wish I was grown up helped me as a cartoonist - and made me a much better Mom.

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.

Monday, November 22, 2010

Lynn's Comments: Aaron really did like his grade two teacher. Her name was Caroline Sadowska. She was smart and kind and strict. She stood up to the class clowns, the tricksters and the troublemakers and was always diplomatic in doing so. The school had suffered a fire and classes were being held temporarily in the Catholic Church basement... Aaron had been up to something and, exasperated, Miss Sadowska called me at home and asked me to meet her at the church, with Aaron in tow. I don't recall the misdeed or the sentence. I do remember thoroughly enjoying Miss Sadowska's methods of dealing with parents and kids and her infectious sense of humor. When our meeting was done and the culprit out of earshot, Carolyn and I agreed - in this small town, where people of like mind were sometimes hard to come by, we were destined to become great friends. "But, let's wait until he's in grade three" she said. "It would be hard to nail a kid whose mom was having coffee in my kitchen!" We waited and did become friends. Three years later Sheena Baker, another teacher of Aaron's, wrote a book called "There's a Worm in My Apple" and I illustrated it. The book's inception was due to my numerous interviews with her, at the school...regarding my son!

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Lynn's Comments: Mrs. Hardacre, as I've said, was a teacher in my elementary school. Kids said she was "hard as nails and gave us acres of work" but I liked her. The teachers who were both strict and fair had my attention and I worked hard for them. Walnut trees grew all around the school and "conkers" was a game we all played with walnuts tied to strings. The object of the game was to whack your opponent's walnut and try to break it. This resulted in everything from bruised knuckles to chipped teeth. I'm sure it's outlawed today - or played with heavy gloves and face shields, but in the 1950s we took risks. To compare Mrs. Hardacre to a walnut would have been reasonable, I think...but inside, she was very good stuff!

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Lynn's Comments: Aaron did play hockey for a few seasons. I enjoyed watching the games but wasn't one of the screamers. Some parents literally hollered themselves hoarse, while I quietly clapped and waved to the kids on the ice. I wasn't a passive observer, though. I got involved! One of the things I learned quickly was that junior hockey depends on the many volunteer hours required to coach, drive, billet, clothe and feed the teams. The job I enjoyed most was in the arena coffee shop, making hot dogs and burgers and serving coffee. It was fun to meet everyone, and it kept me busy. Sitting in the bleachers in a town where the winter temperatures went down to -50 Celsius could be chilling, and even though I spent my weekends in the coffee shop - I was warm!

Monday, November 29, 2010

Lynn's Comments: Across the lane from us lived the Klotz family. Liz was one of the neighbors I often had coffee with. She and her husband Tony had 3 adopted kids and fostered others, so their house was a busy, welcome retreat from the studio. When I put their name on Mike's hockey jersey, I waited for them to see it in the paper - but others saw it first and called to tell Liz. She was delighted, but wondered if this meant that her husband's small auto repair shop now had to sponsor a local team! From Liz I leaned how to let the small stuff go, to let kids enjoy the freedom to play without noticing the mess of toys and clutter. When it was -40 degrees outside, our homes became playgrounds and trying to keep up with the chaos was nearly impossible. Every mom became a block parent as we took turns being hostess to visiting kids and a support system for each other.