daily: Browse The Strips

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Lynn's Comments: Mom worked full time at the jewelry shop on Lonsdale, but if either Alan or I was seriously down for the count, she'd drop everything and stay home. I was never closer to my mother than when I had a bad illness and she was there to take care of me. During the 50's we didn't get vaccines for the flu - we got the flu! The polio vaccine was newly available, diphtheria and whooping cough were also in decline, but mumps, measles, chicken pox and all kinds of other nasty bugs kept us in bed all too often. At these times, nothing was as soothing as having someone read to me. My mother read us wonderful stories from The Brothers Grimm to Rupert Bear, the Golden Books and Dickens. She read well, putting life and drama into everything. Sad to say that when my kids needed me at their bedsides, they preferred to watch television!

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Lynn's Comments: With Aaron in school and Katie in daycare, we were exposed to whatever was going around. Having the whole family grounded with some barking, feverish, miserable illness was par for the course. At least I didn't have to work outside the home. This was when my mother's penchant for home remedies was re-inflicted on my own progeny. I didn't resort to mustard plasters, but I did the Vapo Rub and the vaporizer and I used thermometers in both ends. Fortunately, the hospital was walking distance away and at least once a week we saw the doctors socially. We managed to pull through whatever came down the pipe (as they say) which makes me realize how lucky we are to be living today and not in the middle ages. If you didn't die then from the illness, you were likely to croak from the cure!

Friday, April 8, 2011

Lynn's Comments: There's no such thing as the whole family "coming down with" something - because one of us is always "UP"! As chief bottle washer, I remember cooking and carrying, flushing, wiping and running up and down the stairs, even though I belonged in the sack too. Funny thing, though; even if I'd had the luxury of live-in help I'd still have wanted to take care of everyone. I'd still have made soup, taken temperatures, wiped foreheads and watched them 'til they slept. Perhaps this is why I like hospitals. I actually like the smell and the bustle and the constant state of "need". I enjoy being with nurses and doctors and learning as much as I can about what makes us "tick". I have never minded being a patient and, some day if I'm ever too feeble to live on my own I won't resent being "put away!!" Maybe I'm practical or perhaps I'm just looking forward to being taken care of - guilt free!

Saturday, April 9, 2011

Lynn's Comments: Every woman I know has the ability to tough it out, even when they're sick. If someone needs you, the strength is there. You don't think twice, you just do what needs to be done. It's second nature. I had a dear friend whose husband was terribly ill. She looked after him night and day and when he was finally able to go back to work, she checked herself into the hospital and had surgery. She'd been suffering with a cyst on her ovary and hadn't let the pain register until her other fears were over. People will say they have never done anything outstanding, courageous or worthy of note, but examples of selflessness like this happen every day...and it makes the word "giving" really mean something.

Monday, April 11, 2011

Lynn's Comments: After I was divorced for the first time (wow, I never thought I'd be saying something like that) I lived in my small house in Dundas, learning how to raise a baby on my own. Aaron and I survived on my freelance artwork until I got a job doing graphics for a packaging firm in Hamilton. Money was tight and when my brother said he was moving to town and wanted to stay with me, I saw it as an opportunity for companionship, some help around the house and perhaps some extra cash. Alan was and still is a professional musician - a trumpet player. At the time, he was looking for work as an electrician while he scoped out possibilities in the Ontario music scene. I figured it would be an interesting time - if we had grown past the need to bicker!

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Lynn's Comments: Aaron was too young to know what was happening and I had already given away poor Farley the dog (Farley was jealous of the baby and was beginning to get rough with him). My brother was coming to stay and I had to find space. My house was a tiny two bedroom bungalow with no basement, so the plan was for Alan to live in the garage. It wasn't a great space, but it was winterized and the doors could be boarded over. I moved my car outside, cleaned and organized and made the garage as habitable as possible. It was going to be an experiment and we both hoped it would work out well.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Lynn's Comments: My brother's love life, at the time, was not complicated. In fact I think he was on the loose and happy to be free! He was leaving Vancouver and moving to Ontario, which overshadowed everything else. Later, when I wrote stories for FBorFW, I mixed up all kinds of things. Memories were used as resources and characters came from both my imagination and reality. Connie did not exist. Her character was based on someone real, but had morphed considerably. Her crush on Elly's brother, Phil, was just a fun idea and good fodder for the strip. I had no plans for where this relationship would lead - I let the story go where it wanted to go. In fact, Connie's loneliness came wholly from my own experience as a single mother - everything she said came from some painful places I needed to visit again.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Lynn's Comments: To go over the cast again: Connie lived across the street from Elly Patterson and Anne lived next door. Elly had a close personal relationship with both of these imaginary women - because all three were ME! Through Anne, I could explore the life I led as a woman whose husband had numerous affairs. It's easier to believe the excuses than to deal with the truth. Through Connie I relived my life as a single parent. Both characters had things to say, and it felt good to say them. In contrast, Elly's role in the strip was to play the humdrum, easygoing, happy housewife in between. Looking back at it now, I see this was something else I imagined!!

Friday, April 15, 2011

Lynn's Comments: This strip covers the sensitive topic of gossip. When is talking about someone a caring gesture and when is it mean? I confess that I am much better at keeping a secret now than when I was in my 30s. I was always aware of my friends' feelings and their right to privacy, but from time to time, the juiciness factor overshadowed my judgment and I'd tell. The spilling of the beans is always prefaced by "I don't want to be a gossip - and don't tell her I told you" but from time to time, the leak was discovered and the result was a real test of our friendship. I learned to say I was sorry, and I was. I regained their confidence and in return, I found out what they'd been saying about ME!

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Lynn's Comments: Back to live theatre. Both my son and I have "standup" in our genes. When it comes to storytelling, wild explanations, excuses and jokes, you can count on both of us to give it our improvised all. I recall sending Aaron to school when he was on death's doorstep. As he grudgingly dressed for school, I could tell he was wondering how I had uncovered his scam. He had hidden the hot water bottle well enough that it couldn't be connected to the high temperature he had, but I still sent him packing. How did I know? First of all, he played it too well. I detected a rehearsal. Second? The tap in the bathroom was still hot to the touch. The "heat the thermometer" trick was an old one...and had also been one of mine!

Monday, April 18, 2011

Lynn's Comments: I used to look forward to getting my report cards. I always knew what my marks would be: A in art and reading, and B in everything else but math and sports. In those I was lucky to get a pass. In the teacher's comment column, I could expect "Excellent work in the subjects she enjoys, does not apply herself in math and sports. Does not concentrate. Likes to be the class clown." I could predict the outcome of my efforts every time and was content with status quo. As long as I could count and make change, as long as I could skip and run and ride my bike well enough to keep in line with my chums, I was content with my educational prowess - much to the chagrin of my parents and teachers who tried to persuade me to do better. After all, if I was good at nothing else, I could always draw for a living!

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Lynn's Comments: Even though I drove them crazy, my teachers did like me. After I had pushed them to the breaking point, after I had been sent to the office, sentenced to detentions and made to take angry notes home, I always came around. I guess I had to test them as thoroughly as they tested us. My report cards, though not outstanding, were always pretty good and in amongst the admonishments re: math and sports there was always something nice. The best comment I can remember came from my grade four teacher George Stibbs, who said that I "made the class fun and interesting." This might have made me even more likely to clown around, but I grew to admire him too much to make him angry.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Lynn's Comments: My parents loved fantasy. When it came to things like tooth fairies and Santa and the Easter bunny, they went all out. At Easter, our tradition was the "bunny box". Dad would find a cardboard box at the store that was the right size and depth. He would cut it so that one long side was high, the other long side low and the two short ends were cut in an "S" shape to form a fancy display container. We would then decorate this with crepe paper, ribbons and anything else we thought would entice the "E.B." to leave us something special. It didn't matter if there was a dubious side to the story of a magic rabbit - the lure of chocolate and perhaps a small gift was enough to keep this tradition alive for years.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Lynn's Comments: My folks were ingenious at keeping the fantasy going. Both could concoct stories that kept us wide-eyed and gullible. Dad reasoned that rabbits were everywhere, but never seen - which was true. They certainly did a number on our garden. My mother, though eager to teach us everything about science and nature, went far beyond the old "as long as you believe, he exists" thing and asked us to prove the Easter Bunny did NOT exist...which, until we were at the skeptical age of eight, was pretty hard to do. The fact was that it was fun to believe and it was fun to prepare and there was always the fear that if the spell were broken, we'd have no chocolate at all!

Friday, April 22, 2011

Lynn's Comments: Tootie, our teenaged neighbor next door, had chickens which she raised as pets...and for experimentation. One spring, after corn soaked in food colouring failed to colour the eggs, she dyed the chicks instead. Like tiny wind-up toys, blue, pink, green and orange balls of fluff ran about the wire enclosure. Alan and I were thrilled with them and were at the coop every day until the colour wore off and their stubbly brown adult feathers started to grow in. One day, Tootie let us watch a hen lay an egg. We were both fascinated and appalled. "Is THAT where they come from?" we asked. It was our first introduction to the mystery of birth and we were keen to know more. Unwilling to tell us too much too soon, our parents explained that this was where birds came from - and as far as we were concerned, that was information enough. This was one truth that really was stranger than fiction!

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Lynn's Comments: Colouring eggs was one of the best things about Easter. Mom would boil up eggs, soak them briefly in vinegar to erode the shells and then set out dishes of dye for us to dip them in. The dye kit came with a small metal wand, looped at one end to hold an egg. If you were careful, you could dip one end of the egg in dye, turn it over and dip the other end in a different colour. Not one to do things without a flourish, Mom helped us draw on the eggs with white wax crayon which resisted the dye and left our doodles and designs the colour of the shell. We applied stickers and feathers and plastic eyeballs to our coloured eggs and when we were done, they were put in the fridge until Easter night, when the Easter bunny would hide them, along with chocolate and candy eggs as well. In the morning, after the hunt, we'd put them in the "bunny box". Already in the bunny box was a chocolate bunny for each of us, which we'd eat before breakfast - ears first. Alan and I found out where the eggs had come from (as demonstrated by Tootie's chickens) but this was no longer an issue. The magic and the fantasy always returned with flying colours!

Monday, April 25, 2011

Lynn's Comments: In 1973, Alan moved into my small house in Dundas and settled into the garage, which I'd tried to make as habitable as possible. Aaron, sensing a kindred spirit, was immediately on Al's lap and I could see I was immediately outnumbered. Over the years Alan came to visit often but this was the one time, after a deadly sibling rivalry, we arranged to try cohabitation once more. He moved what little he had into the garage and, as they say, we lived for awhile in "interesting times". I had also sublet Aaron's room to a geologist friend who was working on her master's thesis and who had offered to help pay the rent. The dynamics of the three of us under the same roof with a baby made us all get to know each other perhaps a little too well!

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Lynn's Comments: Alan's life hadn't really been this exciting. He had been working in construction while trying to get a music career off the ground and had moved to Ontario to see if the grass (yes) was greener in the east. Still, I was jealous of his freedom and his casual ways. I had become a mom and a homeowner who had little to live on, and I was determined to carry my own load. If I spent more than $20 a week on groceries, I'd be unable to pay the mortgage, which at the time was $147 a month. My friends who rented apartments and had no kids thought I was rich. This, of course, was far from the truth. Along with the mortgage came the taxes, repairs, maintenance and other bills - all of which meant that I was living at or below the poverty line. My friend Fran was renting a room, which helped a lot. She also took care of Aaron and did much of the cooking, but we were far from solvent. When Alan went out for groceries one day and came back with a few cases of beer, I knew that our living arrangement was going to come in for review.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Lynn's Comments: Jumping into the future, here, these strips come from our time in Lynn Lake when Alan came to visit. The stories in FBorFW were always a blurry mixture of then and now, of my own childhood then and the lives of my two young children now. In order to bring reality into the strip, I relied on every memory I had filed away. When I was writing about Michael, I would have to be the same age he was, thinking the way he did and behaving like a child. This is not to say that I ran about the house flailing my arms and refusing to eat cold peas. I would be in a trance, writing, talking to him, being him and talking back. Likewise, I would try and think the way my brother did: a bachelor, being crawled on by kids and expected to know something about family dynamics. Alan loved Aaron and Katie, but he was always keen to burrow into a book or fly the coop when the noise and the chaos got the best of him.

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Lynn's Comments: Our house in Lynn Lake was a large, three-bedroom split level home with a finished basement. This is the house the Pattersons lived in - but I had already established the outside of the house to look like the one I had in Dundas. The Dundas house was one level, so when the strip started to take shape and I wanted to keep some continuity I had to combine the two houses, which I did with difficulty. In the Dundas house, we'd have had to play musical beds. In the LL house, there was room to spare. Because it was more fun to have the kids vacate their space for Uncle Phil, I let the story go in this direction. Anyone really scrutinizing the floor plan of the Patterson house might have asked why - but there was still too little information to work with. And besides, once you start an idea, the deadlines force you to carry on no matter what! Having Uncle Phil take over Elizabeth's room would provide more opportunity for comedy, and I hoped the muse would bring me something funny to write about!

Friday, April 29, 2011

Lynn's Comments: Now, we shift back in time to when Alan lived in my garage. As a musician, his schedule was 24 hours on call. If he had a "gig" somewhere, he might come home around two in the morning, all enthused after a night of jazz or rock or whatever had been "going down". Trumpet players are often like freelance artists. You join a group that's looking for a horn player, practice for awhile and blend in. Al had regular performances, too. He played classical and Baroque and when he wasn't playing for an event, he practiced. It wasn't unusual after a performance for him to practice in the garage well into the morning hours, and if I asked him to lower the sound, he used his mouthpiece. This made a Donald Duck kind of "kwakking" sound - which was fine if you were awake and sensible, not so cool at the bewitching hour. We had a number of tense discussions about this and I think I won. I don't remember. You lose some of your faculties with the lack of sleep.

Saturday, April 30, 2011

Lynn's Comments: I think it's safe to say that a mother's morning starts around the crack of dawn. Aaron was always up and ready for breakfast around five a.m. My job in the graphics dept. at Standard Engravers began at eight, so I had time to get clothing organized, get lunches made and make sure the car would run before I dropped him at the daycare at 7:30. My kitchen door led into the garage where my brother lived and I tried to keep the noise down so I wouldn't disturb his sleep. There were times, though, when I thought about him blissfully slumbering, unencumbered by household chores, bosses and babies and it really ticked me off. I had never lived on my own. I never had the luxury of falling into an unmade bed at midnight after a night on the town, then spending the weekend doing whatever I darn well pleased. Like many girls in the 60s I got married at the tender age of twenty and moved from my parents' home to an apartment where I assumed the wifely role of "caring for my man". Now divorced with a child to care for, I imagined my brother's life to be ideal. It's funny now to talk to him about this time in his career and he remembers it differently. For him it was unsettling to be living in my garage without a steady job and something to show for his 26 years on the planet. He felt lost and lonely and wanted the stability I seemed to have. We thought we were communicating at the time, but we never said what we were really thinking.

Monday, May 2, 2011

Lynn's Comments: Living through Annie's pregnancy was a lot of fun. I got to talk to expectant moms about their experience and to remember my own. Looking at baby clothes is something we (ladies) all enjoy doing and I often wonder why some of the whimsical fabrics found in the children's shops couldn't be made into lines of adult clothing. Imagine an evening gown covered in tiny cartoons of anything from funny animals to funky flowers! Like Annie, the problem of swelling feet went along with the swelling tummy and once again, I heard from expectant readers who were glad to share their woes with their toes!

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Lynn's Comments: My friend Mary seemed to have a bun in the oven every year. When baby number seven was on the way, she sighed and said she wondered if this one would be the last. I assured her it was indeed the last one and she wondered how I knew. "Well", I said, "your husband was one of seven kids and he told me he wanted the same number of children, too". "He did, did he?" she replied in her sweet Irish accent..."Well, why the h*** didn't he tell ME?!!!" We always wonder what the future will hold when we're in the family way - but it all seems so right when we're holding our beautiful new baby!

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Lynn's Comments: Uncle Phil's relationship with Connie illustrated the single side of things and Connie's having a child nicely complicated everything. Naturally, Elly was intrigued by her brother's affairs. Because he was living in her home and dating her close friend she felt it was...let's say... "her responsibility" to find out what was going on. When my brother lived with me, however, I refused to ask him his personal life. I would wait until he confided in my other room mate, Fran...and worm the information out of her!

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Lynn's Comments: Elly's younger brother was a delightfully charming character whose flair for delivering a good opening line made doors open in all directions. I tried to imagine what Lawrence would think as he watched his mother flirt with uncle Phil. With his biological father out of the picture, Lawrence should have been the only man in her life. What would it be like to see his personal space invaded by someone else; someone who would be competing for his mother's affections?

Friday, May 6, 2011

Lynn's Comments: Never ask a kid a direct question unless you're prepared to hear an equally direct answer! When my grandfather read the comics page to me he would rail at the interaction between the Peanuts characters saying "Children don't talk like that! Children don't have such intellectual thoughts!" Privately, I disagreed with him. I might have been in first grade at the time, but I remember thinking "Of course we have those thoughts and ideas! We might not use the same words you do, but we're smarter than you think!"

Saturday, May 7, 2011

Lynn's Comments: When I was a single mom, I dated a man who sent my head spinning, then stopped the carousel, saying that because I was not of the same religion, I was not "forever". His family would never accept me and he was moving on. He was a serial "shiksa" man and I was number 61! In my machinations afterwards, I fantasized his return; his begging for forgiveness and his asking for another chance (fodder for a good song). This never happened to me...but in the strip, it happens to Connie. She readily accepts Phil's apology and for awhile their relationship goes on.

Monday, May 9, 2011

Lynn's Comments: My brother Alan has been playing the trumpet since he was about nine years old. He'd sit on the old blue couch in our folks' living room and, with unyielding dedication, practice until he was exhausted. We all admired his tenacity. Dad was a musician and taught me the guitar - so music was a way of life in our family. Eventually, Al's musical friends entered the picture. Our basement became a rehearsal hall, the kitchen a roost and the refrigerator emptied faster than a gut full of goose grease (a quote from Dad). Beer was never a staple in our family but it soon became the weekend libation of choice. Though drinking was never a problem, Mom's philosophy was; "If you can't stay sober, stay home!"

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Lynn's Comments: During the mid 70's when Alan wound up living in my garage, the quest for a cheap, clean apartment was ongoing. Everything from distance to parking to price thwarted his efforts and then there was the noise. Where could one practice the trumpet at midnight or two a.m. without being thrown out by heavyweights in the local Tenants' Rights Association? Despite his dreary existence in my garage, it provided him with cheap digs, a place to practice and a clear shot at the fridge, which was just inside the door. I wondered how long it would be before he found a more desirable location, all too aware that for now, at least... he had a pretty good deal!

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Lynn's Comments: Here was an opportunity to put myself in someone else's shoes. Never having been dealt the hand that Lawrence was playing, I tried to be a small boy, watching his mother becoming something unfamiliar. Mothers aren't supposed to date or worry about their appearance or have a social life beyond women friends, the kitchen and "ME!" It was challenging to be Connie - a single mom, hoping for another chance at love, not wanting to risk being hurt again, wondering if her child would be treated well by someone who was not his father. It was challenging as well to be her young son. When I wrote the dialogue for these people, I was in a different world. It was a surprisingly exhausting and emotional experience!