For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for June 21, 2016

When my father re-married, luckily my stepsisters were already on their own after their mother moved into the house I grew up in. That was only a few years until she and Dad moved into a house in another town to be near the girls; I moved a while later to the same town, but into my own place.

“Of course you don’t have to live here. We have a nice back yard where you can pitch a tent…”

I’m sort of a “one-place” person. My wife on the other hand lived thirty different places before she was sixteen. She sort of liked it; but her older sister didn’t like it at all.

next week will be my 3rd move in 25 yrs. 12 at one place, 13 at the place i am now. I wonder how long I’ll be at the next? I hate moving…..

My wife and I were rootless as children; she was an “army brat” and my father installed navigational aids for the FAA. My birth certificate lists our residence as the Colma Motel. I attended fourth grade in three schools. For kids, anything can be normal.

I and my sisters, too, grew up as military “brats”. Stopped moving when Dad retired, parents and youngest sister moved across the state halfway through her high school years. She had been in the same place for six years – the longest of any of us kids while living with the parents. She never recovered from that move. She felt parents didn’t care about her to uproot and move her from the place she had made home. A most promising child had a tragic end.

Actually, I kind of feel for those girls. They’re old enough to have made a social life for themselves and they’ve been uprooted with no say in the matter. They’re quite powerless so are fighting back in the only way available to them – dumb resistance. We all know that eventually they’ll settle into new schools and make new friends, but in the meantime treat them sympathetically.

We moved between my Junior and Senior year. That was hard.

If he had not be transferred, it would have been very stupid to move before they were out of High School, then they could make their own choice.

As a military brat I moved a lot. When Dad got orders we would study our home to be, disgaurd items not to be moved with us, get real “dogtags” so our bodies could be identified, and if unlucky receive inoculations for numurios diseases I never heard of or only read of in history class. Mom and Dad made the move an adventure. We moved to a Base filled with brats of all ages. I would hit the ground running and make new friends, very occationally meeting an old comrade, and fit in. I married a brat I met in colege, and we have lived in the same town for forty years raising two sons who had life long friends. I envy them but know they missed growing up as citizens of the world.

I have always been kind of a gypsy – traveling a lot and in my early years never staying in one place more than 2 years. Even living in one town or city, I moved around.

Later, I kept one specific place as home base – Arizona for over 20 years and Florida for another for 15 years. Work took me all over the world during that time, often for extended periods. Still, it was nice to have a home to return to.

Funny, my Mom & Dad lived in the same home they’d built, for their entired married lives. I could never imagine living, as my Mom did, in the same house for 63 years.

It’s hard, but Dad needs to step up and take care of the problem — it’s only too easy for them to blame their unhappiness on Connie and then NOTHING will get solved. Too many dads do not give the stepmother enough support.

These snotty children are my new favorite characters!

Does the other girl know how to talk?

@NYB. Careful, you may be in for some pithy replies!