For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for March 22, 2018

Um… Michael, you weren’t born yet then.

Dang it Elly! You should have thought of that! Just don’t advertise your past and Michael will have nothing to be embarrassed about.

I think I missed that time when everybody played guitar and sang peace songs in front of other people at coffee houses. Was this the famous Friedenslied-Gitarren-Kaffeehaus movement I have heard so much about that was popular in Canada in the 1960s?

Yes, Michael, it’s all about you, always. Even when you haven’t been born yet.

You already earned one flapping Michael, are you bucking for another? Why don’t you go to bed and let the grownups talk? Brat!

Other people’s lives aren’t about you. Learn it while you’re young.

There’ll come a day, young man. (Just ask my son. ♥)

How about a fat ear, kid??

Has Elly ever been seen playing guitar? She could play a song right now, such as:

“Michael, row the boat ashore, alleluia.”

“Michael, don’t be self-centered, alleluia.”

“Michael, join the human race, al-lay-loo-hoo-hoo-ya!”

Let’s all remember (spoiler alert) that Michael grows up to be a decent person. His folks must have done something right.

Lynn’s Notes:

This is true. There was a coffee house on Davie Street in Vancouver where I tried to be a folk singer! Many of us did. In the 60s, music and entertainment were everywhere. If you could sing and strum a guitar, there was always a place where you could play—for free. One night at The Bunkhouse, I opened for Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. I was awful and they were very kind. My career, thankfully, went in another direction!

Wow I had no idea Elly was a pot smoking coffee house hippy…Cool! LOL

All we are saying is GIVE PEAS A CHANCE

Elly — just don’t tell Mike that you weren’t wearing a bra at the time.

i noticed that sometime in the early 80’s that high schoolers stopped carrying and playing guitars (and other “folk” instruments) and took to Walkmans. They stopped playing music and just listened to others making it. i miss seeing and hearing people sitting around in a park or someplace making music just for the heck of it.

That is such a kid thing to say. I love this strip.

When my kids would bring their school friends around they would say "Dad ,PLEASE just don’t say anything!

Based on what Phil said, Elly obviously must have played this song at the coffeehouse:

This is the Army, Mr. Jones

No private rooms or telephones

You had your breakfast in bed before

But you will not have it here any more

This is the Army, Mr. Green

We like our barracks nice and clean

You hired a housemaid to clean your floor

But she is not what we paid for

Do what the bugler commands

He is in a unit; not in a band

This is the Army, Mr. Brown

You and your baby went to town

She had you worried, but this is war

So she won’t worry you any more

:)

Michael is from the “me, me, me” generation of thinking.

I heard Billy Joel’s daughter once begged him to stop singing while they were walking down the street together.

A perfect example of the arrogancy of youth.

People perform in coffeehouses today. It seems like all of the local shops have an open mike night.

Elly – remember that a mother’s (parent’s) first and most important job, once their child has become a teenager, is to embarrass that teenager at any and all opportunities!

I think it’s time to get that ol’ 6 string out of mothballs and get a’strummin’ again!