For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for July 08, 2020

Tractor, truck, swather, combine. Those are all expensive pieces of equipment. What is the likelihood that Uncle Dan is going to put Michael, who has never had a driver’s education course in his life, in charge of driving any of that agricultural equipment? It seems like a recipe for disaster. Well, at least it will be safer than working in a pool hall.

Michael sure is to have dull time at Dan’s.

Give it a rest. He’s a teenager being forced to do something he doesn’t want to do, so he’s going to be in a sulky mood about it. Nothing anyone says will change it, so just leave him alone and let him sulk. I’m not defending, I’m just saying trying to cheer him up is pointless.

Tell him there are some cute farm girls nearby.

Whole purpose for getting a job was to stay in town with his GF over the summer and not be sent out of town.

On a farm, one learns to drive all things as soon as one can reach the pedals. Mike will likely go to the farm all kinds of cranky and come home filled with accomplishment. Farming will do that to ya ; )

Mike has the right of it though. Many a budding relationship has been derailed by a ‘vacation’.

Kids used to do it all the time why do you think farmers had so many it was cheap labor

Not necessarily. Yes those are expensive pieces of equipment but Mike will be in wide open areas. Plenty of room to make driving mistakes. And Michael like most teenagers, doesn’t know how valuable this type of work and training is until after e becomes an adult.

Lynn’s Comments:

This is true. Most of the kids on the Manitoba farms could drive the farm machinery just as well as any adult by the time they were 15.

Love that “tap tappity tap” and “Whoopee” (purposely without an exclamation point) action to characterize Michael’s mood.

I would not be 15 again, with all it’s emotional ups and downs. Ups seemed higher, lows seemed lower. A nice 25 would do it.

Before you sell him to the farm owners, recommend you get his eyes checked. Michael is squinting in the first, second, and fourth panels. John is invited to get his eyes checked too. With his squinting in the fourth panel; looks like it is time for John to get a new prescription.

My uncle put me on a tractor pulling a disc. I took out 200 feet of fencing.

His gonads disagree…

Two story arcs diverge in a yellow wood. Michael meets a healthy, down-to-earth farm girl who can drive ag equipment or Michael meets a pool hall girl a lot older than he is who can rack a table. Looking forward to which arc we follow.

Sad to read the level of misinformation about pool halls. Is it from movies? I believe you are using that term to refer to a bar with pool tables. A pool hall such as those I’ve patronized typically is full of well behaved, often highly educated gentlemen and ladies, and liquor is not served.

Farms have moonshine stills. Michael can get a headstart on his career in writing. Drinking is a requirement for journalism.

One must also remember, this is set in 1991, when sex and drugs were rampant. The country was nearly renamed Cocainada. Michael’s parents probably want him in a less tempting environment, where he will have harmless moonshine.

He can only push your buttons if you let him.

I know it wasn’t her intention, but re-running these comics only seems to show that they were really lousy parents.

With the new subcompact tractors, all of my grandkids, who got to spend time on the farm, learned how to drive, use the loader and rototiller, etc. they loved it.