For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for July 09, 2020

Back when I worked a donation trailers for The Salvation Army before the program closed, my second-to-the-last and final stations were three bus rides away both ways. Parents had to take me on the weekend as the first back to and the final bus from weren’t operational on the weekends. At least the grocery store at which I’m currently employed is just a one-block’s walk from my apartment.

Sure, that’s why they worry about the bad neighborhood, liquor and the fact that you probably won’t get paid. It’s because they don’t care about you. Sheesh!

It’s the opposite, silly teenager, really, even for a teenage mike he’s a real jerk

Personally, getting away from my parents and off to the country and a new experience would have been absolute bliss when I was 15.

Look, Michael, you can’t work in the inner city. It’s not the Patterson way.

Uh Michael, it’s not too late. Keep looking.

Normal teenager

1. The hot dog stand is in a good area not bad. 2.bars are not restaurants which are sidebars often aren’t3.he didn’t know feona well before he does now4. He probably will get paid a small amount depending on how well he works from family even if it’s not mentioned in this comic

I lived on Hastings st. in Vancouver for a bit back in 82 and was stunned to find out that some of the old sleezy hotel watering holes were good paying union jobs, no kidding..lol

Helicopter parents…do you really want him to experience that for the first time after he leaves on his own?

Sometimes, no matter how you wiggle, the hook goes in. Get your boots on Michael. You’re going to learn a few new things and most of them have to do with the south end of animals.

It’s funny that he still hasn’t considered actually trying to find another job…like at the mall or something.

They are so sure Mike is not going to be paid for working on the relative’s farm. I would be embarrassed if I wanted ANYONE to do a job like that for me all summer and not pay them for the work.

This is 1991, when sex and drugs were rampant. The country was known as Cocainada. Michael’s parents probably want him in a less tempting environment. Then again, being on a farm they will have a moonshine still.

I remember when I was 17, my best friend & I loved to shoot pool, but we couldn’t go to the one near his home because you had to be 18. And they called themselves a “Billiard Academy”. On the Philly Main Line, by the way.

Three block walk to a bus stop from the poolhall??? I don’t think so! In the city, the buses stop at every block, just at the light…In the suburban division though, the busses run on collector streets only, so depending where their house is, he might have a three block walk to his own home.

Otherwise, the other description might be true…but still, John did invite Fiona to stay with them and “help” with April, so what he says now does sound hollow. No wonder Mike is upset, even if it is for his own reasons, not the ones John is enumerating…

Good idea to keep him away from a bad neighborhood and in the country. Then again, the Dixie Mafia operates in backwater areas.

The problem is…they DO care about you, that is why they will not let you work in a legal dump.

In “God’s Own Country,” (Not a comic strip), Gheorghe, the Romanian migrant worker, preferred to work in a smelly environment because he wanted to be near to his only true love.

In this strip, Michael might find the farm interesting if he found something which he loves in there. I know I am asking too much . . .

So let’s sing a song: “I know I ask perfection of a quite imperfect world and fool enough to think that’s what I’ll find.”

they care about him but just not in the way he wants them to care about him.

I’m beginning to wonder whether free farm labor wasn’t the original idea.

It’s not just about Martha, even if she is a big part of it. At the farm, he has to get up at the crack of dawn every day, he’s away from ALL his friends not just Martha, there probably isn’t a movie theatre or a shopping mall within 20 miles, he doesn’t have any male cousins to hang out with, they probably don’t even have cable, and he doesn’t even get to go home at the end of the day and sleep in his own bed.

Mike really is a typical teen, isn’t he?

But its a pool hall.

They care too much.

Why do I have a feeling there are going to be a lot of “Michael is a pig” remarks in the coming weeks?

I forget—does Michael ever mature a little bit?

When my kids asked why not I said because I love you too much. That was the end of it.

At Michael’s age, I got my first real job at the McDonald’s on Robson Street in Vancouver. I worked the evening shift (5pm to midnight), and occasionally, I missed the last bus (this was in the early 1970’s). This meant that I (1) had to get a ride from another worker or maybe a junior manager; or (2) had to walk home (4+ hours distance). My parents NEVER drove me to or from work. I didn’t think “they don’t care about me.” I just thought that this was making responsible for myself, and they weren’t going to coddle me. They acted this way towards my older sister, too. My little brother, was treated like a baby, though I must admit he was someone you had to watch like a hawk, being autistic to a mild degree (they didn’t know what the matter was at the time.) Of course, all my experiences are from 20+ years prior to when this strip first ran, and parents were being pressed to control their kids a little more. :P

I’m thinking of a young man, a promise assumed and made by someone else; not ideology. Also regions of the country are not deciding factors.