For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for February 28, 2023

cowabunga, April

Unsupervised again.

Creative isn’t she?

You know when I first seen the first two panels I thought April was trying to learn to be potty trained, except Liz forgot to tell her she needed to pull down her pants first!

Clever,very clever

In my childhood, we were never supervised. We learn a ot of life lessons ans what to do and what NOT to do. Unsupervised pay is necessary for a child’s growth. But, they DO need upervision, but not when they play. BTW, who says a parent is not just outside the ine of vision? Quit being a “Debbie Downer”.

As kids we had the entire mountain range and most all of the deserts as our playground. We didn’t have street lights so we had to be home before total dark. Twilight was OK. Since we ranged anywhere from 1 to 50 miles from home, sometimes it came close.At 16 years old I convinced my parents to let me spend a month in the Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho solo. 33 days of bliss!

Tupperware to the rescue!

As long as it isn’t made of glass (growing up, ours were)…

Fit check. :-)

April, just don’t use a “non-chloric, silicon-based kitchen lubricant” on that dish or you will end up like Clark W. Griswold.

Perfect fit (for the task at hand).

Mom looks around… “Anyone seen April?”.

Hope it’s plastic, April.

April invented Wok Racing :D

Next, she attaches skiis

The only time I had much fun or even learned anything was when Mom was watching her “stories.”

The comics about April are by far my least favorite.

A creative use of the mixing bowl.

Makes me think of Cyndi Lauper’s hit, “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!”

Fifth panel: April is whining that it is stuck to her rear like a shell on a turtle. Elly and Elizabeth are struggling to get the dish off.

as a kid in georgia, it snowed about an inch once, schools were cancelled, nobody could handle the disaster, but kids hit the hills with all manner of contrived snow sliding equipment. cookie sheets were popular.

Kids don’t need sophisticated toys ro have fun. They create fun out of anything.

Clever lass! You could also use a baking sheet (I did).

As a kid, I used to use old metal bread pans to make snow bricks for a snow fort. That was fun. It made the walls perfectly flat.

Eight decades on my memories of my first decade is remembered fondly. An existence in a small town, traditional family environment, free range kid, softball diamond in the back yard that opened up to an open field, a fishing hole a short bike ride away – all that did exist, but along side people dying of diseases now curable, realizing my parents worked at terribly hard physical labor, the existence of a different and darker world outside my sheltered existence. Just trying to establish a little perspective that the 40’s and 50’s were not a free ride for so many. It does seem to me, tho, that there was a greater effort to be respectful of your fellow man in the public discourse.

April is smarty little girl.

So, is this another strip pulled from the future to fill in the current timing of the current story? Because there is no way this is the behavior of a 3 year old.

Whatever works…

Improvising.

Whose turn was it this time to watch her? At least she found something fun to do while she is on her own. Hopefully she won’t get hurt but she definitely will be cold when she is finished since she isn’t dressed for being outside!!!

So cute!

In college remember people stealing lunch trays from the cafeteria on the rare occasion we got a snowfall deep enough to sled upon.