For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for June 16, 2023

Everything stays right where you left it.

Everything stays but it still changes.

Ever so slightly, daily and nightly.

In little ways, when everything stays.

Nothing is simple and everything changes. Including the person who’s wishing it won’t.

I went back home about ten years ago and drove up to the top of a hill on the north side of town. I had taken pictures of downtown from that hil and wanted to take another to show how it had changed. Couldn’t take a picture because the trees had grown so tall that you couldn’t see downtown from that hill any more.

Agricultural college in Ottawa? Why not the Ontario Agricultural College (OAC) of the University of Guelph? Is Lawrence going to Algonquin College? I don’t think Augustine College or University of Ottawa has Agriculture. There’s an Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and Hunting degree at Carleton University, but I don’t think that is what Lawrence is after. It’s too bad Lynn Johnston is not more specific or she could have gotten an honorary degree like she did for Michael going to Western in London, Ontario.

Which of you went farthest from home for college? I went 3,000 miles away from home for college and went the whole 4 years.

Maybe if Michael would like a home cooked meal now and then while he’s in college he can come by my place. I know college boys get hungry.

I would think that Michael would want to attend school in London, ENGLAND, and not London, CANADA!!

Too close to his short-tempered, domineering mother!!

“Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.”

It’s a far cry from today, where there is this tendency to live at home long after high school, doing nothing but sleeping, eating junk food, playing video games and being part of this under-40 bed-rot incel culture.

I remember when I came back from college, I saw the same people doing the same things.

We left Orlando pre-Disney. Returned post-Disney. It had definitely changed.

Wouldn’t it be nice to be 18 or 19 and setting off on a big adventure? I would jump at it, if I could know what I know now.

I’ve known a number of my children’s peers who moved away to college at 18 but got homesick and moved back. They’re still so young.

Unfortunately, Michael, things will change whether you want them to or not.

When I was leaving for the service, I was told you can never go home again – at the time I didn’t know what they meant – nothing changes yet everything changes – and when I went back, I discovered what they said was true…

I felt the same way when I left for school. I understand how Mike feels.

You can never go back home because it is no longer the same home you remember. My father retired from the Air Force after twenty years’ service and all of his school friends had different lives of their own.

Michael made friends who he will always remember and will always be around. Friends like Arnie, Dallas, Lorne, and Wesley D. Bates.

Will Michael look back and say “If only I studied harder in school?”

Understood. Back in university, we had a lecture in psych that was.. interesting. The question was “If any of us could go to the moon, would we?” Three out of 200+ whispered a tentative yeahmaybe. When asked how many of us would go if we could comeback… everybody signed up.

My experience is that every town I lived in got developed. There were no more empty space for kids to play on, just housing

Everything changes… nothing remains the same. Mike and his classmates will learn that soon.

Ah, yes, that’s exactly how I felt at that age. And for many ages much older. In fact, it’s still what I want to see when I visit the old stomping grounds, it’s just that I’m no longer able to delude myself into thinking I’ve got any call to expect it.

I left my home town 59 years ago, and have never regretted doing it. My wife and I live in a great small city and really like it here. As far as the home town, I believe it still is the most unfriendly place in Iowa.

Is Lynn Johnson getting ready to retire??

Agricultural College for Lawrence.Another important glimpse of the future.

No,Mike isn’t going to England.There’s a “London” in his backyard.

Also close to Toronto is an important Agriculture Bot anical garden in the suburb of Hamilton.

I always said that I lived in the town where I was born until I was old enough to figure out where I was, … then I left and never went back!

To a certain degree that was true. Although I’d return on occasion to visit my parents and family, I never returned to live there permanently from the time I spent my last two years of prep school in another state.

Ah… the thoughts of leaving the nest!

♪ ♫ This used to be my playground … ♫ ♪

Now there in the last panel, THAT’S the sentimentality Elly was talking about yesterday!

Whether it’s for college or just moving away in general, it’s hard to recognise your hometown when you go back for a visit and notice some changed things.

You can go home again, but it feels like someone changed all the locks.