For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for February 25, 2020

John actually gets a string and tin cans? That’s rubbing his nose in it.

first driving license for a motorcycle and then a phone? Mike’s growing up so fast TOO FAST

Certainly Mike you may have a phone, if you’re willing to pay for it.

When we were kids, we used the tin cans and string. As I recall, they worked pretty well for us. That was one heck of a long time ago since we’re both Octogenarians now.

Dream on Mike.

ROFL! Now that’s a great prank! Or it was back in the 80s.

and the 50s

Today, he’d just buy the kid a cell phone.

This was definitely a 80s/90s thing getting that second landline defined your teenage status with friends and crushes. This would eventually start dying down when I really got into my teenage years because of cell phones.

This strip did not age well. These days everybody already has a cellphone.

so, were local calls free? Just asking, because in the UK when I was a kid, you had to pay for every call. I used to always wonder why, in American movies, kids had their own phones until someone told me they didn’t pay for the local calls.

When our phone system went down at work, I brought in a tin can and string for my desk. I inserted an old cell phone antenna into another tin can and presented it to the HR director as a “wireless” phone. Hilarity ensued…

Lynn’s Comments:

Things sure have changed since we all had land lines. I’m glad my kids were grown and on their own before the conundrum of “who gets a cell phone” was a bone of contention!

Is this strip an example of retro? I mean,who gets a landline anymore? (Anyone? Anyone?) LMAO right now!

My folks were happy to indulge me in having a TV for my room or a phone of my own or pretty much anything else I could afford. So, of course, I used their TV, Phone and all that. When they let me. …sigh

This reminds me of a classic Brady Bunch episode. Greg and Marcia (and probably the younger kids chiming in as well) begging to get their own phone upstairs. Papa Mike finally caved — but it was a pay phone (any millennials out there, don’t Google™ the term, actually talk to a boomer). Sadly, Mike and Carol got tired of the kids begging for dimes, so they relented.

Maybe a little off-subject here. But are there still such things as “local” and “long-distance” rates?

John sure loves to talk down to others.

Our house, which was built in the mid-1970s, has phone jacks in every room. Wonder if the people who own it next will know what they are.

installing a new landline? These are obviously old ones. I remembered when I got the newspaper, that April was born just after my daughter in the early 90’s, so that could be about right. I remember the strip going up to when Liz and Michael got married.

The advantage of the kid having a cell phone is when he misses curfew you can call the cell phone and demand “Where the heck are you?” instead of calling all his friends houses and waking up their parents trying to find him. And these days, you can probably track him down through the phone.

Sounds like a great idea, when are you going to get a job and get yourself one ? Our Money Tree is getting a Little Bare and Needs some Fertilizer. :-)

Ah the days of wanting your own phone line! Completely irrelevant now.

When you live in a rural area prone to power outages you need a land line. Cell sites need power and in rural areas they depend on generators for back up power. After 24 hours they start to go down one by one and soon no cell service. Land lines carry their own power in the line from the main switching center and can be switched to others in the power grid. Land line are a life line in rural America.

I have a “landline” because when I’m home my cell phone is always sitting somewhere else in the house, possibly being charged. It also has a much louder ring.

I know quite a few people that have land lines including myself and believe me I’m not some antiquated dude locked in the dark ages.

i still have a landline ( has no ld serv) and i have a cell; one to back up the other. there was another cominc last week or week before that also had a story about tin cans and string. there is aklways going to be something going on that takes us baby boomers back to our past.

An alternative, even for then, is that Mike has to pay for the line installation and the extra fee.

good one!! hahahaha!

This strip has not aged well. When it was published originally there were no cell phones. Michael is asking for a landline phone.