For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for April 15, 2023

Or come home to do laundry either.

and they don’t move back home after majoring in philosophy

IMHO, Mike would be better off moving to London, England!!

Or better yet, the Middle East; he’d be twice as far away from his mother than the UK!!

London Canada, the wind swept vacation spot between Detroit and the snow place (Buffalo), having been born with a hermaphroditic condition I will play the pun; is he going to Middlesex College? All frivolity intended!

If I ever move to Canada, I’ll make sure it’s a quiet, mountain town

Unless the plant is a ‘couch potato’. They are known to call home for money quite often. In fact they even are inclined to move back home to the old couch that they loved.

Well the guest is more grounded for sure. Time to come out of the reality, Mrs Pattersons.

My daughter is fortunate; a number of her friends are going to be attending the same college she was accepted at!

In today’s economy, many will be back someday.

Ah… what quaint old days when kids actually moved out of their parents’ homes. Now, they’d rather stay indefinitely, playing video games or making TikTok videos… or if they do leave, many of them end up coming back home…..with their own kids in tow…

Connie is right, Ellie. College will be punctuated by frequent calls home for cash.

Actually a lot of kids “go away to college” at 18 but then discover they get homesick and come back.

At this time in 1994, Elly is intentionally elusive about whether London, Ontario means Western; but Lynn Johnston was not so coy in her campaigning to get an honorary degree from Western. When she did comic strips featuring the town of Thunder Bay, Ontario, she got an honorary degree from the university there (Lakehead) and she had previously gotten an honorary from McMaster University where she worked before becoming a cartoonist and she was anxious for another one. Western took the bait and promised her an honorary if Michael Patterson went there and promoted the university. Today, Lynn Johnston has an honorary from them and from the university where Elizabeth went to school. Oddly enough, sending Lawrence to Guelph did not get Lynn Johnston an honorary doctorate from them. She planned to send April there and Guelph made “Welcome to Guelph” advertisements featuring April, but the comic strip stopped before April actually got there, so no honorary from them. Sorry, Lynn.

Guelph! Had to look up the pronunciation for that one. – It’s not Gooey-lf but “Gwelf” from the Italian Guelfo, from the Bavarian Welf. It is a reference to the House of Welf, and was chosen to honor King George IV—the reigning British monarch at the time of the city’s founding

With my first job I saved up to get a car, then saved three months’ rent in an apartment, then moved away. Going back was unthinkable.

We left home too and didn’t give much thought to how our parents felt. It was such an exciting, invigorating time. The whole world at our feet, just waiting for us.

A bit of clumsy exposition here. They live in Ontario so there’s no need for Elly to add it when talking to Connie. It would be like telling my friends here in Fresno where I live that my son is going to college in “Palo Alto, California”. (no, unfortunately he isn’t)

J.K. Simmons: “At Farmers we know a thing or two because we’ve seen a thing or two.”

Elly{to Michael}: “You were supposed to be monitoring the sump pump, but no, you were sleeping!”

J.K. Simmons: “Seen it, covered it.”

Bronzed sump pump

Plaque: MICHAEL PATTERSON, SLEEPYHEAD

Jingle: “We are Farmers! Bum bum bum dum de dum!”

i live in Guelph :D

Today they don’t ever leave home. The let their parents support them forever. The sad thing is, the parents let them.

There are some kids who, despite everything, have life sending them back home, no matter what. Life keeps sending them back to the nest, back to the parents, one way or another for one reason or another.

Connie just doused Ellie’s analogy with Round Up. Better call a doctor and a good lawyer, now! ;-p

I remember when this first ran (still reading it in the paper – I think) it took me a long time to get my head around the idea that there was a London which wasn’t in England.

Education is important. If I had my way, only college graduates would be allowed to vote.

Even when I don’t have kids of my own, she has me in tears: “it’s like watching the seeds blown from a dandelion”. Maybe it’s the pediatrician in me missing my older kids. I am grateful for those who keep in touch and I see thriving as healthier adults.

Guelph??Do Hobbits live there?