For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for December 20, 2023

No, he had to grow it. It started with stubble.

You went to college, Elly. You’ve see new froshs grow beard trying to look older and worldly. Your Mike is no exception.

Does Elly not understand how hair grows?

Baby is growing up, Elle.

Mothers and their sons.

With my mum, it’s the opposite. She hates when I get my hair cut again, as according to her, “it just starts to look nice again”. But I like it short and easy to manage. And my hair isn’t suitable to wear long any way, it gets thin and frizzy at some point and I have to wear it in a ponytail all the time to look presentable.

I worked as a technician while going to college. I grew a beard. My boss’s boss’s boss (a big shot) came to my station. “Is it frontier-days in your town?”No sir. “Then shave that GD thing off.”

I grew it back after graduating and getting a great job. After a few years I shave it off. The then new boss said “Man, grow your beard back, you look awful!”

Yet another story about suits, ties going to jeans, teeshirts.

they don’t have showers at that college?

how far is college?

No, Elly, Michael has looked like a doofus all his life.

I honestly wonder if she would feel less weird about it if Mike’s hair on his head was shorter.

I started my beard when I was about 22, and that summer went to the family cottage. My aunt took one look at me and said “Your Uncle Jack says you can borrow his razor before supper.” I replied, “Thanks, but I’m having supper in town tonight.” The beard was never mentioned again.

Ha ha

One of the first things each of my daughters did when they came home from college was a nice, warm shower with REAL water pressure. Apparently, dorm showers are pretty wimpy.

I really don’t think the moustache is an improvement…

Mothers REALLY don’t like beards.

I grew a beard during my last semester of college, just out of curiosity as to what it would look like. It was the first and only time I ever let it grow. I never had any intention of keeping it and did shave it off just before the graduation ceremony as I had always planned.

But boy was my mother nervous. She kept asking “When are you going to shave? When are you going to shave?”

“Eventually….” LOL!!!!!

Not bad for six weeks, but kind of sparse.

It could have been worse; he could have hardware all over his face instead of hair!

Oh, the horror of a mother. Elly, I feel that way when I look at my grandson!

You don’t make disparaging remarks about your grown child, Ellly! Be nice.

No, six weeks ago, he was clean-shaven. NOW he looks like that.

Young man just from college

Makes a great display

With some fancy adjective

Which he can hardly say

It can’t be found in Webster’s

And won’t be for a while

But everybody knows he’s only

Putting on the style

.

Oh! Putting on the agony/Putting on the style/That’s what all the young folks/Are doing all the while/And as I look around me/I’m very apt to smile/To see so many people/Putting on the style

Slowly but surely, Ellie. Now bring on Rhetta.

It could be worse, Elle…. Mike could have joined a rock band…

Michael is good for now. When he leaves the sheltered existence of academia and has to make it in the real world he will learn either the hard way or the easy way that we are judged by our appearance.

I didn’t want to spend everyday of my life cutting hair off of my face. I found a woman who loves men with beards and haven’t seen my chin in 45 years.

Every strip I’ve opened today has opened on yesterday’s date. What’s going on? Anybody else have this problem?

News Flash, Mike: You mother’s mouth is ALWAYS open!

Or it could be a funny:

John comes home and pats his dog on the head

John: Hi Farley!

John walks into the living room and pats his son on the head

John: Hi Farley!

They are a family. The Pattersons consist of John, Elly, Elizabeth, April and Cousin It.

Ugh. He looks like an anarchist. I love a well-groomed beard, but he just looks scruffy.

What difference does it make how he looked growing a beard at college Elly. Nobody who knows you is there.

Another proof today that Elly’s scream on Sunday was unwarranted. She already had seen him when she appeared in the door of his (non-messy) bedroom.

He’s auditioning for the part of Jesus in the school play

Mike time-traveled to the 1960s and liked what he saw.

Mike’s growth looks pretty good. Someone commented on his 19-year-old kid brother’s facial hair that it looked like a cat could lick it off — Mike’s is better than that!

No, Mike, you miss the point as usual. Your mother is not asking if you want to shave. She is telling you that you will, unless you want to eat elsewhere.

He looks like his uncle Phil

No, he looked terrible with an almost-beard for six weeks. Now he looks like someone with a manly beard growth. I could never get beyond almost-beard so I gave it up. :)

Michael looks like he joined the Dixie Mafia.