For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for June 08, 2024

And the publicity should drum up additional business for the garage. Gordo, you owe Mike BIG time!!

Rightly said Gord, rightly said…

In Canada, is a donation to the local museum usable as a tax write off?

Gordon is perhaps the character I most admire in this comic. A most sensible person.

My first outing as a PR writer was for the local ham radio club. We had just been awarded a club call sign that had been that of a deceased member who had been a doctor at a famous clinic.

I researched him, read his obituary in the newspaper files, and write something. But it seemed too short. So I interviewed some of his friends and his widow. Turned in a press release one and a half pages long, filled with info and pithy anecdotes. Then, I waited for the article to appear in the paper.

This is what they printed. (I have it memorized.) “The FCC has awarded the call sign of W____ to the R_____ Amateur Radio Club. The call sign had been that of Dr. C_______ W______, who had been a consultant at the M___ C_____.”

In panel #3, Mike looks like a homeless guy on my block.

Wise man, Gordo.

“Dearest Diary: What a fortuitous joy to discover that folks for hundreds of kilometers around Milborough have flocked to Gordo’s Garage to fight for the treasures in his backyard! Yes, junk dealers and antique shops are willing to pay FAR above asking price for rotting artifacts, because Gordo has the approval of my parents and the benefit of my friendship. Museums far and wide were clamoring for the hidden delights, masked by layers of dirt, dead leaves and Inca ruin-type vegetation…. Because museums ALWAYS have the deep pockets and large budgets necessary to acquire the forgotten nuggets of Canadian history that have been dragged from the prairie and shuttered in backyards all over the Great Lakes region! Dame Fortune has dropped her riches on me and my friends once again. I’m sure that Gordo will now have the funds necessary to build a shining new store-front… with my parents’ help, and not to mention my own brilliant literary prose, of course… even if I did have to endure the indignation of having my thoughtful and insightful musings truncated and mutilated for the average Canadian reader. Still…. Perhaps Gordo will drop me 50% as a ‘discoverer fee’? After all, if it wasn’t for us Pattersons, Gordo would still be hiding in our garage and falling off the porch. So, onward and upward! Hail, Dame Fortune! – Faithfully submitted, Michael Patterson, Esq, GJA (genius journalist-author)”

“Don’t knock the opportunity”. To sell off junk, perhaps. To lock one’s self early on in life to a business that leaves little or no time to enjoy life in general, perhaps not.

Very wise.

Thus began Gordon’s new business venture with John: Running a junkyard. They’ll call it ‘Patter & Son’.

John: “Gordon, you big hoser!”

I guess that spinoff of Sanford and Son won’t be happening

Take the “bull by the horn” and go for it.

Gordon is smart beyond his years. Also, a very nice young man

Gord is wise beyond his years.

Amazing! No snarky comments (so far) from our usual critics.

Wise words, Gord!

I just love FBOFW. Moments like this are why.

I don’t know quite what’s being said here. A start of what? What’s Mike’s wish? What opportunity?

Gordon and Mike walking and hugging like Gordon and Tracey used to do. Pink handkerchief on the left side. Subtle Lynn Johnston. When opportunity knocks, don’t knock the opportunity. Well said Gordon. Don’t need that 5th panel to know what happens next.

Friends helping friends. It doesn’t get much better than that.

Gordo is learning more running his business than Mike is in college.

Gordo… the smartest one of the bunch.

Lynn Johnston said that Gordon was the non-Patterson character whom she received the most hate-mail about. I would have thought that honor was for Anthony…

Gordon does not understand that there is no such concept as the Canadian Dream.

Gordon has wisdom well beyond his years.

Well said, Gordon.

I hope he got something from the museum.

Or this for a future strip….

Michael is in jail. Rhetta is visiting with two small children

Guard: Mrs. Patterson? Sign the log, please.

Something catches Rhetta’s eye

Name of Inmate: Michael Patterson

Name of Visitor: Martha McRae

Visitor’s center. Pattersons are at a table. Michael is scruffy and long-haired, now wearing a prison uniform<i/i>

Rhetta: I saw her, Michael.

Michael: Saw who?

Rhetta: I saw her name in the log book. You want her to come to visit you? Good. Then let Martha McRae sneak this crud in for you every week! Rhetta pulls some food out of her jacket and flings it angrily on the table Let Martha McRae stay up all night crying and writing letters to the Crown. Let Martha McRae smuggle this in! Rhetta holds a plastic bag of pills and dangles it out of Michael’s reach Let her do it, Michael!!

Michael: Rhetta! Stop it! You are making a scene. I am in jail. I can’t stop people from coming to see me.

Rhetta breaks down crying

Rhetta: Nobody is helping me, Michael. I am all alone. Lawrence has HIV. Gordon and Tracey are broke. I went to see your friend Brian about the money he owes you and you know what he said? He told me to take the kids down to the police station and get on welfare!

Michael: That is what happens when you go away. Now look, I know a guy from Montreal and he struck a deal with me that when I get out we will start bringing guns into Canada from the US.

Rhetta: I am scared, Michael. What if John finds out?

Michael: Forget John! Is he helping you? Is he putting any food on your table? Of course not, you are not a sports car. Right now, we just have to trust each other.

Rhetta: I don’t want to hear her name again, Michael.

Wise words from Gordo!

One mans trash is another mans treasure, good friends last forever.

when he says they ‘took’ most of it, did they ‘TAKE’ it or PAY for it ?

Gordon is learning much about how the world works through his business. This is making Michael’s time at college look like Darkest Africa.

Who got the Esso Tiger Suit?(Tiger In Your Tank)

I’m telling you folks, Gordo is the King !