For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for March 23, 2018

Both my father and mother are the youngest of their siblings; stepmother is the oldest of hers. All turned out all right.

A few comments:

1. In the first panel, the line “about my activism” was originally “about the 60s” in the 1989 version of the comic strip.

2. Elly and Phil are only separated in age by 2 years, so they were really a part of the same generation. They are both Baby Boomers.

3. While Elly may be proud of what she did compared to what Phil did, Phil can be proud that he is the one who actually achieved his goals.

Enabling boat people, killing fields, and yellow rain is nothing Ellie should be proud of.

Phil seems to suggest that had he been born first, what Ellie describes would have been his career path. Unlikely, especially with only 2 years difference in age.

Most boomers (and I am in that category) are/were a bunch of selfish, spoiled, I-know-better-than-you types with enormous egos and sense of entitlement. Few actually cared about the environment…. that came much later in the wake of the environmental disasters that the boomers caused (and their overly indulgent parents).

Unless they were born ten years apart, both are part of the same generation.

Elly mentions Phil siphoning gas from their father’s car. That was most often a problem during the oil crisis of the 1970s, which made stealing gasoline more tempting. Was there an earlier gas crunch in Elly’s youth?

Am I the only one grooving over the A&W reference? I LOVED that place as a kid! (There is still an A&W in my state…but it’s not a “drive-in”.)

They sure ain’t the Greatest Generation.

I think the point is that as the firstborn, she was expected to be the responsible one, he was the “baby” who was coddled and it influenced them later in life.

A nation must be strong in spirit, knowledge, science and morals. Military strength comes last … Today it is not enough to have arms in hand in order to take one’s place in the world as a human being.-Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

We need somebody like MKA.

Phil’s my type of guy ! Party on Dude !

I know there have been a few flashback strips. It would be interesting to see what Elly and her family was doing during the most memorable event of the 1960s: the landing on the Moon.