For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for April 14, 2021

I feel The Beatles’ “Nowhere Man” song coming on based upon where things are going here with the Patterson men.

Yeah Mike, when you get to Grandpa Jim’s age, you will really want to slow things down.

The basic problem with Mike’s thinking is that he believes his father will be willing to let him drive with him also in the car. John is thinking professional driving school and Michael will never ever drive him. If Michael were my son and I knew just how irresponsible he was, I would not want to be in the car with him driving either.

Truer words were never spoken. When you’re younger, the clock never moves fast enough. When you’re older, the clock can’t be stopped (or slowed down). Time moves on, inexorably and always at the same pace.

When my niece was 12, I took her to a nearby “Park and Ride” lot on Sunday where I taught her the ABCs of car handling—go, stop, “panic” stop, turn, and park. Later we went to ride my horse and I had her drive the 3/4-mile long private gravel driveway to the parking area, and back out to the road again afterwards. She drove that driveway every time she visited me and we visited my horse—dozens of times altogether. I wish someone had done that for me—I didn’t get driving lessons (other than Driver’s Ed in high school) until I was 25! by my cousin. She lived 5 miles from town and figured that, if I was going to be watching her kids now and then, it would be a good idea for me to be able to drive!

The best deterrent is telling the kids they are not gonna drive the family car. Wait till they get their own car to start driving. I’d want to protect the car I need to drive to work which I did when my boys were teenagers. When my older turned 18 and had a job, I gave him my old car and bought a new one. It was time. Two years later, he crashed my old car in a car accident. Glad it was not mine at the time. So, he had to look at used cars at the dealerships and buy his own car. Nothing touched us – all on him and he did it. Granted, we live in a big city with good bus service so my boys survived fine riding the bus and hitching rides from friends with cars.

I was driving midget race cars when I was 7, but I was still ‘chomping at the bit’ to drive legally when the time came. I get Mike, but the phrasing might keep him down just a bit ;)

I used to practice driving in our driveway. It was just long enough to back up a couple of yards and then pull forward. It’s a wonder that I didn’t end up in the road or house.

Mike blew it by saying “peel around the block a few times”. Way too many yahoos out there peeling around.

My kid turns 15 in July and has been making noise about “driver training”… He’s been rather instant about it… My response is “Good luck finding a car to drive, because you’re not touching mine until you demonstrate some more maturity”..

This strip is poignant, knowing how the strip proceeds. We’re seeing a foreshadowing of the eventual end.

He asked to “peel around the block” is the reason too.

You can get a driver’s permit in Idaho at age 14.

From the crazy world of MAD Magazine, a piece called Time Flies and Time Drags…

Time flies when you are playing a pinball game.

Time drags when someone else is playing it.

Time drags when you are waiting for a pizza to go from “boiling” to “red hot”.

Time flies when that same pizza goes from “red hot” to “ice cold”.

Time flies during a vacation.

Time drags while waiting for the next one to start.

Patience is a virtue, but impatience improves progress.

“Can’t we just peel around the block a few times” is exactly the reason you can’t, Mike.

Wise words!

Michael looks like he needs some castor oil in the fourth panel. Must be so constipated that it will take him two weeks to get over it.

Both are right, I remember those days, now I want to slow them down and not working.

Um, weren’t you just in a little car mishap, Mike? Time to cool your jets a little.

I don’t know how big their yard is, but I got my driver training mowing our 1/2 acre with our lawn tractor.

How about, “It would be illegal, son!” ?

Mike, remember, a few weeks ago? Something abkut Mom’s new car and an immovable object? My kid would STIL be grounded.

At 16 I had my regular license. I got my learner’s permit when I was 15 and went in to apply for the restricted license during the summer. But, the tester decided that since I was going to be 16 in a month, I could just go on and try for the regular license. I succeeded and in the 10th grade was driving like an adult (or so I thought).

Your Friend didn’t do so well with his permit… driving…

As we age time seems to fly, but as kids time seems to drag on.

“Liz is home,” i.e., the real parent for April. John got to be a parent from 2 – 3 pm and that appears to be all he can handle. Michael is so silly thinking he is going to get his father to spend any time with him. After an hour, John is all parented out.

♫ “Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’, … into the future …”

You sure about that, John? It only took Elly to the nine months she was expecting Lizzie to turn from a loving young mother into a demanding old hag! You and Mike saw the whole thing!

This is exactly the same thing what happened when my son was a about to turn legal for driving. Testosterone, I guess.

Suggesting we “peel around the block a few times” ain’t gonna speed things up, Michael.

You have to turn 16. then you have to study for and take your written exam, THEN you can do some practice driving.