For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for August 12, 2024

Sometime later down the road, you will be one of those old fogey people!

Where’s your cousin Laura?

Just wait until you get to the era of AI and social media, Liz!

As an only child of much older parents, I can relate. Even my cousins were grown by the time I came along.

From Lynn’s Comments: This was a big problem for me as a kid. Everywhere we went, we had to spend time with my parents’ friends. These people never seemed to have anything for kids to do, so my brother and I had to wait in bored frustration for these visits to end. It was then that I swore I’d have toys and games for kids to play with when I had a house of my own!

Remember when phones had cords? Yes, I’m a fogey.

I loved Listening to everyone’s memories. it was like watching old movies. Comparing now with then. Socially, economically. A treasure trove of suggestions and warnings for the future.

In 2004 I took my 10 and 12 year old daughters to Jersey, a place I hadn’t been to since I was 11 over 30 years earlier. My mom flew into BWI and I picked her up and she went with us the rest of the way. My sister and I had decided Mom should visit Jersey (her home) without it being for a funeral. The girls saw my Mom fairly regularly. Though that would be the last time I or my youngest saw her before she past. I am glad I have those happy images and not the ones the my oldest daughter has. She went to the hospital while Mom was in her coma. I was too sick to travel. I talked to Mom every week, but that 2004 trip was the last long drive I took.

Anyway, the reason for this treatise is what my daughters tell people about the visit, “We went to Jersey and say a bunch of old people and dead people!”. My family moved to the area straight from Ireland in 1822 and 1880, so we have family plots in several of the churches. I raised my girls to speak their minds to me. If they hated the trip I would have known. Nope, they actually did enjoy it. My youngest bonded again with my uncle. Neither one remembered the first time they met when she was 2. He had a wooden leg and even after 50+ years still had a limp. She patted his knee and asked, “You have boo-boo?”. She then proceeded to show him hers. She has ALWAYS been a klutz, so there were a lot! My aunt told us he mentioned that visit a lot. His Alzheimer’s was so bad at the time of our visit that he didn’t remember my mom. He also didn’t remember my aunt whom he’d known his entire life. His love for her was still evident though. Mom didn’t get the disease, but her mom and two of her siblings had it. The third sibling died of cancer years too early for the disease to be evident. Still, I figure I’ll most likely develop it.

Sorry for the long post.

Back when I was in my early 30’s, our 11-year old niece called me a fogey, and when I laughed out loud, SHE was offended. :D

Instant Karma gonna get you.

Wow… Can you be anymore selfish and shallow?

Sounds more like she’s suffering from acute spoilus bratitus

Yeah kids don’t like to hear about “fogey stuff”. They just can’t relate.

So if they are going to fly to Vancouver from the prairies, who is going to return their family car back to Toronto from the prairies, a distance of a few thousand miles?

Probably more economical for them to sell their used car there in the prairies, and buy a new car when they get back to Toronto.

I remember this exact feeling on the, luckily rare, visits to the relatives when I was a teen.

I get that as well. It does surprise me a bit since I’m on the farther side of a century.

I wish those old fogeys were still around

I can commiserate with Elizabeth here. As a kid, I loathed visiting my paternal grandparents house. We were told to “keep quiet and behave” and then had to listen to hours of conversation/experiences about people we knew nothing about, and were not involved in the conversation at all. It always amazed me after the visit and on the ride home my parents would ask “Did you kids have fun?”

Long distance call on a land line!!!! Even ‘Fogeys’ use a cell phone ‘cause it doesn’t cost extra. Dropped our landline long distance option ten+ years ago

I love how Lynn so perfectly captured a teenager’s chatting-on-the-phone body language in those frames. They give the reader something to look at in what’s essentially a short monologue.

Your day will come.

Fair enough…. for now. Later years can change perspectives.

You’ll miss them when they’re gone.

They’re going back in time to B.C.???

Elizabeth, it’s not Fogey Fatigue, you’re suffering from Teenageitius.

We all go through that.

Ooga Farley!

Booga Farley!

Googa Farley!

Wooga Farley!

I usta love our vacations. We had a ’56 Ford Ranch Wagon. Nice car. Dad would fold down the back seat and put a mattress back there so us three kids could play and lie down. It was nice.

My heart bleeds.

I do remember a time when that bothered me, though not as much as it seems to be bothering her. Now I quite enjoy those conversations. The tipping point arrived completely unnoticed.

Time for"The Liscense Plate Game"

I get it Elizabeth! It’s part of the charm of life reliving the past, it’s a comfort, it’s also a curse, since we almost never learn anything from it other than to justify our own biases and fears ! Happy Monday, good week everybody !

So Cru-Elly dragged her daughter into this just to leave her out!

I spent so much time with old people that I always found them much easier to relate to than my peers!

What else are people who meet rarely since childhood going to talk about – politics? OMG, no.

A memory I have from when I was 19, visiting my grandmother and her aunt and uncle. Them passing around photos when I’m looking at a picture of a man old enough to be my grand dad and I’m supposed to say… what?

Some day when they’re gone she’ll wished she had that time back.

Panel 1 — they’re gonna visit cavepeople? d;o)

Seriously, though, there’s nothing wrong with visiting “old people” — because you might want to do so while they’re still alive. Do it while you can. Wait too long, and that chance’ll be gone, and the only way you can see them is in old pictures…

As my Uncle Tony (r.i.p.) used to say, “Wait ‘til you’re old!”

It’s our superpower. :-)

I used to feel this way about visiting relatives. Now they’re gone, and I miss them all so much. I wish I could see them again.

You’ll remember those with great memories in years to come. My mom is 88 and remembers all of the yesterdays, to share.

My visits to grandparents usually also involved seeing my cousins, which was always cool. Plus Model T rides!

She’s gonna have kids like that one day.

So Cru-Elly dragged Liz along just to make her feel LEFT OUT!?

Then there all gone. Then you will miss those stories and people. But alas we all have been there.