For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for March 05, 2023

well, at least the Patterson siblings aren’t bickering with one another like they usually do

They’ll zip up when they get cold

Although March does come in like a lion, I don’t think that Canada has ever gotten a hurricane in the month of March. I may be wrong but I believe the waters of the Atlantic ocean are still too cold in March to form a hurricane.

When I did a lot of walking I’d turn around and let the wind blow at my back but then had to turn back around since I was always walking against it. It was very rare for the wind to be at my back rather than at my front.

Reminds me of the day I was at the chicken coop, it was so windy, I saw a chicken lay the same egg 3 times.

“Sure is windy today, isn’t it… Yep… Wind is blowing… Wind is blowing strong… From the east… Very strong… Very easterly… can lean against it… Very cold… Windy… Did I mention it was windy?”

Windy today, isn’t it? No, it’s Thursday. Thirsty? I’m thirsty too. Let’s go have a beer.

Coats and Jackets are great for catching the wind.

You just thought they were.

Ride Like the Wind

on the look on his face I’d say they aren’t anymore… :}

It’s nice to see Elizabeth and Michael doing something together without bickering.

I once had a documentary film that showed explorers going through the Andes wearing fur coats and parkas while their gear was being carried by near naked native bearers who stayed warm by chewing on the leaves of the cocoa plant. I could use those leaves.

In the last outdoors frame it looks like Liz is starting to take flight!

I need a scarf and gloves for that kind of wind

I live in Minnesota, or “Canada South,” and the temps these days are running in the twenties and low-to-mid thirties. Lots of people, young ones especially, are walking around in shirtsleeves, and the other day at a mall I saw several young ladies with bare midriffs. Some of it’s due to the body having adjusted to really low temps, single-digits positive or even negative, making any warm-up seem balmy, and some of it I’m sure is due to an “I’m a tough Minnesotan! I can take it” attitude, but there just might also be a difference between young bodies and older ones. I do know that my normal body temperature has been running in the mid-to -high 97’s the past few years (during Covid they took it every morning when I went to see my wife in a care facility, so I know) and it seems colder in the house even though I’ve kept the thermostat at the same position it’s been for years.

I never was one of those kids who barely wore a windbreaker…not sure how I’d’a gotten anywhere in THIS wind!

Lived in Casper, WY for four years…I had to learn to walk upright again when I moved

Those aren’t jackets, those are main sails.

They were young and strong, they were running against the wind.

One winter time we were playing hockey. When it was time to go home it was really windy, so we let the wind blow us all the way across the lake. The only problem was we had to go the opposite way to get home and it took us forever to skate back. Oh well live and lean.

Our oldest wore basketball shorts to school everyday. Even in blizzards. We couldn’t talk him out of it.

I used to do that when I was around 8. Hold my coat open wide and let the wind lift me off my feet.

I went to college in a downtown area, a commuter, and once while waiting at a light to change so I could cross a very busy street a big gust of wind nearly blew me into the street. I was lucky that a guy behind me grabbed my jacket. I was extremely thin at the time and could get blown around a bit. I won’t ever forget that guy saving my life.

There is an interactive map of the Earth showing wind and ocean currents. It has a high “Wow” factor: https://earth.nullschool.net/ .

I was in a road race with between 1000 and 2000 runners on a windy day. During the strongest gusts, I had to face nearly west to run north and could move only about 2 inches per step.

Leaning into the wind is fun until Mother Nature decides to play a joke and stop the wind for a couple of seconds and watch you stumble.

Or this for a joke:

Elizabeth: “Michael, I have an idea. Wait here ten minutes, OK?”

Michael: “No problem.”

Elizabeth goes inside. Ten minutes later she comes back out of the house, now wearing her leotard with her coat

Elizabeth: “Look at me, I am Wonder Woman!”

Elizabeth opens up her coat and pushes herself against the wind. Michael laughs uproariously.

Good they get along well enough to do crazy things together! when my stepdaughter was growing up in the 80s the big thing was wearing a coat and not zipping or buttoning it up no matter how bone-chilling cold it was. Style / be cool meant more than warmth!!!

There was a strip somewhat different than this. It was from the B.A.P. era (Before April Patterson):

Elly is driving her car down the highway

Elly{talking to herself}: “Oh no, I had to work overtime. Michael was dismissed from school hours ago. Thank goodness he has the common sense to go to a neighbor’s house in this winter weather.”

Elly pulls the car into driveway, then her mouth juts open in shock like a cash register drawer opening

Michael{shivering}: “Where WERE you???”

In 2003, we landed our USAF C-5 at Lajes Field. Azores. The wind was so strong that our crew stood outside by our plane on the tarmac, opened our flight jackets, and leaned forward about 45 degrees without falling over.

I used to do that with roller skates on but I could only go in one direction.

Some people run hotter than others. One woman on Etiquette Hell declared that no, she would not order her son to zip up his coat to walk from the store to the car.

Back in the mid 1990s I worked in Albany, NY and would often walk to work. I’ve heard people explain it as the wind coming off the Hudson and being funneled by the buildings on both sides of the street, but the wind on Washington Avenue would be unbelievable. I was massively overweight at the time (I could literally say I was twice the man of most people), and I could lean in as far as they’re doing in the sixth panel and still run the risk of being blown back.

Several years later I lived near the southern shore of Lake Ontario and… geez. We had a small earthquake while I was there and my first reaction when the room shook was to think that the wind was particularly strong that day.

True. The windbreakers would turn inside out.