bagged lunch: Browse The Strips
Foreign-Language Versions:
If there's a non-English version of this strip available, it'll show up below. Or, you can browse our entire collection on this page.
Chinese Strip:
Saturday, June 21, 1986
Thursday, December 4, 1986
Friday, March 1, 1991
Foreign-Language Versions:
If there's a non-English version of this strip available, it'll show up below. Or, you can browse our entire collection on this page.
Danish Strip:
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Lynn's Comments: When we accept the role of mom, we become a nurse, a psychologist, a short order cook, a laundress and an alarm clock. Our day seems to belong to everyone else. Everything has its schedule and coordinating lunches, school activities and the general business of living leaves little time in the morning for extras. There's no time to spend on make up and hair spray - we are our basic selves. I was miffed one time to be told that I used to look GOOD in the morning! This is another strip that says out loud what I was thinking.
Friday, June 19, 2015
Lynn's Comments: These days are gone. Few parents will send their youngsters out to play now with a lunch bag and instructions to be home by six. But, this is how it was when I was a kid growing up in North Vancouver. We all played up and down the street until dark; until our mothers were hoarse from shouting.
I got some criticism for doing this strip, but at the time, my kids were quite free to roam too. We lived in a tiny rural town, and I could watch the lane from my kitchen and most of the neighbours' houses from my front window. I always knew where they were, and if I didn't, someone else was on the job. We moms were careful and the kids, we thought, were safe. Even so, I'm reminded of a story: Katie, who was perhaps 4 years old, had been playing in the lane with some friends. I lost sight of her and decided to go and see where she was. I found her in the hall of a neighbour's house. One of the boys, a 6 year old, was holding a rifle saying, "I know where the bullets are! I know where the bullets are!" His parents were at the bar and had left their oldest child in charge--she was 8. I asked the boy to give me the gun. I placed it back on the rack in the hallway. I took Katie home and told her she could play with those kids any time, but it had to be at our house.
I got some criticism for doing this strip, but at the time, my kids were quite free to roam too. We lived in a tiny rural town, and I could watch the lane from my kitchen and most of the neighbours' houses from my front window. I always knew where they were, and if I didn't, someone else was on the job. We moms were careful and the kids, we thought, were safe. Even so, I'm reminded of a story: Katie, who was perhaps 4 years old, had been playing in the lane with some friends. I lost sight of her and decided to go and see where she was. I found her in the hall of a neighbour's house. One of the boys, a 6 year old, was holding a rifle saying, "I know where the bullets are! I know where the bullets are!" His parents were at the bar and had left their oldest child in charge--she was 8. I asked the boy to give me the gun. I placed it back on the rack in the hallway. I took Katie home and told her she could play with those kids any time, but it had to be at our house.
Thursday, December 3, 2015
Lynn's Comments: My mom made bread every two weeks. Being a kid, I figured I was missing something by not having store-bought Wonder Bread, and eagerly traded my school lunch with friends. The weird thing about the commercial bread was that you could press it flat and fold it up like cardboard. It tasted like cardboard too unless you put lots of margarine on it. (Few families could afford butter.) One of my friends made his own lunch every day, and the things he found to press between slices of bread varied from garlic cloves to dill pickles to just plain sugar.
Sometimes I traded with him, sometimes I didn't, but I was always envious of his store bought bread and the way he was allowed to make his lunch any way he wanted to. What we didn't know about each other was that my mom couldn't afford to buy commercially made bread, and his mom went to work before he got up. He had to dress himself and his brother, make both their lunches, walk his brother to a neighbour's house, and then get himself to school. With nutritious meals to look forward to and a mom who was home to look after me, I was the lucky one.
Sometimes I traded with him, sometimes I didn't, but I was always envious of his store bought bread and the way he was allowed to make his lunch any way he wanted to. What we didn't know about each other was that my mom couldn't afford to buy commercially made bread, and his mom went to work before he got up. He had to dress himself and his brother, make both their lunches, walk his brother to a neighbour's house, and then get himself to school. With nutritious meals to look forward to and a mom who was home to look after me, I was the lucky one.
Friday February 28, 2020
