For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for August 10, 2024

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    MichaelAxelFleming  about 2 months ago

    That’s BS.

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    snsurone76  about 2 months ago

    Time to start singing “Kumbaya”.

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    howtheduck  about 2 months ago

    It’s always good to read about John using his other senses to register the prairie sky, the fields, the houses, and the long, dusty country lanes. If he is not seeing or smelling, then I am going to guess touch or sound or taste.

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    Last Rose Of Summer Premium Member about 2 months ago

    Ah yes, the “other” sense….smell or stink.

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    Farside99  about 2 months ago

    Yes, it is a smell that you can become used to and even nostalgic for. Too bad that building housing tracts near dairy farms brings in people who have no sense of that value.

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    CrzyDyeman  about 2 months ago

    Nothing beats the fresh country air.

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    ctolson  about 2 months ago

    Yep, that clean fresh (?) country air does wonders to relax a person. Just like the smell of fresh pine when you’re in a mountain forest.

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    More Coffee Please! Premium Member about 2 months ago

    I always found it a somewhat pleasant smell, provided it was from a good distance and combined with the smell of cut hay and fresh air. Up close not so much.

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    rhpii  about 2 months ago

    The smell of money, or so my rancher son-in-law says.

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    rasputin's horoscope  about 2 months ago

    Even living in L.A. County, I get an occasional whiff of dairy or turkey farm. But it didn’t prepare me for visiting my parents in rural Illinois and the olfactory assault of the neighboring hog farm. Whew!

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    rshive  about 2 months ago

    We used to live in a small rural town. Beautiful night sky. Now we’re in the (outer) suburbs. Beautiful view of the porch lights.

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    jango  about 2 months ago

    Cow chips anyone?

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    MontanaPhil50  about 2 months ago

    In college (UC Davis) my dorm was right next to the dairy barns. When the wind was from the west…whoooeee. But pig farms are far worse.

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    jconnors3954  about 2 months ago

    Time for milking?

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    win.45mag  about 2 months ago

    For since the creation of the world, God’s invisible qualities-His eternal power and divine nature- have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

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    Aladar30 Premium Member about 2 months ago

    How to destroy poetry and make it become a fantastic joke. That smell… That Smell!!!

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    Norris66  about 2 months ago

    “There was something in the air that night Fernando” Swedish Countryside.

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    ladykat  about 2 months ago

    Manure.

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    Linguist  about 2 months ago

    Years ago, I had a cabin up in the mountains in Colorado. One time a good friend of mine from New York City came out to visit for a couple of weeks but only lasted a few days because he couldn’t sleep. He claimed the night noises kept him awake!

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    [Unnamed Reader - bddb15]  about 2 months ago

    My first year of college I lived in a dorm that was situated between the horse barn, the dairy barn, the pig stye and the cafeteria.

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    pheets  about 2 months ago

    My fresh country air comes from my ‘neigh’ bours.

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    Robert Williams @ Williams Web Solutions  about 2 months ago

    I grew up for a number of years in northern Missouri and after we moved visited it annually. Where my grandparents’ lived it is just like that, not flat, but beautiful, serene, some of the best sunsets you could ever experience. Don’t know about a cow mooing at night necessarily but I get why it was included. Hog smell is worse.

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    markkahler52  about 2 months ago

    The delicate smell of cow chips….

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    kathleenhicks62  about 2 months ago

    Sometimes horses and chickens also.

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    USN1977  about 2 months ago

    Still surprising that John’s father seems totally unaware that John and Elly had another kid. There is no strip so far where John’s father has interacted with April, let alone introduce himself as her paternal grandfather.

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    g04922  about 2 months ago

    I remember my Grandfather and Grandmother’s farm, especially the barn. That earthy aroma, the smells of the drying tobacco in the rafters, the hayloft, the cattle in their stalls, and the work horses. Yes, he kept a team of ‘retired’ work horses that pulled the old horse-drawn equipment. Much of that ancient farm equipment was still parked in an open area just outside the barn. Wonderful memories of playing around the barn and that old equipment as a young boy.

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    Daltongang Premium Member about 2 months ago

    Well, life on the farm is kinda laid back

    Ain’t much an old country boy like me can’t hack

    It’s early to rise, early in the sack

    Thank God I’m a country boy

    Well, a simple kind of life never did me no harm

    A-raisin’ me a family and workin’ on the farm

    My days are all filled with an easy country charm

    Thank God I’m a country boy

    Well, I got me a fine wife, I got me old fiddle

    When the sun’s comin’ up, I got cakes on the griddle

    Life ain’t nothin’ but a funny, funny riddle

    Thank God I’m a country boy

    When the work’s all done and the sun’s settin’ low

    I pull out my fiddle and I rosin up the bow

    Kids are asleep so I keep it kinda low

    And thank God I’m a country boy

    I’d play “Sally Goodin” all day if I could

    But the Lord and my wife wouldn’t take it very good

    So I fiddle when I can, work when I should

    Thank God I’m a country boy

    Well, I got me a fine wife, I got me old fiddle

    When the sun’s comin’ up, I got cakes on the griddle

    Life ain’t nothin’ but a funny, funny riddle

    Thank God I’m a country boy, woohoo!

    Well, I wouldn’t trade my life for diamonds or jewels

    I never was one of them money-hungry fools

    I’d rather have my fiddle and my farmin’ tools

    Thank God I’m a country boy

    Yeah, city folk drivin’ in a black limousine

    A lotta sad people thinkin’ that’s mighty keen

    Son, let me tell you now exactly what I mean

    Thank God I’m a country boy

    Well, I got me a fine wife, I got me old fiddle

    When the sun’s comin’ up, I got cakes on the griddle

    Life ain’t nothin’ but a funny, funny riddle

    Thank God I’m a country boy, yes sir!

    Well, my fiddle was my daddy’s ’til the day he died

    And he took me by the hand, held me close to his side

    Said, "Live a good life, play the fiddle with pride

    And thank God you’re a country boy"

    My daddy taught me young how to hunt and how to whittle

    Taught me how to work

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    Draway  about 2 months ago

    Fresh dairy air!

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    lanainutahdesert  about 2 months ago

    Ha! Ha! Like the old fields behind my house in the 1950s in Maine (plus chickens, goats, and the odd wild animal).

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    crazeekatlady  about 2 months ago

    Smelling the smell of cow poo. Sorry Simon and Garfunkel.

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    Brent Rosenthal Premium Member about 2 months ago

    Do cows moo after dark?

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    cracker65  about 2 months ago

    When we lived in Wisconsin, we knew when we were getting close to the line coming back from vacations down south. The smell was unmistakable.

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    Strawberry King  about 2 months ago

    I hear it mooing in the air tonight! Oh, Lord!

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    howtheduck  about 2 months ago

    This story is a little bit of a retcon from prior stories about John, where he was raised in a mining town on the Canadian Shield, just like his real-life avatar Rod Johnston.

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    lindz.coop Premium Member about 2 months ago

    We moved out to the country for the “fresh country air” and all we got was smoke from people burning their trash.

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    [Unnamed Reader - 14b4ce]  about 2 months ago

    God, I love the smell of raw milk in t he morning!

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