Elly and John’s Dating Years
The story of Elly and John’s beginning has varied over the years. In the beginning we saw regret from Grandma Marian that Elly had quit university before getting married. In 1997 that story changed so that Elly quit university because she got married, with the clear implication that having babies and paying the bills were the primary motivation. At some point after this, Lynn Johnston realized the timeline of that didn’t work out with the kids’ ages, and so it was changed to just paying the bills. The latest version of this is in the current website character description of Elly, where neither bill-paying nor babies are mentioned:
After a year of serious dating, he proposed and they were married the next February and settled happily into a small basement bachelor apartment. Elly's interest in her degree was fading by this time and she wanted to get out and WRITE! She left university early to work in a bookstore and do some freelance writing while John finished up his dentistry training.
Another question of interest was whether or not John and Elly lived together before they got married. With today’s reprint in For Better or For Worse, you can see pretty clearly that Elly and John were living together (or at sleeping together on a fairly regular basis) when they were dating. It also appears that they were together long enough for John to declare the magic disappeared in their relationship when she stopped putting on makeup before breakfast.
If my wife asked me such a question as Elly asks John, I would wonder if the follow-up question would be, "Well, if you think the magic has left our relationship, then why don't we divorce?" The answer to such a thing should always be something like, "But honey. I still feel the magic when I am with you." Instead of saying that, John Patterson decides to mention Elly's makeup at breakfast.
That’s a pretty bold statement for John to make. What’s so special about breakfast that it requires makeup? Thanks to the magic of the 1980 CBC interview with Lynn Johnston, I have a feeling I know where it came from. In the interview, the young, married Lynn Johnston is pretty much without makeup the entire time. My guess is that when John and Elly were dating, she put on makeup in the morning and then after a certain point in their relationship, she reverted back to her normal habit of not wearing any at all. I think the problem has less to do with breakfast and more to do with Elly's daily makeup-wearing habits. If the strip were worded better, then this would be clear.
Just based on the first year strips, it appears the chronological sequence was Elly and John started living together. Elly quit university. After a time long enough for the breakfast makeup magic to leave, they got married. In 1997 when that story changed to make marriage the cause for Elly to quit university, this was about the same time the younger Pattersons were starting to enter university. With Elizabeth Patterson in particular, Elly could not disapprove of Elizabeth moving in with her boyfriend, Eric; if Elly had lived with John before marriage. I suspect this is why the story changed from what was presented in 1979. For Elly to judge, she must first be made blameless.
After a year of serious dating, he proposed and they were married the next February and settled happily into a small basement bachelor apartment. Elly's interest in her degree was fading by this time and she wanted to get out and WRITE! She left university early to work in a bookstore and do some freelance writing while John finished up his dentistry training.
Another question of interest was whether or not John and Elly lived together before they got married. With today’s reprint in For Better or For Worse, you can see pretty clearly that Elly and John were living together (or at sleeping together on a fairly regular basis) when they were dating. It also appears that they were together long enough for John to declare the magic disappeared in their relationship when she stopped putting on makeup before breakfast.
If my wife asked me such a question as Elly asks John, I would wonder if the follow-up question would be, "Well, if you think the magic has left our relationship, then why don't we divorce?" The answer to such a thing should always be something like, "But honey. I still feel the magic when I am with you." Instead of saying that, John Patterson decides to mention Elly's makeup at breakfast.
That’s a pretty bold statement for John to make. What’s so special about breakfast that it requires makeup? Thanks to the magic of the 1980 CBC interview with Lynn Johnston, I have a feeling I know where it came from. In the interview, the young, married Lynn Johnston is pretty much without makeup the entire time. My guess is that when John and Elly were dating, she put on makeup in the morning and then after a certain point in their relationship, she reverted back to her normal habit of not wearing any at all. I think the problem has less to do with breakfast and more to do with Elly's daily makeup-wearing habits. If the strip were worded better, then this would be clear.
Just based on the first year strips, it appears the chronological sequence was Elly and John started living together. Elly quit university. After a time long enough for the breakfast makeup magic to leave, they got married. In 1997 when that story changed to make marriage the cause for Elly to quit university, this was about the same time the younger Pattersons were starting to enter university. With Elizabeth Patterson in particular, Elly could not disapprove of Elizabeth moving in with her boyfriend, Eric; if Elly had lived with John before marriage. I suspect this is why the story changed from what was presented in 1979. For Elly to judge, she must first be made blameless.
posted by howard at 10:28 PM
14 Comments:
OMG! Except for nose size and shape, Grandma Marian is (visually) the same person as Older Elly, right down to the ugly bun hairstyle she refuses to change despite her daughter's comment about it!!
Looks like she ultimately owned Elly's horses too. ;p
It seems to me that Elly could easily have cohabited with John and still disapproved of Liz doing so with Eric; after all, Jeff and Pam from the 'comic' strip Crankshaft did a whole bunch of things back when they were attending massacre-era Kent State that they do not want their children even thinking about doing. Her motto would then be "Do as I say, not as I hope you never find out I do."
In the mid-80s, when Phil and Georgia moved in together, Elly went ballistic when she learned that Jim and Marian did not seem to care. She said that if she'd "shacked up" with John, they'd have disowned her.
I don't think today's reprint necessarily suggests that John and Elly lived together before marrying. For all we know, she put on makeup before breakfast up until she had a ring on her finger.
The whole "Elly's interest in her degree faded and she wanted to write" premise has been around for a while--at least as long as Lives Behind the Lines.
Of course, LJ has never managed to make the timelines work WRT Elly and John's meeting and dating, Elly dropping out, their marrying, and their having Michael. And Beth made that all worse with John's bio, where she had John taking time off between high school and undergrad--so that Elly should actually have been ahead of John in school.
I realized that when Lynn and Rod met, she was 28 and he was 30. If he was in his second year of dentistry as John is always said to be in the "John and Elly meet" stories, then it looks as though Rod must have taken some time off--maybe four years (or three if there was grade 13 in Manitoba in the 1960s). So I'm guessing Beth was bringing in some of their real-life biographical data, without thinking about the effect on the foob timeline.
Okay, I've reread the strip, and see that Elly begins with "when we were dating." But surely Lynn didn't mean the magic was gone before they ever got married? I hope....
April, a marriage relationship quickly changes. One starts out loving (ick!) but it soon shifts to something more suitable. A business partnership, perhaps.
Young Elly is not as wise as Old Elly, or else she'd realize that a loveless marriage based on plodding duty and passive-aggressive nagging is far superior to liking one's mate, much less being (ugh) -attracted- to them!
april_p, I've always interpreted it as meaning it was "magic" when they were dating, and the magic faded sometime after they were married. Early in marriage, Elly would put on makeup before breakfast - later she quit doing that. Fits with the attitudes (Phil & Georgia).
Heck, I think I've seen the joke in 50s-esque portrayals of early marriage vs "getting sloppy later"
aprilp_katje,
Okay, I've reread the strip, and see that Elly begins with "when we were dating." But surely Lynn didn't mean the magic was gone before they ever got married? I hope....-
I am going to have to disagree with Anonymous and InsertMonikerHere. I think that’s exactly what she means. Elly says it and then John agrees. If you take a modern example, like the romance of Liz and Anthony, once they got past the night of Shawna-Marie Verano’s wedding, the magic (intense romantic interest) was gone. The marriage proposal sounded like a business merger. Since the Liz and Anthony courtship was modeled off of Lynn and Rod’s courtship, it doesn’t take much effort to translate the same perspective to Elly and John in today’s strip. I seem to remember Lynn saying the real-life proposal line was Rod saying something like, “I’ll take on Aaron, if you take on Lynn Lake.” There’s not a lot of magic there.
Anonymous,
Except for nose size and shape, Grandma Marian is (visually) the same person as Older Elly, right down to the ugly bun hairstyle she refuses to change despite her daughter's comment about it!!-
You are absolutely right. Elly turned into Grandma Marian. The best part is that as Elly progressed through the years getting a bigger and bigger nose, so did Grandma Marian. On her deathbed, Grandma Marian had a giant turnip nose.
aprilp_katje,
In the mid-80s, when Phil and Georgia moved in together, Elly went ballistic when she learned that Jim and Marian did not seem to care. She said that if she'd "shacked up" with John, they'd have disowned her. -
I guess Elly’s opinion on the matter changed before 1997 then.
I don't think today's reprint necessarily suggests that John and Elly lived together before marrying. -
True. All it means is that while they were dating, John regularly had the opportunity to see Elly with makeup on before breakfast. Maybe they had regular breakfast dates. However, what comes to my mind if a man knows enough about a woman’s makeup habits to know if she did or did not put on makeup before breakfast, it usually means he was with her when she woke up in the morning.
The whole "Elly's interest in her degree faded and she wanted to write" premise has been around for a while--at least as long as Lives Behind the Lines.-
The writing aspect was there, since Elly spent the next 10-15 years looking for writing or literature-related jobs, but I thought the main motivation for quitting university was helping John make it through university financially.
I realized that when Lynn and Rod met, she was 28 and he was 30. If he was in his second year of dentistry as John is always said to be in the "John and Elly meet" stories, then it looks as though Rod must have taken some time off--maybe four years (or three if there was grade 13 in Manitoba in the 1960s). So I'm guessing Beth was bringing in some of their real-life biographical data, without thinking about the effect on the foob timeline.-
There is so much autobiography in the strip all the way to the timing of Kate’s birth would also work well with the timing of Michael’s birth relative to John finishing his dental degree. It’s easy to see why Beth might add John’s time off into the mix. No one on that side of the house ever seems to think that none of that stuff works with Elly and John as university sweethearts.
Young Elly is not as wise as Old Elly, or else she'd realize that a loveless marriage based on plodding duty and passive-aggressive nagging is far superior to liking one's mate, much less being (ugh) -attracted- to them!
Ah, but of course, Anonymous--I don't know what I was thinking. ;)
No one on that side of the house ever seems to think that none of that stuff works with Elly and John as university sweethearts.
::nod, nod::
Come on, Elly, just admit that John is actually your second husband and you didn't meet him until Michael was a toddler. ;)
April_Patterson,
It would indeed make a lot more sense if John was Elly's second bite at the wedding apple; that would, for instance, explain why it is that John and he look so dissimilar as well as the disrespect he showed him.
Howard, the strip is certainly open to the interpretation that John saw Elly at breakfast during their dating years, but the dialogue "remember when we were dating [we did/ felt X] when did [feeling X] start to disappear?" "I think it was when you stopped putting on makeup before breakfast" allows for a stretch of time, including early marriage years, between 'when we were dating' and 'when you stopped putting on makeup before breakfast'.
John isn't necessarily saying [X] came out of seeing her in makeup at breakfast or that [X] stopped when they stopped dating - the morning-makeup was at some point a sign of [X]; its end was a breakpoint, but not necessarily the getting engaged or married breakpoint. Heck, the end of early makeup could be while they were still in the dating stage :)
Most likely, I would *like* to believe the "early marriage was like dating, then we got in a rut" interpretation and that the soul-deadening settlpocalypse was a later LJ attitude. I do not claim this is the most likely attitude of 1980s LJ - I was blissfully unaware of her double-marriage troubles when I first read these strips. And I do try to be an optimist about the salvageability of FOOB :-)
(BTW, is "get up and put on your makeup before making your husband breakfast" part of marriage manuals in the 50s? Or am I only thinking of spoofs?)
BTW, is "get up and put on your makeup before making your husband breakfast" part of marriage manuals in the 50s? Or am I only thinking of spoofs?
It's definitely part of spoofs, at least some of which were written in the 50s. (And 40s and 30s and so on back.) I don't know if it was also part of real marriage manuals because I've never read any of them from then. It's pretty telling that Lynn used it as a "real" symptom of a marriage that had lost its spark. Her mind is set in a fantasy bubble of the 1950s, where neither reality nor irony seem able to penetrate.
InsertMonikerHere,
"I think it was when you stopped putting on makeup before breakfast" allows for a stretch of time, including early marriage years, between 'when we were dating' and 'when you stopped putting on makeup before breakfast'. -
Certainly that could be the interpretation. The start is dating. The stop is no makeup before breakfast. As to whether the stop was during marriage or not is not specified; so the magic could have stopped after marriage. The only real proof I have that Lynn could be thinking before marriage is the comments she made in interviews about her relationship with Rod before they married, and the decidedly magic-less courtship of Liz and Anthony.
John isn't necessarily saying [X] came out of seeing her in makeup at breakfast or that [X] stopped when they stopped dating - the morning-makeup was at some point a sign of [X]; its end was a breakpoint, but not necessarily the getting engaged or married breakpoint. Heck, the end of early makeup could be while they were still in the dating stage :)-
I am not sure I agree with this part. By defining the end of the magic = the end of morning makeup; there is a relationship implied between the two events. I don’t think John is saying anything like, “I remember when the magic stopped. It was the same day Toronto won the Stanley Cup.” where the two events are unrelated, but one of them is very memorable. If I equate the two, then by definition, at the beginning of the magic when they were dating, Elly was wearing morning makeup, which John noticed. It follows if John noticed morning makeup, then that means he was in a position to notice it. In my mind, that means sleeping together.
(BTW, is "get up and put on your makeup before making your husband breakfast" part of marriage manuals in the 50s? Or am I only thinking of spoofs?)-
I cannot find any spoofs or even real manuals on-line that talk about makeup before breakfast. Some talk about making sure you prepare your husband a hearty breakfast. Some talk about freshening up your makeup before he returns home from work. Some talk about not removing your makeup until after your husband goes to sleep.
Post a Comment
<< Home