A12
East Oregonian
PEANUTS
COFFEE BREAK
Thursday, December 30, 2021
DEAR ABBY
BY CHARLES M. SCHULZ
Young woman’s temper
has her siblings on edge
FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE
B.C.
PICKLES
BEETLE BAILEY
BY LYNN JOHNSTON
BY MASTROIANNI AND HART
BY BRIAN CRANE
Dear Abby: I have a younger
drinks, and not for the better.
sister I love dearly. I respect and
He brags, repeats himself and
admire her. “Elise” is intelligent
presents in a way that’s annoying
and talented. She is a minister’s
and embarrassing. His alcohol
wife and a mother to small chil-
personality will never change —
dren. Due to some unfortunate
it is who he is. He’s been like this
family circumstances when she
for the entire 13 years I’ve been
was young, she has some emo-
with him.
J EANNE
tional scars she’s trying to over-
He drinks two to three times
P HILLIPS
come. Sometimes at family gath-
a
week,
at most, and says I
ADVICE
erings she’ll “explode” and lash
“overreact” to his personality
out at whoever triggered her.
change. He tells me I shouldn’t
Her outbursts usually take us all
get so frustrated, but I don’t
by surprise.
want to be around my husband when he
How do we, as siblings who have drinks. Can you advise me how to live
grown up in the same environment, han- with him when he’s drunk? By the way,
dle this? We don’t think our childhoods it doesn’t take much for him to get this
so terrible, although we did have some way — three beers. Could he be having
challenges, and our daddy does have nar- a reaction to the alcohol? — Fed Up In
cissistic tendencies. He actually recogniz- San Diego
es that and is trying to improve himself.
Dear Fed Up: That’s possible. Some
Sometimes we feel she makes mountains individuals are more sensitive to alcohol
out of molehills, but we want to be sensi- than others. Whether it takes three beers
tive to her pain. I’m concerned she’ll end or simply sniffing a cork to get your hus-
up controlling our family gatherings in a band loaded, his drinking is causing a
negative way if these flare-ups don’t stop. problem in your marriage.
What do you think could be done? — Be-
It’s time for you to locate a chapter of
fuddled Big Sis
Al-Anon (al-anon.org) and attend some
Dear Big Sis: What could (and should) of the meetings. This organization was
be done is an intervention by you and created decades ago to help the friends
your siblings in which Elise is advised to and family members of people who have
seek professional help for her explosive an alcohol problem — which your hus-
anger issues. If she refuses and her be- band definitely has. You are far from
havior continues, let her know you sup- alone in having this problem, which you
port her but can no longer include her.
will realize once you get there. Please
Dear Abby: My husband’s per- don’t wait. Your reaction to his person-
sonality changes completely when he ality change is understandable.
BY MORT WALKER
DAYS GONE BY
GARFIELD
BLONDIE
BY JIM DAVIS
BY DEAN YOUNG AND JOHN MARSHALL
100 years ago — 1921
On the farms the recent cold days have
offered excellent opportunities for the killing
of the winter supply of pork, or the long-year-
ling beef, or possibly a fat wether, but out at
the Pendleton Packing Company’s plant arti-
ficial conditions are maintained which make
every day “butchering day.” The compa-
ny’s business has been practically doubled
since September. During December about
900 head of hogs have been killed, between
160 and 180 head of cattle and between 500
and 600 head of lambs and sheep. The prod-
ucts of the company are marketed under two
brands. The Oregon Pride hams, bacon and
lard are gaining friends in Oregon every day,
and another line of hams, bacon and shorten-
ing is sold under the name of “Campfire.” One
fact which is of more than ordinary interest
is that the company is now shipping in every
year more hogs for slaughter in the local plant
than are owned in Umatilla county. Practi-
cally all of the hogs now being killed are corn-
fed products of Nebraska.
50 years ago — 1971
Milton-Freewater officials are blushing, in
yellow. It seems that although Milton-Freewater
police officers have faithfully been handing out
citations to motorists who park their vehicles
in no parking areas marked by yellow curbs,
the city has no law on the books forbidding
such parking. The oversight was discovered
by Milton-Freewater City Atty. James Walton,
City Manager Henry Schneider told the city
council Monday. An ordinance is being written
to correct the matter. Can motorists who paid
fines for violating the nonexistent Milton-Free-
water law get their money back? Probably not,
says an informed source.
25 years ago — 1996
An antique fence sign has become the
source of a mystery for Hermiston insurance
agent Bill Elfering. When Elfering came to his
State Farm Insurance office a few weeks ago,
he found a flat yellow object resting against
a glass wind break in front of his office door.
“Pays the man who pays the premium,” says
the painted metal plaque advertising the State
Farm Mutual Auto Insurance Company. Listed
on the bottom are the agent’s name and a phone
number: James Phillips, Pendleton 134. “I don’t
think it’ll work anymore,” Elfering said of the
phone number. The mystery comes in who gave
him the sign: Elfering said he has no idea. He
contacted State Farm’s Company History Unit
at their corporate headquarters in Blooming-
ton, Ill., for clues. The fence sign dates to 1941,
Elfering learned.
TODAY IN HISTORY
DILBERT
THE WIZARD OF ID
LUANN
ZITS
BY SCOTT ADAMS
BY PARKER AND HART
BY GREG EVANS
BY JERRY SCOTT AND JIM BORGMAN
On Dec. 30, 1922,
Vladimir Lenin pro-
claimed the establishment
of the Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics, which
lasted nearly seven de-
cades before dissolving in
December 1991.
uring the War of 1812.
In 1853, the United
States and Mexico signed
a treaty under which the
U.S. agreed to buy some
45,000 square miles of
land from Mexico for $10
million in a deal known as
the Gadsden Purchase.
In 1860, 10 days after
South Carolina seceded
from the Union, the state
militia seized the United
States Arsenal in Charles-
ton.
In 1954, Olympic gold
medal runner Malvin G.
Whitfield became the first
Black recipient of the
James E. Sullivan Award
for amateur athletes.
In 1994, a gunman
walked into a pair of sub-
urban Boston abortion
clinics and opened fire,
killing two employees.
In 1999, former Beatle
George Harrison fought
off a knife-wielding in-
truder who’d broken into
his mansion west of Lon-
don and stabbed him in
the chest. (The attacker
was later acquitted of at-
tempted murder by reason
of insanity.)
In 2004, a fire broke
out during a rock concert
at a nightclub in Buenos
Aires, Argentina, killing
194 people. Bandleader
and clarinetist Artie Shaw
died in Thousand Oaks,
California, at age 94.
In 2006, a state funer-
al service was held in the
U.S. Capitol Rotunda for
former President Gerald
R. Ford.
In 2009, seven CIA em-
ployees and a Jordanian
intelligence officer were
killed by a suicide bomber
at a U.S. base in Khost,
Afghanistan.
In 2015, Bill Cosby was
charged with drugging
and sexually assaulting a
woman at his suburban
Philadelphia home in
2004; it was the first crimi-
nal case brought against
the comedian out of the
torrent of allegations
that destroyed his good-
guy image as “America’s
Dad.”
PHOEBE AND HER UNICORN
BY DANA SIMPSON
BIG NATE
BY LINCOLN PEIRCE