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Lynn Johnston, creator of one of the most popular comic strips ever, "For Better or For Worse." Johnston intended to end the strip on its 28th anniversary this September.

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We've never met, but I've grown up with your family in "For Better or For Worse," so I feel like we're somewhat related.

I feel even closer to the Pattersons, the characters in the daily strip you've drawn since 1979. Unlike most of the 21 other comic strips that run daily in The Roanoke Times' Extra section, your characters aged in real time.

I got to know them starting when I was in sixth grade. So I've pretty much grown up with them -- particularly Michael, who's a year or two older than me, and his sister Elizabeth, who's a little younger. As the years passed and I went on to high school, college and the "real world" of work and bills, Michael and Elizabeth grew with me. Along the way, they've learned life's lessons -- as have I.

I never had a dog, but I remember how upset I was when Farley died. I remember getting angry at some of the crap Liz had to deal with at school. I even remember feeling a bit jealous when Michael had better luck with girls than I did.

Mason Adams

Until now, I knew I could count on sharing experiences with the characters in the strip.

But this fall, that comes to an end. I hear you plan to cease the strip's "real-time" aging and move it into a hybrid version that will mix new, framing strips with reruns. Readers will see Michael and his family on one day, only to find older strips chronicling the adventures of Lil' Michael and his parents the next.

Time will stop for those characters. April will eternally remain a teenager. Grandpa won't die. Michael and Deanna's kids, Meredith and Robin, will never reach elementary school.

I've invested a lot of time and emotion into these two-dimensional characters in the past 20 years. So I hope you understand why I want a satisfying ending for them.

I know, I know -- I've read in interviews that you're not really "ending" the strip. But when you freeze time for them later this year, you're essentially going to stop advancing the plot.

The lingering question for me is: What does this mean for your characters -- particularly Elizabeth and Anthony Caine, her old high school flame?

A few years ago you broke them up. Anthony got married and divorced, while Elizabeth's gone through a succession of failed relationships.

Now, you're putting them back together again -- apparently for the long term. Some people love the pairing, seeing it as the perfect ending to a story line that has run for years. Others are less enthusiastic. From the "For Better or For Worse" Web site, here's one response: "WHY??? For the love of God, WHY?? The L & A hook-up is the most trite, unimaginable story arc in the history of comics."

Between you and me, Lynn, I've got mixed feelings. The romantic in me sees the logic: It is, after all, the plotline to most romantic comedies -- Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy finds girl again and the two live happily ever after.

But remember that I grew up with Michael and Elizabeth. And I remember that Michael already lived this story. Deanna was his childhood flame, and they grew apart before finding each other once again.

For the same thing to happen to Liz, I see the cruel machinations of a manipulative matriarch at work here. It's no secret that Elly (whom I think of as you in cartoon form, Lynn) wanted Liz and Anthony to get back together.

Is this how things must happen? Does this mean that for me to find happiness, I have go back and marry a childhood sweetheart?

If so, Lynn, I'm in trouble. They're all married or well on their way there.

I'm 30 now. Time cannot be frozen for me. I guess I'll finally have to grow up and move on.

Probably to "Doonesbury."

Sincerely,

Mason Adams