Garage Job Is a Smash Success

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE
of the editorial page staff
published by the StarTribune
September 6, 1964


   IT HAPPENED in early summer but has been too sore a subject to discuss.  Now, however, the end of the garage, though the new wood lacks paint, is free of holes and has no bulge.
   I had one of my momentary lapses that fateful evening.  I had returned momentarily to boyhood and was driving Dad's Model-T.  Anyone old enough to remember the car that put America on wheels recalls that the brake was about where the accelerator is today.

   I was easing the car into it's berth and, in my Model-T seizure, stepped on the gas to stop.  A dramatic rending of timbers resulted.  My alarmed wife and son came running.
   As we surveyed the damage I avoided their gaze, being almost as embarrassed as I had been years before when I backed over a brother-in-law's suitcase.  "Well," my wife said, "this is a great way to fight the war on poverty.  This should shoot another hundred or so."
   I thought her estimate conservative.  Four studs were splintered and the damaged wall had a hole big enough to allow entry of a St. Bernard.
   But next day the damage appeared less extensive-- something I might repair myself.  "Sure you can," said my wife's brother, who is ignorant of my limitations.  "Just saw off those two-by-fours above the break and push the wall back into position.  Put in some new timber to replace the bad studding and then all you have to do is install new siding."

Garage simulation

   He made it sound simple.  Licking the bulge was.  The siding was something else.  I ordered a jag of the stuff, acting as if I knew how much I wanted and hoping delivery would be slow.  It was out next day.  It sat on the garage floor for a month, a mute and mocking challenge.

'57 Dodge rammer

   AT LAST CAME the time of decision, the time to roll up the sleeves, spit on the hands and get at it.  The obvious first step was to remove the shattered siding and, armed with a wrecking bar bought in a surge of prescience, I went at it.
   But removing this particular type of siding cannot be done like beating a rug.  Each board is interlocked with its neighbor and, in removing one, you risk ruining the one immediately above or below.
   Also, none of the siding was damaged its entire length.  To save time, money and energy, it seemed wise to leave the sound sections undisturbed.  But how to saw off a spoiled section in the middle of a stud so that new siding could be nailed on to replace it?  I thought in terms of a circular saw and consulted my book, "How to Use Hand and Power Tools."  It provided no answers.
   In such a situation I go for help to the hardware store.  I acquainted Max and Floyd with my problem.  They told me what to do and Max, knowing the instructions had to be rudimentary, drew a picture and sold me a keyhole saw.

   AFTER THAT I was in command, though my garbage-can sawhorses barely sufficed.  Progress was further slowed by difficulty with measurements.  If a six-foot board is called for I add a fraction just to be safe, knowing that a piece too long has more potential than one too short.  This results in a good deal of extra sawing.
   The job was finished before dark and my lumber order was right on the nose.  Only a two-foot piece of siding was left.  I rate this as an even greater triumph than my bookshelves.


Copyright 2013 StarTribune.  Republished here with the permission of the StarTribune.  No further republication or redistribution is permitted without the express approval of the StarTribune.

Thomas K.'s note of truth:  it was my mother who ran the car through the garage.  I was there, standing by as she burned rubber and rammed it.  (Dad protected her in his writing regularly).

So You Think Writing's Easy, Eh?

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE
of the editorial page staff
published by the StarTribune
December 20, 1964


   UNTIL MY DISQUIETING contact with a college-level English text the other day, I'd thought that writing was a simple and orderly recording of thought, in the process of which you gnawed pencils to shreds, bit your nails, or beat an anguished tattoo on the typewriter while dredging for pungent phrases.
   Writing is much more complicated than that, the book shows.   It is everything from semantics and rhetoric to the proper length of paragraphs.
   As a result of this enlightenment, I may give up writing altogether.  I don't know enough of the rules and am too old to catch on.
   Up to now, writing has seemed as much fun as work--something to be done not only at a desk but while waiting for a bus or sitting in a restaurant after ordering a grilled cheese and awaiting its arrival.

   UNFETTERED by restrictions and prohibitions, ignorant of the true function of paragraphs, and not knowing a topic sentence from a gerundive, I've broken all the rules, ignored construction, and been warmed the while by self-satisfaction born of ignorance.
   Now, hunched over the typewriter, I am mired in a procedural morass, wondering how in the name of heaven I ever got involved in a craft which seemed, at first blush, to consist in merely putting words together to convey impressions, characterizations, opinions, mood, description and atmosphere.
   Completely frustrated, I've decided to counterattack, to condemn the book as appallingly wordy, as a flayer of the obvious, and a standout example of academic devotion to minutiae.
   I had not heretofore known that there were so many kinds of paragraphs.  They may be classified as "(1) thesis or introductory paragraphs, (2) transitional or organizational paragraphs, (3) concluding paragraphs, and  (4) ordinary--expository or narrative--paragraphs."
   True enough, no doubt.  Anyone who's ever composed anything more complex than a grocery list has employed all four of them.  But I doubt that many folks wrestle with the classifications or are even aware of them.
   And the paragraph, it is pontifically noted, is not a mere handful of sentences.  You begin with a clear notion of the total idea you want to present.  Then your chances of writing something coherent are good.  Anyone who didn't learn this in grade school is in bad shape.

   SOMETIME OR OTHER during the academic years I must have had a brush with the topic sentence.  The book nailed it down in a manner clear to any Philadelphia lawyer:  "A topic sentence is to the rest of an ordinary paragraph as a thesis or introductory paragraph is to the rest of the theme and as a transitional or organizational paragraph is to the paragraph that immediately follows it"
   There you have it.  And nobody, the reader is told, should attempt a theme without first preparing an outline.  Otherwise organization suffers.  I'm willing to let organization go right ahead and suffer.  An outline, in my opinion, for anything within the 1,000-word range, means unnecessary toil and torment and gets in the way of creativity.
   It might be the wrong approach but it seems to me that the English student would profit by being granted a free hand to write themes in his own manner for a couple of weeks before having his head filled with rules, some of which closely resemble gobbledygook.


Copyright 2013 StarTribune.  Republished here with the permission of the StarTribune.  No further republication or redistribution is permitted without the express approval of the StatrTribune.

That Summer Work Pressure

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE
Of the editorial /opinion page staff
published by the StarTribune
June 26, 1966

   WE GO INTO rhapsodies about the glories of youth, but the person who has it--and fully appreciates it--is a rare individual.  He may be happy to be snappy on a tennis court but his situation frequently galls him.
   He has reason to be galled.  He's always being reminded that he's the hope of the future and that if he doesn't shape up and modify his dedication to girls, thrills and hamburgers he'll wind up a bum, a pick-and-shovel man, or a charity case.
   The heat is particularly oppressive in summer.  He must get a job and store up money if he's going on to college.  Otherwise he'll be a dropout and a failure.

   AS I PREACH this line I keep trying to forget that the only man among my relatives who ever got rich was a dropout.  He quit school after eighth grade and was quite happy with his lot, even though he may have thought Swinburne a pitcher for the Dodgers.
   The teenager who hasn't found a summer job by now may have to turn to occasional lawn mowing assignments, some baby-sitting, and some work around home.  The odd-jobs boy has the leisure to swim and acquire a tan.  He can shoot firecrackers on the Fourth and perhaps cruise about in the car when Pop isn't yapping at him to clean the basement.  But he realizes he isn't on solid economic footing and that the work he does is piddling and lacks challenge.

The Guthrie sheep

   FORTY YEARS AGO he scarce could have avoided seasonal farm toil.  This had challenge aplenty, especially to the back, and gave the toiler definite kinship with the ox.  It was a type of labor now done largely with machines, which is fitting and proper.
   There always was work at haying and harvest time when I was a lad in Montana, and you could, if you had no sense of pride, herd sheep at lambing time.  If you had a sense of smell, a few weeks of this was enough.
   If you insisted on status employment, such as jerking sodas at the drug store, you might go without a job, but you didn't have to hunt much for temporary work.
   The rancher (Montana had no "farmers") came to town and dragooned kids from the pool hall.  Or father knew a rancher, or you were a pal of a rancher's son and got work through him.
   I hear tell of some present-day lads making $1,000 to $1,500 through summer work.  Back in the '20s this was more than the rancher made.  If the kid who worked for him started back to school in the fall with $100 in his pants he was affluent.
   The going wage was $35 a month--with room and board.  The "room" was a bunkhouse barren of amenities, but the board usually was great.  The rancher knew that a good table was as essential to completion of the harvest as the threshing rig and exhorted the cook not to spare the culinary horses.

CM Guthrie in transition

   THE TRANSITION from boy to man is grim and devitalizing.  Childhood days finally are done and it's time for serious business.  An emptiness comes to the stomach when the sufferer raps on the door for a job.  The prospective employer, who may be a lamb, forthwith assumes the bearing of a drill sergeant and, as a boss, it is plain to see, would be a veritable Captain Bligh.
   I well remember the early-teen days when life was a melody.  They were days meant for baseball and fried chicken and swimming.  Duty plucked but feebly at the sleeve and one could lie on a gravel bar beside the Teton, look at the blue above, know a languorous peace, and not fret about a job.

A.B. Guthrie, Sr.

Copyright 2013 StarTribune.  Republished here with the permission of the StarTribune.  No further republication or redistribution is permitted without the express approval of the StarTribune.

A Husband's Challenge to Science

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE

of the editorial page staff

published by the StarTribune
September 9, 1961

   WE ARE IN for more and more electronics and might as well get ready for the eventual reign of the robot.  The computer already has invaded about every area save romance and we can't rest serene even here.  Sooner or later some scientist with nothing better to do will bring out a wonder machine that will tell George whether Gertrude is really his dream girl or would, as a wife, be a nightmare.

   But electronics has its place and I am not one to discount it, even though it seems a crying shame that the human brain, nourished by blood, can't think as fast as a metal one nourished by electricity.

   Because of the current passion for keeping records, government, industry and schools would be chin deep in paper work were it not for the help of these uncanny devices.  And file and payroll clerks,  bookkeepers and stenographers would be reduced to babbling irrationality.

   WE SERIOUS and philosophic thinkers have long since concluded that man has got himself so boxed in by the complications, contradictions and bustling efficiencies of progress that he must take aid where he can get it if he knows what's good for him.

   We're just as sure, however that there must be limits to what electronics can do.  It cannot be expected to supply solutions to everything.  On the residential domestic front, for instance, it would wash against an unyielding reef.

   In this field, of course, cursory gains have been made.  We recognize and approve the fruits of simpler science --vacuum cleaners, dishwashers, power can openers and stoves that cook dinner while milady is lousing up a small slam in spades.

   

LINC computer 1961

   BUT THE REAL core of the problem goes far deeper.  What man really needs to chase the bugs from under the roof is a device that will anticipate and reckon with feminine emotions and reactions, something that will eliminate the booby traps, the sins of omission and the consequent frosty silences which repeatedly shake matrimony to its foundations.

   Elimination of these would reduce divorce, stanch tears and keep the home fires--rather than the wife--burning.

   To be worth its price the household computer would have to keep a man alert to all the special days his wife holds dear, from wedding anniversaries to the anniversary of little Judy's first tooth.  It would have to  make him remember to mail the check to the gas company and the get-well card to Fran, to return the shoes for credit during his lunch hour and pick up the aspirin en route home.

   

   THUS IT would have to be pocket-size.  If not on his person at all times, papa would flub about as many assignments as he does now.  One of my associates suggests that a satchel-size job would serve, but I disagree.  Too often it would be left on the cloakroom shelf at the office and buzz all night to nobody's profit.

   But a pocket-size computer would pose an appalling problem in shrinkage.  Even today's small brain machine , I understand, dwarfs a grand piano.  Fitting one of these babies into the manse would confound an Einstein.  And the only possible place for it would be the spot the boss had reserved for the matching planters.

Steve grants Guthrie's wish

   SUCH A stay-at-home installation wouldn't be worth the cost.  It might tell you where to find your other  sock or help with the tax forms but it wouldn't be around to gig you awake when you were tooling homeward without Aunt Harriet, whom you'd promised to pick up at the station without fail.

   My challenge, then, to the electronics industry is a miniature husband-helper.  If science can score a break-through here it can break through anything.  But I rather hope it doesn't try.  Some jobs are too big to tackle.

Copyright 2013 StarTribune.  Republished here with the permission of the StarTribune.  No further republication or redistribution is permitted without the express approval of the StarTribune.