(A Thanksgiving Day Special) -- Reunions Call for Preparation

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE

of the Minneapolis Tribune editorial page staff

published by the StarTribune

 November 21, 1959

   IT'S BEEN a year since we've had the whole tribe under the roof, but, barring blizzard or illness, our kids and their spouses and kids will be with us this Thanksgiving.  Anticipation is so high that if anything happens to spoil the plan we'll send back the turkey and cry in our cornmeal mush.

   I'm thinking of kidnapping someone's little daughter for the day to give the gentle sex better representation.  We now number 13, with only three females, all adults.  Our six grandchildren are all boys.  I'd given up hope that either my daughter or daughter-in-law will ever mother anything but sons.

   Any chance of a granddaughter is 10 to 15 years away.  My youngest son is that far from marriage, I trust.  And if he should sire a daughter it may be a little late, with only Memorial Day rites reminding her of grandpa.  The clock is running out on me.

   WE FIND grandsons quite exciting, though.  We fatigue visitors with snapshots of them, parrot their cute sayings pridefully and know they all are gifted beyond their years.

   We've instituted a series of family councils preparatory to their coming so the soiree will not be marred by broken legs or cracked skulls.  The safety factor calls for particular attention because of 10-year-old Uncle Tom, who is regarded by his nephews as the epitome of masculine perfection.  His every move must be copied.  His every word is a howl.

   He does have a way, though, of leaving basement doors open and otherwise unwittingly setting booby traps for his juniors.  However, we've lectured him sternly on the importance of caution when the little ones are here and I'm confident he'll be at least as safe as a color-blind deer hunter.

   "We simply must get everything out of reach," I admonished.  "We'll have crawlers as well as runners and fallers.  There must be no marbles, jacks or crayons on the floor, no cigarette butts where they can be eaten, no vases on the coffee table, no knives within reach in the kitchen, no parakeets flitting around.  Nobody must be allowed to pull the cuckoo clock off the wall, knock over lamps, throw blocks at the TV or fall down stairs."

   "And remember," my wife put in with a stern look at her son, "if anybody gets hurt we'll be to blame.  We want to have a happy time and will--if we're all careful."

   "Also," Uncle Tom grinned, deeming it time to get in a word, "we don't want anyone getting chickenpox."  He had recently been afflicted and was talking to his mother, who'd never had the disease.

   "Don't worry about my getting chickenpox," she laughed.  "People my age are immune."

   SHE DISCOVERED next day she was wrong.  People her age do get it occasionally, a nurse told her, and in such cases the malady is invariably severe.  This cheerful soul even remarked that an 80-year-old woman she knew recently had succumbed to measles, "so you never can tell."

   Now we're worried.  Chickenpox, they say, comes about two weeks after exposure.  If milady gets it--and if our luck runs true she will--she'll break out in a few days and the holiday festival will be shot.

   If this happens I won't even eat mush come Thanksgiving.  I'll drown in the stuff.

L-R, front to back
Todd Guthrie, Cary Shoberg, Uncle Tom, Dave Guthrie, Mark Shoberg
Chuck Guthrie, Carol May (Wessel) Guthrie, Paul Shoberg, Charles (Chick) Guthrie, Mike Guthrie,
 Florence (Kildow) Guthrie, Carol Jan (Guthrie) Shoberg, Stan Shoberg

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 Little Mourning Is Enough

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE

of the editorial page staff

published by the StarTribune

July 29, 1961

   WHEN the time comes for me to retreat to the far shore, I hope the trip occasions a minimum of lamentation, tears and nose blowing.  I wouldn't care to have them dance around the bier but neither do I want my friends and relatives to feel any obligation to wear long faces or to mourn more than briefly.

   Not that I'm afflicted with premonitions that death is plucking at my sleeve.  I expect to live longer than I should and to tail off into years of senility.  But after the sojourn on earth is finished, I'm certain that gaudy and dramatic obsequies do the departed no more good than do wails from the mourners.

   THERE ARE those, however, who mourn with dedicated and lasting earnestness and who, refusing to respond to the healing balm of time, grow less and less personable and more and more difficult to be around.

   She outlived him a quarter of a century, but my maternal grandmother never got over her husband's death.  She clung to grief as avidly as a shipwrecked sailor clings to a raft and you'd have thought that she and grandpa never were out of each other's sight from their wedding day until his demise.  She was obsessed with the sentimental silliness that she wouldn't be true to her husband, regardless of his time in the cemetery, if she ever again let herself be gay or make eyes at another man.   

   ANYONE in this situation has a right to react as he or she pleases, perhaps, and if grandma elected to wear her widowhood in melancholy martyrdom, complete with sighs audible for half a block, she must have assumed that this was her business.

   Had she lived alone it would have been, despite the bad break she was giving herself.  But she gave an even worse break to those in residence with her and her dolorous, funereal manner frequently caused my father to blow his cork.  She lived until about 80 and under the circumstances lived too long.

   WE REACT more sensibly to death now, but even today there are those like grandma who refuse to stop crying, who retreat into a shell, won't be pulled out, and then wonder why their friends are falling away.  Remarriage?  They reject it as tantamount to infidelity and remain resolute in their determination to remain forever true, death notwithstanding.

   As I see it, remarriage is a tribute to the one who's gone, proof positive that the survivor enjoyed the arrangement so much that he or she didn't want to continue on alone.

   I HAVE a couple of in-laws I'm proud of.  Both lost their spouses within the year and I feared that each would go into permanent decline.  Neither did.  Both are keeping busy, interested and alive.  The sister-in-law never turns down a social engagement.  The brother-in-law has the neighbors in for coffee at the slightest provocation and loves to have folks in for dinner, prepared by him.  He fancies himself as quite a chef--and he is.

   Neither of these persons is having it easy.  To say that they are happy living alone would be ridiculous.  Both confess to loneliness and dark hours.  But life is far more rewarding than it would be if they were burdened by the fixation that the final curtain had dropped, that they had nothing to live for and that it somehow wouldn't be fitting to do anything but cling to the past.

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.  

Marriage Isn't Every Girl's Dream

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE

of the editorial page staff

published by the StarTribune

February 13, 1960

   IN ALMOST any business establishment that has 50 or more employees you'll find several who aren't married.  One of the favorite coffee-break pastimes of those who can't endure minding their own business is to speculate on how this can be.

   The bachelor, unless he is a prime catch (i.e., a fellow with money) causes no great stir.  His male associates either dismiss him as a person without charm or respect him as a discerning chap who knows when he's well off.  But any girl bertween 25 and 45 who's still single will set the boys to gabbling like chickens in the barnyard.

   "I WONDER why it is that Dolly never got married?" some toothless wolf will muse.  "She's completely charming, dresses well and has a trim figure.  Personally, I coud go for her."  He shakes his head in bafflement and with a trace of dejection.  "She'd better hurry up, too.  Dolly isn't getting any younger."

   His inference is that Dolly would go for him, too, if he as much as crooked a finger, and it's a shame that all the males such as he have been spoken for and are unavailable.

   Then there's Sarah, a lovely dish who can't yet be 30.  A smart kid, too, but without a boyfriend.  Too bad.  Maybe she's too smart.  Her brains probably scare the men off.  She'll wake up some day to find that she's a spinster.  

   IT SELDOM occurs to men, particularly married ones, that the bachelor girl could remain one by choice.  If she isn't married, it's because nobody has asked her.  It's that simple.

   How smug can the male animal be?  While it's true that the question must be popped, any lady with an ounce of guile and awareness of masculine susceptibility to female enchantment can bring this about if she has the desire and is given the chance.

  The bleak fact is, however, that all women are not smitten by all men.  As I get it, most ladies old enough to have their wits about them would rather be dead than married to most men.

   ONCE A GIRL outgrows the dewy-eyed phase when she's in love with romance per se--the age when most of them get married--she becomes harder and harder to snare and is apt to find a career more and more attractive than betrothal to Harry, Herbert or Arthur.

   Also, as she grows in age and experience, the envy that has torn her at being the bridesmaid but not the bride may change to satisfaction with her own freedom--freedom from housework, husbands, financial crises and burping babies.  Following a Sunday afternoon amid the clutter and chaos of Hazel's little family she may return to the quiet and orderly office on Monday morning with renewed appreciation.

   CONCERNED though I am about the population explosion, I'm not attempting here to argue against marriage.  Personally, I wouldn't and couldn't do without it.  But we don't all have the same sense of values, and those who aren't attracted to this particular involvement can remain so, for all of me.

   Unless she's someone whose marriage is delayed or prevented by circumstances, I feel no pity for the bachelor girl.  She doesn't need it.  She probably prefers things as they are.

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.

You Can't Dream and Save Time

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE
of the editorial page staff
published by the StarTribune

 October 20, 1963

   IT TAKES me two hours to get from bed to desk and to do even that well I must eat breakfast like a St. Bernard.  Most of my co-workers sleep later than I do and many reach the office earlier.  They wonder what I do with my time.
   I used to wonder, too, but wonder no longer.  Dalliance comes as naturally as breathing.  I enjoy it and know that at this late date any attempt at self-improvement would be futile.  Whenever I sleep half an hour longer than usual and determine to speed up my schedule to compensate for the luxury, I get to work 30 minutes late.

   HASTE DOES too much violence to natural inclination and forces one to keep his mind on what he's doing.  Also, one must set the stage the night before.  He must decide what shirt and necktie he'll wear and reach decisions about the pants, jacket and socks.  This eliminates rooting around in the closet and pawing through dresser drawers.

   I read some silly business about this time-saving dodge once and determined to try it, even going so far as to strop my razor before going to bed and fixing firmly in mind the  location of the shaving brush.  But the game isn't worth the candle.  It introduced too much stark realism and efficiency into getting dressed.  To me the infant moments of the day are moments to cherish, moments for dreams, for coming alive gradually and decently.

  THE FELLOW who whips out of bed like a fireman, whisks off his whiskers and gets down to breakfast in 15 minutes is a time-saver, I grant, but the world is too much with him.  He is a purposeful and unimaginative live wire who is going places-- and has ulcers to prove it.  The joys of wandering the fields of fancy are denied him.  He is missing much.

   It takes me 15 minutes just to get on my socks and shoes.  While doing so my ear is cocked to the plaudits of the literati.  I have just written a best seller and the rave reviews are a rhapsody.  Or I'm running for a touchdown after leaping high to catch a pass.  The crowd, naturally, is wild.
   Even brushing the teeth is endurable if you get your mind off your cavities and boom down a ski slope, circle the bases after hitting a home run, or shoot it out with the Clanton gang at Tombstone.

  ANOTHER thing that burns up some morning time but is worth it is the horseplay my son and I enjoy.  We always go a couple of rounds after I rout him out of bed and afterward he frequently seeks my counsel on problems in math or social studies.

   This bow to paternal erudition tickles my vanity but I'm not, I confess, at my best so early in the day.  The principal products of Madagascar and the latitude of Peoria come rather haltingly off the tongue at that hour.  Answers cannot be given in seconds.

   BUT TO SUM UP, it takes me an hour to get ready for breakfast, half an hour to eat--if it hasn't taken more than an hour to get to breakfast--and half an hour to drive to the office.  The stretch between bed and breakfast is the one the efficiency expert would spot as the bottleneck.
   However, he can go take a jump.  I have a book of quotations which credits Anatole France with this gem: "Existence would be intolerable if we were never to dream."  Efficiency experts might not agree, but I do.

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.