It Must Be Fun to Know All the Answers

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE

of the Minneapolis Tribune editorial page staff

published by the StarTribune

September 17, 1955

   THE FELLOW you are apt to envy on first acquaintance is the lad who knows everything.  Here is the positive and forceful character you wish you were.  Here is the man who can discuss anything from the impact of nuclear fission on the world to the mating habits of the mud turtle.  If you are in a funk over a domestic scene that has blighted breakfast he can give you the lowdown on that greatest of enigmas--women.

   He has fixed opinions on juvenile delinquency, censorship, the farm problem, the Cold War, school shortages and sourdough biscuits.  He never lacks a pat answer.  To him no problems are insoluble.

   DELINQUENCY?  Well, the reason we have so much of it is that we're letting the kids run the show.  Parents and teachers have gone soft.  Junior needs to have his knuckles rapped.  Even more he needs to have the old man work him over in the woodshed.  Then watch him get into line.

   Delinquency is tied closely to the schools where, says the man-who-knows-everything, a lot of wooly-headed theorists have taken over and are teaching the kids stuff ranging from folk dancing to trumpet tooting.  They spend more time integrating Junior into the group than teaching him the three Rs.

   All this bleating about crowded classrooms is poppycock, too.  Why, back in the old home town when the man-who-knows-everything was in school they had from 60 to 80 kids in one classroom.  And there were two grades to a room, with one class reciting while the other studied.  There wasn't any sobbing then about crowded classrooms.  When kids got through eighth grade they knew how to read, too.  Also they could spell "separate" and "receive" and add without using their fingers.  You betcha, boy, we need to return to fundamentals.

   CENSORSHIP?  All the huffing and puffing about it is just so much guff.  All we have to do is weed out the dirty stuff.  Anybody with an ounce of brains knows obscenity when he sees it.  Objectionable literature is objectionable literature, whether it's in comic books or in Shakespeare or Hemingway.  The man-who-knows-everything would root it out of libraries, homes, book stores and newsstands.  The excuse  the modern authors employ for writing this tripe, that it's realism, is pretty thin.  Reality is bad enough as it is without having to read it.

   THE COLD WAR?  Don't let those Russians fool you, boy.  Don't be taken in by thier now folksy attitude and their pie-in-the-sky promises, the man-who-knows-everything warns.  Those babies haven't lost sight of their original objective, world domination.  Summit conferences and embassy parties are a waste of time.  The way to deal with the Russians and Red Chinese is to be tough.  Larrup 'em with a few bombs next time they get off base.  Show 'em we mean business and we'll have  peace.

   The farm problem would be no problem at all, says Mr. Positive, if congress had any backbone.  The way to get rid of surpluses is to wipe out those support prices.  When wheat got down to two-bits a bushel the farmers would quit growing the stuff.

   THOSE WHO envy the man-who-knows-everything at first usually do not envy him long.  He may sometimes be right and he often is an engaging and stimulating fellow.  But his certainties pall.  He frequently talks arrant nonsense and is sometimes a bore, one of those fellows who tortures the obvious with persistent, pontifical solemnity.

   We are going to have this sort of thing in abundance as the political campaign progresses and candidates and party workers froth up.  In politics it is almost unavoidable.  However he may be racked by doubt about the issues, the aspirant for office cannot merely promise, when elected, to study them and do what he thinks best.  He must accentuate the positive.  Even while straddling he fence he must promise solutions.  Right or wrong, he must have answers.
 
   ALTHOUGH aware that the man-who-knows-everything is seldom remotely akin to the man who is well informed, I confess some admiration for Mr. Know It All.  His extrovertish propensities awe me.  He is a stranger to uncertainty.  Contradictions leave him undismayed.  Once on his course he does not look back.
   Wallowing as I do in doubt, I feel that being positive would be pleasant.  Usually all I am certain of is that motherhood is a sacred trust and that you should be kind to animals.

Copyright 2014 StarTribune.  Republished here with the permission of the StarTribune.  No further republication or redistribution is permitted without the express approval of the StarTribune.

That Barber Shop Harmony "Sends" You

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE

of the Minneapolis Tribune editorial page staff

published by the StarTribune

date unknown; probably 1954-1955

   IF A WISH could make it so I'd be up there with those Barber Shoppers tonight at their "Dixie Jubilee" in Northrop auditorium.  I am quite a warbler--when deep in a dream.

   I'll do the next best thing, unless felled by pneumonia.  I'll be one of the 5,000 eating it up in the audience.  Quartet singing invariably sends me, and save for a native timidity which keeps me in the shadows I might well be a participant.  The only other obstacles that come to mind are an inability to distinguish a whole-note from a gravy ladle and a voice that is good for little but cooling the mashed potatoes.

   I GIVE unrestrained applause to the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America, Inc.  The only thing I have against it is its tongue-tangling name.  Its goal is to "keep America singing"--and this is an exalted aim.

   The Minneapolis chapter was organized in 1944 with 16 members.  It now has 153 and is growing steadily.  Anybody with a yen to sing is welcome to join.  The boys meet twice a month and have a lot of fun.  Just how much I found out when I attended the group's Harvest of Harmony at West high school last November.  Never did I see a bunch of guys enjoying themselves more and more definitely transmitting the enjoyment to the audience.

   The Barber Shoppers are motivated not only by an urge to sing but by a realization that most of us don't sing enough anymore.  Perhaps we never did.  But it wasn't too long ago that the family would gather at the piano of an evening or Sunday afternoon and give out with "When You and I Were Young, Maggie" or "Annie Laurie" and have a whale of a time.

   Those days of family singing have vanished about as completely as the great auk.  We've succumbed to radio and TV and platters.  Available at the turn of a switch are Dinah Shore, Patti Page, Crosby, Como, Eddie Fisher and all the rest.  Topnotchers they are, and nice to listen to, but I can have more fun crawling into the bathtub and yowling "Let Me Go, Lover."  A poor thing it is, but mine own.

   MY OLD MAN used to be the best bass in Choteau, Mont.  He was not only the best one, he was the only one.  He was up there in the church choir every Sunday giving it all he had and liking it.  He was on deck at funerals and weddings and Easter and Christmas programs.  He belonged to a Republican quartet that toured the county at campaign time pouring it on the opposition with such as "There was a time when Democrats were known to tell the tru-u-th; I wonder why they never do it n-e-o-w."

   For several years he entertained the illusion that he had passed his talents on to me, since I was the only one of his kids who could come close to carrying a tune.  He was disabused, however, when he heard me--with wig on backwards--whining an off-key solo in a high school colonial spectacular.

   It was enough to make even a mild music lover flee to the hills and Pop dismissed me as just another one of his tone-deafs.  He even talked mother into letting me give up the piano.  I deemed this a favor at the time, since the instrument became a complete mystery to me the moment the teacher herded me into the bass clef.

   BUT I NOW regret abandonment of my musical education and urge parents to have more staying power than mine had.  For to know music is a great blessing.  Progress may be slow and frustrating and true attainment impossible but great rewards come with even a modicum of skill.

Eldest son Chuck's chorus in Rochester MN 

Available now on eBay

   My own kids, happily, take after their mother and are quite musical.  The youngest hasn't won his spurs yet but the other two, before getting hitched and striking out on their own, thumped the piano and harmonized quite expertly and were always having in their pals for jam sessions.

   The old place gets quiet occasionally now, with the piano gathering dust and nobody lifting his voice above a hum.  Silence can be nice, too, if the thing isn't overdone.  Right now, though, I feel the need for some close harmony and await the Barber Shop shindig tonight with ill-concealed impatience.

   There'll be 10 quartets on hand and a 100-voice chorus.  By close observation I may be able to sharpen up my solo technique.  Anyway I'll enjoy listening.

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.

It SEEMED Colder Years Ago, Anyway

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE

of the Minneapolis Tribune editorial page staff

published by the StarTribune

January 29, 1955

   WITH the wind whistling through the pants and the body braced against the blow, it may be a poor time to argue that winters are milder now than they once were.  Old-timers will tell you, though, that this is a fact and I am enough of an old-timer to suspect that they're right.

   At least winters seem warmer now.  Back 30 to 40 years ago they not only seemed rugged, they were rugged.  They were rugged because we had such frail defenses.  The old pot-bellied stove, sheathed now in nostalgic and coy memory, provided comfort in wicked weather at five paces or so.  But when you were further away the frame tended to shake and the teeth to knock together.  To keep the occupants from going numb, there had to be a stove in about every room but the one closed off until spring.

   BUT THE OLD stove was under considerable handicap.  It operated in a shell.  There was little to keep winter from the hearth.  In those days of no insulation, no storm-sash and no weather stripping, the invading blasts were sufficient to rustle the hair.  It wasn't true that you could hurl a cat through the wall, but you could come close.

   Frost gathered at the keyholes and on the threshold and ice formed on the windowpanes.  If you wanted to see out you made a peephole by pressing a finger to the glass.

   You got relief on going to bed but not absolute relief.  Our sleeping companions included heated flat-irons, soap stones and hot-water bottles and we piled on enough quilts and blankets to stagger a pack-mule.  Sleep was made more zestful than necessary by the fact that the fresh-air craze was taking hold and the windows had to be open.  It was customary to park pants and shirt under the covers to blunt the agony of next morning's dressing.  We slept, of course, in our underwear.  

   The only weather-worry we have now that was absent then involved the water system.  You could lock the place up and flee south for the winter without draining the pipes.  There was no indoor plumbing.  But this nebulous convenience was easily counterbalanced by the agonies inherent in the outdoor facilities.

   NOBODY in his right mind would return willingly to such battles with the elements, particularly if there were chickens to feed and eggs to gather, a cow to milk and a Model-T to contend with.  Milking our fractious cow was murder even in summer.  In winter the job was appalling even to contemplate.
   The Model-T was no soft touch, either.  Ninety per cent of the profanity Pop ever permitted himself came on cold mornings when he flung himself at this four-cylinder tormentor.

   First he poured boiling water into the radiator, then more of the same on the manifold.  Next he put the car in gear and jacked up a hind wheel, spinning the crank vigorously between each operation and cussing with progressive earnestness.

   Once the motor roared to a start, robes and blankets were lashed over hood and radiator and there had to be repeated drainings and fillings between stops and starts because nobody had yet had the brains to put antifreeze on the market.

   The sheepskin coat was in high style then.  It was the nearest thing to armor since King Arthur's time and almost as heavy.  But he who drove more than a couple of miles needed such raiment to survive.  The side-curtain was a mere flapping mockery.

   A WOMAN'S work was on the ghastly side in winter, too.  Monday morning meant more than stuffing the laundry into an automatic washer and dryer.  It meant drawing water from the pump, polishing the knuckles on a washboard and "drying" the clothes on the line outside.  Milady's fingers froze at this chore and the shirts, underwear and petticoats quickly followed suit.  The term "rough dry" well may have originated in those times.

   I doubt if we could revert to those days and stay alive.  Softened up as we are with closed cars, automatic heat and electrical appliances that brew the coffee, warm the beds and dispose of the garbage, we would have small stomach for it.  We might be inclined to wonder if staying alive was worth the effort.

Copyright 2014 StarTribune.  Republished here with the permission of the StarTribune.  No further republication or redistribution is permitted without the express approval of the StarTribune

   

Doubts About the Great Society

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE

of the editorial/opinion page staff

published by the StarTribune 

August 8, 1965

   THE GREAT SOCIETY rests on abundance and liberty for all, says President Johnson.  This is a tall order, but surely none but the completely cynical can dismiss the plethora of administration programs as political devices designed to enchant the yokels and keep the Democrats in power.  Through education, occupational training and firmer health and economic security, the country is embarked on a challenging task to end deprivation, unemployment and inequality.

   One in every five Americans is poor--not even close to minimal standards in food, shelter and medical care.  Some children sleep on floors in burlap bags.  Cardboard substitutes for glass at the window and refrigerators don't refrigerate but do keep food from the rats.

   THERE ARE compelling reasons for medicare, aid to education, the Job Corps, domestic Peace Corps and other facets of the drive for a better America.  And yet, there is something vaguely disquieting in this bright federal promise of all things for all people--something foreign to the doctrine of enterprise in the assurances that the individual need not worry his silly head about the future because Big Daddy is there to help with the rent money, to help provide a job or job training, to send Junior to work camp or to put a young one into Operation Head Start.

   Many of us who admire President Johnson's adroitness in pushing legislation through Congress don't care much for those corn-pone homilies about peace, nobility and goodwill which were so abundant in his July 28 television report on Viet Nam and which characterize so many of his utterances.

   We'd feel more confident that he truly championed justice and those virtues rooted in American tradition if his reflexes were less responsive to politics.  It's not easy, while hearing about the aims of the Great Society, to forget Bobby Baker, that protege of Mr. Johnson who did such profitable but unethical moonlighting while secretary to the Senate majority.  Persisting in the mind also is the hanky-panky involving Billie Sol Estes.  Had the Baker and Billie Sol investigations been cleared of roadblocks and subterfuge, had the investigators been given the go-ahead to smoke out everything, our cheers for the President now would be less restrained.

   With all his professed concern for human rights, we wonder why he doesn't bring pressure on the State Department to put Otto Otepka, the former chief of the department's security division, back in good standing.  Otepka's telephone was bugged and he was rebuked, demoted and ostracized because he was diligent in his duty and, particularly, because he testified before a Senate subcommittee.

   WE CONFESS a definite hunch that individual destiny is being shaped more and more by the government, and that group thought and conformity are nearing full flower, with Uncle Sam increasingly the master and snooper.

   The Great Society has far to go before it's an established success.  It may breed indolence and dilute ambition.  Still its aims are lofty and it should be given our best.  In these complex times, so remote from the horse and buggy, it may be our only rational course.

   But we'd be more content to follow it were it not so engulfed in soothing syrup and were the leadership less paternalistic and benign.   

Copyright 2014 StarTribune.  Republished here with the permission of the StarTribune.  No further republication or redistribution is permitted without the express approval of the StarTribune.