Easter Joy Is Curdled by Taxes

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE

of the editorial page staff

published by the StarTribune

April 1, 1961

   EASTER should be a season of ecstasy, filled with the throb of spring, returning robins and refurbished wardrobes.  But winter clings to my joints and bile saturates my soul.  I am mad at Uncle Sam, mad at his voracious appetite for money.  What was to have gone into new duds has gone into taxes.  I shall march in the Easter parade with naught but a shave, a shine and a dry-cleaning job and look like a fugitive from a rummage sale.

   BECAUSE choler will not let me go and makes me impossible, I have rejected participation in the egg coloring festivities which traditionally gladden our household at Eastertide.

   I can do little but sulk in a corner, wallowing in misery and the memory of finer yesterdays when the movies didn't have prostitutes cluttering up the screen, when women's hats looked better on the head than in a vase, and when Uncle Sam didn't have both hands deep in our pockets.

   ABE LINCOLN said that he owed everything to his mother.  Were he alive today he'd owe everything to the U.S. treasury.  My mood may pass, but at the moment I'm in rebellion against public servants and yearn to tell them off.  All that restrains me is the fact that telling them off would hurt them little but could make me poor indeed.

   Now I appreciate how my late father felt during the war.  He never grew reconciled to gas rationing.  He was convinced it was a nefarious conspiracy against him personally and refused to see any national need for it.  He lived a mile in the country, had to drive to town daily, and thought this entitled him to a "B" card.

   THE RATIONING board thought otherwise and rejected his application.  Whereupon Pop, in high dudgeon, said he'd show 'em.  He'd put the damned car up on blocks and leave it in the garage until the war was over and people got back their senses.

   He didn't carry through his threat, of course, realizing in time that the rationing board would be able to weather the blow but that he would be left afoot.

   However, I sympathize with his reaction and his resentment at the board.  My impulse, as I stew over the tax figures, is to chuck the forms into the alley, head for the hills, live in a hole, let the tax man find me if he could--and shoot him if he did.

   The flaw in this line of action is that going native would make life worse instead of better.  Beating the tax rap, though satisfying, would be insufficient compensation for lack of groceries, plumbing, easy chair, income and TV.

   Return to the primitive, though, looms as a definite possibility.  We of serious mind ponder a future of higher and higher taxes, higher and higher living costs and more and more restrictions--in the name of freedom and security--with definite trepidation.

   WE CANNOT but wonder how long it will be before this freedom and security we prize will be parceled out exclusively by a paternalistic state and humanity will return inexorably to caveman status because--after taxes--a cave is the only shelter we can afford.

   In this season of hope, wonder and awakening, it's a pity that my view is clouded by taxes, the old gray jacket and pants I'm stuck with, and a suspicion that we're headed for the pit even as we reach for the stars.

   I could be wrong and perhaps I am.  A year hence the sun may be shining and I may feel more optimistic.  By then I may have a new suit and be sartorially ready for Easter.

Copyright 2015 StarTribune.  Republished here with the permission of the StarTribune.  No further republication or redistribution is permitted without the express approval of the StarTribune.

Top Grades Don't Spell Success

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE

of the editorial page staff

published by the StarTribune 

June 16, 1963

IN THE AGE OF COMPLEX technology we suffer under, there's more premium on brains than ever before. The "A" student is the best hope for the country's future.  He is the best bet to make good after graduation, particularly if a science, math or engineering major.  He is the glory boy.  He is sought after by industry and government.  His starting pay may be higher than his dad's ever was.

   Conversely, the prospects of the "C average" Joe, who has specialized in nothing much but horsing around during his stay within the ivied walls, are bordered in black.  There are few flutters in the audience when he gets his diploma.  Not much can be expected of this easy-going lout.

   So runs the general sentiment.  But don't abandon Joe to mediocrity too soon, even though his IQ is run-of -the-mill.  If he is a well-adjusted, congenial extrovert of engaging personality who thinks he's ready for the big run, he may run faster than his scholarly classmate.  This is especially so if the latter is shy and diffident and snarled up with complexes.  Adversity may claim this lad in spite of his brains.

   PERSONALITY CONTRIBUTES as much to success as brains, maybe more.  He who has both is abundantly blessed but many a fellow gets along very well with a two-cylinder think machine while the one who has brains alone needs to be a genius to enjoy success.

   I'll take the well adjusted, aggressive, confident and socially-minded youth as my candidate for the full life.  If he's an "A" student, fine.  But if he's  merely an average one I still favor him over the shy and stand-offish honor graduate.

   Those in our society who are old enough to start wondering about Social Security benefits can, in fact, recall classmates who got through school by outwearing the patience of their instructors; fellows who went to school mainly for fun and spent more time over pool tables than over their books.  But by some miracle of injustice they became bank presidents, heads of law and insurance firms and leaders in business and politics.

   Chiefly what such poor-student-to-top-executive boys have going for them, I think, is abundant self-confidence and unawareness of weakness.  They think they are good and they get others to thinking it.  They can talk with authority even though without substance, answer questions glibly and easily, and be quite convincing.

   They do not look back.  They do not brood.  They are racked by no what-might-have-beens.  They do not toss and turn in bed and wish they had said this or hadn't said that.  They sleep well and have no ulcers.  For them there are no yesterdays, only beckoning tomorrows.

   THEY ARE TO BE ENVIED, and it's too bad they are so few.  Anxiety is close to a universal affliction, and a major one.  It strikes early.  You see it in the faces of small children who have been slighted by playmates.  You see it in the first days of school.  You want to take these little sufferers in your arms and tell them they haven't been slighted, really, and that their worries are small ones and best forgotten.

   But as they reach for happiness, anxiety will be their portion again and yet again and it may thwart their progress.  Triumph and laughter will be tempered by disappointment and pain.

   It would be great if Joe, the extrovert, could show us how to avoid all this but he can't.  It's something in his genes that he can't share.


Copyright 2015 StarTribune.  Republished here with the permission of theStarTribune.  No further republication or redistribution is permitted without the express approval of the StarTribune.