A Hobby Isn't Something You Can Whip Up Overnight

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE

of the Minneapolis Tribune editorial page staff

Published by the StarTribune

March 12, 1955

   THEY ARE having a state conference on education in May and the committee planning the affair wants the views of us parents on how to improve the schools.

   This is too good a chance to pass up and I am getting in my two-bits worth here and now as I am in the middle of an intolerable situation brought on by present educational shenanigans.

   Instead of sticking to the three R's as they did in my day they are ringing in a hobby show at Robert Fulton school next week. I want to go on record in opposition to hobby shows, especially shows in which my young one is supposed to fetch an exhibit.

   Six-year-olds seldom have hobbies when they are sons of hobbyless papas and my first impulse was to throw up my hands and let him goof the assignment. But my wife says I am duty-bound to go to work with him on a hobby. It was a week ago that we got the glad tidings about the show and we haven't yet turned a wheel. We don't know where to begin.

   Our boy has plenty of interests, such as television cartoons and space men and rockets and cap pistols and books but nothing that's adequate for exhibition purposes. And the hour is a bit late for stamp collecting. It is late, too, for gathering rocks and arrow heads, and out of season besides.

   I SUGGESTED that we color a batch of Easter eggs for the child to display, having noted egg dyes on sale in the shops, but my wife said this would be an obvious phony--and premature to boot. A hobby is something you indulge in the year 'round in your spare time, she said, and you only color eggs once a year.

   She asked why we didn't assemble some of those airplanes that were still in their original containers from birthdays and Christmases past. I asked her how she figured that as a hobby. Was it something the boy did in his spare time all year?  No, she admitted, but there would be a ring of authenticity to it, whereas If we sent him to school with a sack of eggs they'd think we were cracked.

   But the airplane deal repels me. I recall some frustrating attempts at plane assembly undertaken years ago on behalf of our other son. The materials included a bundle of balsa wood shaved into flimsy sheets and toothpick-size sticks. Included also was a tube of glue--and elaborate directions to compound the befuddlement.

   I wasn't up to the job then and am not up to it now, and my wife's assurances that modern planes go together easy leave me cold. They do not go together easy enough.

   I AM NOT out to knock hobbies, however, even though I've been spared most of them. Wood carving, leather work, bead stringing and boat building must be fun for those who care for that sort of thing. I simply do not.

   I can readily spot the robin and the crow, but bird-watching bores me. Carpentry mystifies me, and  photography, requiring light meters, flash guns, dark rooms and the like, seems too complicated.

   I raised a few rabbits as a lad and played ball until they started throwing curves at me. I also did some hunting and fishing but had small aptitude for either and was a fifth wheel on every expedition. My older brother would include me in the party only under stern parental duress. Golf somehow passed me by, also.

   I am no good at gardening, either, owning a withering thumb and an inability to distinguish plantain from petunia. I willingly do the things I'm able, such as lawn mowing and leaf raking, but leave planting and weeding to my betters.

   Anyway I regard gardening, golfing, fishing and hunting more as ways of life than hobbies.  A hobbyist is a fellow who collects Ming China or cigar bands or who refurbishes old furniture or putters around in a basement workshop.

   MY BOY'S no-hobby father is a cross he will have to bear. I am not up to helping him work in clay, collect first editions or dabble in oils.

   But all this reflection is beside the point. The nub of the matter is that due to modern educational methods we must hit on a hobby--and quickly, even if it's no more than putting together a ball of tinfoil or collecting some bottle caps.

   Right now I have a mad impulse to go to work on a bird house with him. We could build a bird house, I think--a bird house that was strictly for the birds.

Copyright 2016 StarTribune. Republished here with the permission of the StarTribune. No further  republication or redistribution is permitted without the express approval of the StarTribune.

Code Won't Stop Political Insults

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE

Of the editorial page staff
Published by the StarTribune

September 9, 1962

   A FAIR campaign practices code has been subscribed to by the national chairmen of both parties. This is supposed to insure high level politics from now until the November election, with all insults being on a lofty moral plane.

   The code is not new nor is it likely to be completely effective, judging by past campaigns. This is as much the fault of the voter as the candidate. Emotional thrusts get more cheers than dispassionate discussion of the issues. Appeals to prejudice are more moving than delineations of our national destiny and responsibility.

   WHAT'S NEEDED, for a campaign code to be effective, is a thoughtful, informed and rational electorate able to distinguish substance from chaff. But people are funny. They are more readily stirred by dog ordinances and daylight saving than by arguments for good government and education.

   Back in our nation's infancy politics was pretty much the monopoly of the aristocrats. It was engaged in, for the most part, by men of culture, wealth and distinction. George Washington set the general tone and the five chief executives who followed after him bore the stamp of gentry.

   THEN the common man began to feel his oats and things changed. Andrew Jackson, that avid protagonist of the spoils system, who would have scorned a fair campaign code as strictly for sissies, got into the White House.

   Jackson was a doughty and forceful president but a rough and tumble scrapper of humble birth and do-it-yourself education. He was impetuous, Ill tempered and unforgiving and carried scars from a couple of duels to prove it. He defeated John Quincy Adams in 1828, gaining revenge for a defeat four years earlier when he thought Adams and Henry Clay had conspired to gyp him out of the big prize.

   He beat Adams by constantly pounding this good man over the head with charges of corruption. This technique was then, and continues to be, quite effective, deplore it though we may as low-down politics.

   Harry Truman, an assiduous student of history, must have picked up a few pointers from Jackson and, though his "give 'em hell" philosophy has grown wearisome, he can hardly be blamed for clinging to it after the miracle of 1948 when he trounced Dewey.

   A CANDIDATE can cut up an opponent quite effectively, however, without coming close to vilification. Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had a feel for politics unequaled
in our time, could demolish a rival with a deft mixture of wit, sarcasm and humor.

   A mere statement of fact can be telling. Edward J. McCormack Jr., candidate for the Democratic senatorial nomination in Massachusetts, fed Teddy Kennedy some harsh medicine in their first debate when he pointed out that his opponent lacked experience and said his candidacy would be a joke if he weren't the President's brother.

   The fair campaign code is highly motivated and perhaps moderating. The general electorate is more refined and less eager for raw meat than in Andy Jackson's time. But under the campaign heat those involved will lapse into occasional billingsgate and it's probably only charitable to dismiss a slip or two. Just so they don't throw the real issues overboard.

Copyright 2016 StarTribune. Republished here with the permission of the StarTribune. No further republication or redistribution is permitted without the express approval of the StarTribune.