The Trial of Meeting Old Friends

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE

of the editorial page staff

published by the StarTribune

March 7, 1959

   PERIODICALLY you cross paths with someone you haven't seen for from 15 to 50 years.  This is supposed to be thrilling.  For many it is.  For me it isn't.  All I get out of it is new inferiority.  My old friends are so blessed with abundance that I feel like a shoe-shine boy.

   I used to dream of bumping into a former comrade selling pencils on the corner so I could pop a coin into his hat and feel superior.  The dream has turned to dust.  I'm always the guy selling the pencils.  

   These old friends of mine smoke 50 cent cigars, drive cars 40 feet long, eat as casually in swank restaurants as I eat in drug stores, and are always vacationing in Bermuda.  They have been everywhere, can talk about anything, and what they don't know is inconsequential.

   WHENEVER they come to town and phone I'm immediately apprehensive.  I lie, parry and stall, hoping to steer them from my humble refuge.  But my hard-to-impress wife, who considers friendship above crass materialism, wonders why I never ask them home to dinner.

   She says their prosperity probably is phony and if they weren't on expense accounts they'd starve.  If a friend is a friend, she says, he appreciates your hospitality and I should get over my silly complex.

   But my complex is disgustingly durable.  It applies even to relatives.  I blanch at the thought of encountering a certain cousin I haven't seen since the last war was the Spanish-American.  I recall her as a pretty girl with black curls--the great love of my childhood.

   I heard from her a while back.  She apparently has the notion that all newspaper folk are characters and she'd like to see me again.  The desire is mutual, but when we meet she'll see a tired man wearing a tired blue serge and a tired smile.  But she will be beautiful still, beautiful and radiant and charming.  My lot is to suffer invariably by comparison.

   FRIENDS who traffic in soft soap sometimes tell me they know someone who is eager to meet me and they are going to arrange it.  How about dinner two weeks from Friday?  Anyone else might feel flattered.  I feel a chill.

   Whenever such a confrontation occurs I'm at my worst.  My worst is very bad, bordering on imbecility.  Billed as the life of the party, as one who spouts witticisms like a slot machine disgorging quarters, I state the obvious about the weather and then stand mute, letting my wife carry on from there.

   If the hostess suggests bridge, and she always does, I cast a wild eye for the nearest exit.  I know my partner will be that person who wanted to meet the newspaper chap.  The next 30 minutes will seem like years to us both.

   WHILE the thought is repugnant, perhaps the "character" pose is the best defense.  It might be smart to grow sideburns three inches long, or wear a full beard and a dirty shirt, both flecked with cigar ashes, and assume an attitude of boorish indifference.

   In such a getup one could be an eccentric instead of a wet blanket, a tyrant instead of a washout.  Let someone propose bridge and you could roar, "To hell with it!  Bridge is for morons!"  This sounds autocratic enough to chill and impress even a sophisticate.

   If you had nothing to say you wouldn't have to say it.  You could take shelter in a huff or feign meditation.  Bieng a character, this would be part of your act.  If asked for an opinion--which I seldom have--you could sneer loftily and say the question was academic.

   But I'm dreaming again.  I couldn't bring it off.  I was reared in the country and the country is with me still.  I can be only myself.  It isn't enough, but it will have to do.

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.

A Pair of Guys It's Nice to Know

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE

of the editorial page staff

published by the StarTribune

November 8, 1958

   JIM AND MIKE are a couple of pals of mine who are worth knowing.  Luckily, I'm their neighbor.  Jim lives next door and Mike four houses south.  I see them regularly on Saturday.  They come over then to give me a hand with the chores.

   To some people I'm too old to be interesting.  To others I'm too stuffy and reserved.  But Mike and Jim think I'm okay.  I appreciate this.  They lift my ego.  Three-year-olds are generous that way.  If they accept you at all they do so without reservations.

   LAST Saturday I backed the car out of the garage to do a wash job and rotate the tires.  Jim joined me in a matter of seconds, asked a few hundred questions to get himself squared away, and then grabbed the lug wrench.  By the time we had one wheel off Mike had joined us.

   I had a bucket of water and a brush at the scene.  Both kids wanted the brush.  I went inside and got a couple of rags, gave one to each, and we all started bathing the tire and wheel.

   THERE WAS considerable contention for use of the garden hose, jack and white-wall tire cleaner, and neither kid hesitated to boss me around.  But things went very well, with no blows or tears.  I had to settle repeated disputes as to which rag belonged to which boy, and endeavored with little success to keep their shirt sleeves dry, but by lunchtime we had the job almost done and nobody was soaking wet.

   Both promised to return in the afternoon.  Neither did.  One confessed rather shamefacedly that he'd taken a two-hour nap.  Maybe the other one did, too.  Or maybe his mother wished to be spared getting him into dry clothes a second time.

   JIM AND MIKE are great at mowing lawns and raking leaves.  Jim's folks found him a block away from home one afternoon this summer working on the lawn of someone they didn't know.  But Jim knew him.  He and Mike know everyone in the neighborhood.

   Their mothers evidence considerable concern for the boys' free-wheeling way of getting acquainted. They are downright chummy with any adult who gives them a scrap of attention.  They stand constantly ready to case your garage for shovels, ladders and carts and insist on being helpful.

   AS FAR AS I'm concerned, the mothers can quit stewing.  While irritability is not beyond me and I can get a lot more done alone than with the aid of a couple of moppets, I covet their company.

   I've reached that plateau on which I find no particular urgency.  If a job isn't finished this morning it can be done this afternoon--or next week.  And if it isn't done at all it probably won't matter.

   Anyhow, why all the rush?  Why not have time to enjoy the fun that fate puts in your lap?  The day may come when I wish to avoid children or, more to the point, when they avoid me.  As long as the mutual admiration holds I'll take advantage of it.

    THAT Saturday in the back yard Jim's mother remarked that my patience amazed her.  Come to think of it, it amazed me some, too.  I recalled that many a time, in similar circumstances when my own children were small, I was waspish and irascible, acting in a way that called for later apologies.  Perhaps patience, understanding and appreciation of childhood are among the boons of middle-age.

   There also must be taken into account the fact, regrettable but undeniable, that we use more courtesy and forbearance with outsiders than with members of the family.

   A fragment of verse comes to mind: "But for our own, the bitter tone, though we love our own the best."

   Not that much forbearance is required in my relationship with Jim and Mike.  Given the chance, I'd steal either or both of them.

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.

   

Losing Old Neighbors is No Fun

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE

of the editorial page staff

published by the StarTribune

June 7, 1958

   THE FAMILY next door moved out the other day.  When the van pulled away it hauled along a lot of roots that had been nourished by 14 years of enriching association.  Two generations of Browns had lived there, dating back to 1912 when house and neighborhood were new.  We felt somehow deserted.

   The incident drove home an old truth, that most of life's blessings, if enjoyed long enough, come to be taken for granted and are only missed when snatched away--comfortable living, good food, good health and good fellowship, the kind born of binding incidents, common problems, shared laughs and close proximity.

   WE'VE ALWAYS had good neighbors and fully expect our luck to hold.  Because people are fundamentally considerate, neighbors usually are good, and despite the wails and dire prophecies anent the younger generation, we've found neighborhood kids more boon than bane.

   None of our neighbors ever was nosey, fussy or crabby.  We've never had one who made a habit of dropping in for coffee and conversation at wrong times.  None ever seemed compelled to alert us to the fact that Hortense Wintergreen down the block would get into trouble if she continued stepping out with that no-good Beeler boy.  None ever tried to mind our business or let their young barge through the door without knocking.

   We've had no more than the normal neighborhood dog nuisances.  Whenever I've fumed at having to tidy up the lawn after a pooch's call I've been reminded that we also once had a dog which wasn't particularly fastidious.

   NEIGHBORS are a definite asset.  It is comforting to know there is someone to call on in time of crisis, such as when you run out of eggs or your pride and joy has made an unannounced raid on the refrigerator, going south with all the milk.

   And when some demanding errand takes you suddenly away for an hour at night and you can't track down a sitter, it's wonderful to have a neighbor willing to keep vigil over Junior.

   THE BROWNS measured up on all counts.  They'd take in the mail when we were on vacation.  They'd tend the parakeets.  They'd lend us what we were out of and always gave more than they received.

   These are not uncommon courtesies, you may say.  Most neighbors will do the same.  But what made the Browns especially nice to live near was that nobody in the clan was a do-it-yourself wizard.  It borders on libel to say it, but I suspect that none of them ever knew any more about the mysteries of plumbing, wiring and carpentry than I know.

   This hasn't always been my privilege.  I have had neighbors who, though kind and generous, were such expert and willing helpers they made me uncomfortable.  Not only did they know what to do before the electrician came, they knew so much he seldom had to come.  They knew instinctively when I had been over-diligent with a pipe wrench and would charge in, push me aside, and take over.

   You quickly feel under too great obligation to such neighbors.  You also feel a cringing inadequacy.

   DURING the years the Browns were neighbors I painted the garage twice.  None of them ever came over to kibitz the job or to grab the brush and say,"Here, do it this way."  They never told me I should have scraped the structure before painting, never said I should have first applied a primer coat.  A small thing, perhaps, but inattention that I appreciated.

   I also was glad I got only sympathy when the furnace went haywire.  Over the long pull, I prefer sympathy to help.

   I hope that their attitude was the same.  About the only help they ever got from me was the loan of a shovel.  Perhaps after noting my garage jobs they knew my capacity for assistance was small.  How right they were.

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.

   

Grandma, 87, Too Busy Cutting Meat to Quit

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE

Of the editorial/opinion page staff

published by the StarTribune

March 10, 1968

                   Jeffers, Minn.

   BUTCH WESSELL is 67 and retired.  His mother is 87 and still working.

   What's more, she has no intentions of quitting work and it would surprise nobody in this town of 500, located in the corn and soybean flatlands of Cottonwood County, if she still were on the job a decade hence.

   Her mane is Laura Wessell, but nobody calls her Laura, just as nobody calls her son Alfred.  She is Grandma and he is Butch, and so it has been these many years.  

   GRANDMA lives in an apartment above the store of her grandson-in-law, Loy Storey, and she works in the store six days a week and asks no favors of anybody.  The meat department is her special love and most of the time she's there in the back cutting and trimming meat, making bologna and sausage, and wrapping beef for the lockers.

   If work is a  hobby she has one.  She enjoys her unique role as a lady butcher.  She also enjoys cooking--and counts no calories.  "I like to make stuff rich," she chortles.

   She also likes to come out front and chat with the customers.  This helps keep her abreast of what's going on in the community.  One of her chief interests is the Jeffers school, where her daughter, Mrs. Maybelle Bigbee, is secretary.  Grandma reads the papers and watches television but her enjoyment of the latter is dimmed by partial deafness. 

   THE LONGER you're around this unusual woman the more you wonder at her strength and agility.  She can lift a box of meat as easily as a young housewife can lift a pork roast, and she wants no help in getting in and out of a car.  She is short and stocky, with a sense of humor, a merry eye, a big smile and limitless energy.

   From the store to her apartment is 22 steps up.  She makes the trip without breathing hard.  "When she has bread in the oven," Loy Storey laughs, "Grandma goes up there every 15 minutes."  Currently she also is caring for an ailing sister, Ella Schall, who lives with her.

   Grandma was married at age 20 in Windom to Henry Wessell.  They started in the meat business at nearby Bingham Lake.  All they had going for them at the time, Grandma recalls, "was a cleaver, a block, a saw and a knife."  Her husband did the butchering in farm pastures.  She helped process the meat.

   When they moved to Jeffers in 1918 they branched out into groceries and soon Butch, 18 at the time, became a partner.  Some time after his father died in 1948, Butch sold out to a partnership which included Storey.  Later Butch bought out Storey's partner and went into business with his son-in-law.

   IN ALL THOSE years Grandma Wessell kept whomping up sausage and hamburger, sawing and cutting meat and otherwise making herself indispensable.  This left no time for bridge, fancy luncheons and other functions so dear to most female hearts but Grandma has no regrets.  

   She has five grandchildren, 14 great grandchildren and one great-great grandchild.  And she's confident that she'll live long enough to see the tribe of great-great grandchildren increased substantially.

   WHAT motivates this woman who never takes a vacation and who works six days a week when she could sit back and take it easy?  Why does she push herself so when it isn't necessary?

   "But it is necessary," says Butch, who retired in 1966.  "Work is her life and it keeps her going.  She couldn't live without the job, the store and the apartment.  They're home."

   And she'll only leave home, says Grandma, "when they carry me out."

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.

   

About Docks, High Water and Tree Doctoring

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE

of the editorial page staff

published by the StarTribune

May 11, 1969

   THERE WAS enough to do at home to sober a horse, but after working until late Saturday afternoon with no end in sight, we decided to abandon the city and its multiple woes for the rest of the weekend and give no more thought to storm-windows.  We'd have to work at the lake, too, but might have a couple of chipmunks for company or, if lucky, a pileated woodpecker.

   The ravages of winter at our home away from home had been extensive.  The front and one side of the cabin cried for paint, as did what passes for the bathroom.  More than half the Norway pines that flank the road leading into the place looked like they'd been sat on, and there was evidence of a roof leak on the fireplace stones.

   BUT WE arrived in high spirits.  The countryside, we noted as we drove north, was clad in the blooming garb of spring -- to borrow a poetic morsel -- and the lake was the highest we'd ever seen it.  Gone was the marshy mass of cattails along the point.  Gone also was the point.  And the pines which had flourished there and were among neighbor Lyle McMurchie's many contributions to arboreal beauty, stood forlorn in deep water, awaiting a rescue that wouldn't come.

   High water had nearly washed away our dock in late September.  Save for the good offices of Bill Weber, another neighbor, it would have been gone.  Bill moored it to the shore and when my wife and I arrived the next weekend we piled the half-dozen sections on cement blocks 15 feet from the water.  We didn't try to salvage the supports.  These, fashioned from poles and two-by-fours, were still submerged in the lake.  They are under water now, too, and may always be.  Even the piled-up dock sections are partially in water, so high has the lake become.

   BUT OF FAR more concern than the dock were the damaged roadway trees.  They had grown amazingly from the time of planting six years before and seemed immune to misfortune.  Now immunity had ended and as I surveyed the damaged branches and toiled at repair, I mourned for each tree individually.

   A few summers earlier I had taped and trussed a Scotch pine that had been mangled when I kept the car too long in reverse.  Surprisingly, the tree survived, in somewhat contorted form, so I gave the Norways similar tape-and-twine treatment.

   WHEN we first noticed the damage we blamed the snowmobile set.  We had seen the boys gunning through the premises the winter before, to our mild dismay, but we thought protests would seem petty.

   The snowmobiler gets more blame than he deserves anyway, I guess.  He is charged with everything from running down game to disturbing the mating cycle of the groundhog, and I have pangs of conscience when I think that we associated this symbol of progress and winter mobility with our tree damage.  Close inspection satisfied us that the unusually heavy snow was to blame.  It had been too much for the branches.

   Maury Heyer, whose mother owns the cabin next to ours, wasn't sure that my repair work would be effective.  Maury works for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources so qualifies as an authority.

   "Limbs that are pulled away so badly that the central core is well exposed might as well be cut off," he told me.  "The tree won't die but the limb will, and trying to save it makes no more sense than bandaging a wooden leg."

   His advice came late, after I'd already cared for the wooden legs.  Now all that sustains me is the flagging hope that time will prove Maury wrong and that I have wrought a coniferous miracle.

   But miracles are not my thing and I am prepared, by July or before, to amputate.

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.

Spring's Not a Complete Blessing

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE

of the editorial page staff

published by the StarTribune

April 4, 1959

   LATELY I've had a spate of requests for a piece about spring.  The good folk have in mind rhapsodies about robins, pussy willows, crocuses, tulips, rhubarb, asparagus and nature's abundance.

   Frankly, I'm not up to it.  The glories of the season have been warbled so everlastingly by poets, song writers and romanticists--all better qualified for the job than I--that aping them would be not only presumptuous but impossible.

   Besides, my heart would not be in it.  I cannot give spring unqualified endorsement.  It represents a nice change in the weather but is not an unmitigated blessing even when the screens are up and the fuel bills down.  There is something I have disliked exceedingly about spring ever since coming of age. Spring is not only running sap and germinating seeds, it is work.

   WITH SPRING all the neighbors get busy on the yards and your wife gets busy on you.  You must make with the paint brush.  If the place isn't decorated right away she'll go mad.

   In winter you can loaf in good conscience.  In spring, custom being what it is, you cannot loaf at all.  And the tragedy is that you don't want to--at first.  All about you is the mess of winter's departure and dog visitations.  Twigs and leaves and candy wrappers, cartons, papers, Christmas trees, refuse and decay are everywhere.  Ubiquitous garbage cans stand out back, crying for paint or concealment.  The garage is full of flower pots and old bed springs.  Work is all around and your impulse is to get at it.

   YOU CAN'T forget the demands of spring even by reading.  Sunday newspaper supplements won't let you.  You are advised on everything from potting begonias to paneling walls.  You must rake, fertilize and seed the lawn so that the dandelions and crabgrass will have something to thrive in later.  You must plan your rose garden.  The assumption is that the roses now in the ground are all dead and any planting and planning done last spring is water over the dam.  In my case this is correct.

   You are urged to hang a lot of paper, paint everything that will hold still, sand the floors, replace latches, doorknobs, rusted screens and severed sash cord, rewire and re-roof the house and modernize the bathroom.

   I am reminded every spring about the backyard patio I haven't put in, which would provide us a place to cook hamburgers.  I should also drop in on the Flemings and see what they've done with their kitchen.  I can't help what the Flemings have done with their kitchen.  I will not and cannot do all the things that should be done.  Mind and body will not permit it.

   NO TREATISE on spring would be complete without inclusion of the car.  The car is an investment no thinking man neglects.  How could he, with those payments?  In spring it must be tuned up for summer.  I do much of this work myself.  Then I know it's done right.  This includes replacing the antifreeze with water, washing and polishing the exterior, rotating the tires and checking them for pressure.

   Better minds than mine carry on from there.  You must, of course, have new plugs and points.  These you always need.  Transmission and differential also should be checked, if you value a sense of security when you take to the highway with your loved ones.  Likewise the fuel and water pumps and the oil and air filters.  Also have the wheels lined up and the brakes adjusted.  If you can think of anything else don't tell me.

   THE BIG spring curse is housecleaning.  Reams could be written about it--and have.  It's not as bad as in the old rug-beating days but even electric appliances haven't made it a ball.  Why more women don't go stark, raving crazy polishing woodwork, scrubbing floors, dusting, fighting moths, washing windows and installing shelf paper is a mystery.

   I shun these chores like the plague, yielding only to the extent of washing the outside windows.  It isn't fitting for women to work outdoors on ladders.  It makes the husband look bad.  Anyway, I'm busy enough painting.  That's about as monotonous as housecleaning.

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.

   

Fond Farewell to the Balladeer

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE

of the editorial/opinion page staff

published by the StarTribune

July 31, 1966

   BRAD MORISON cleaned out his desk Saturday and went home.  He won't be back--except to visit.  This was retirement, the end of an editorial writing career that spanned 40 years, in 18 of which he was Tribune editorial page editor.

   He estimates that he's written 20,000 editorials, which is probably conservative.  He's been a great man to have around.  When an editorial had to be written, and written fast, Brad was the man to turn to.  He has written on everything from the United Nations to politics, from the Minnesota Gophers to the short peony season.

   He once told me with a chuckle that Tom Dillon, a former boss, had characterized him as the most adept fellow on earth at writing authoritatively on any subject, whether he knew anything about it or not.

   But his job has demanded familiarity with the issues and the torments of the times and Brad knows the current scene, both locally and nationally, and has a keen sense of history.

   IN SOME AREAS, though, he is an appalling blank.  All he knows about an automobile is that it has four wheels and runs on gasoline.  He wouldn't know a carburetor from a spark plug and has changed only one tire in his life--with his wife, Gwen, supervising the job.

   He calls the plumber when a faucet drips, couldn't install a switch if his life depended on it, or mend an extension cord.

   This may have been what endeared him to me.  It gave us something in common.  Our association has stretched over 17 years.  We've ridden to work together daily, had lunch together, and never been on the outs, though we insult each other as naturally as we breathe and even chase the same secretaries, in a toothless, bland sort of way.

   Everyone likes Brad on sight, and his popularity is no mystery.  He has great sympathy and understanding.  He has time for the little things, and is not too busy to be gracious.  He comes to the office bearing roses or begonias.  Unfailingly, and with an assist from Gwen, he has provided Christmas cookies for the staff.  The ill or the injured get phone calls or cards--or special "Breakfast Ballads."

   When an associate, Jay Edgerton, now two years dead, had a heart attack and could not go at full throttle after a long convalescence, it was Brad who provided the attention and buoyed up Jay's drooping spirits.  He chauffeured him around, went with him to lunch, adjusted unobtrusively to Jay's slow walk and never had to leave him and go on ahead because "I must hurry back."

   BRAD IS BEST KNOWN, perhaps, for his Breakfast Ballads, the delightful jingles that have seasoned the Tribune editorial page from once to three times a week for more than a decade.  But if this stamps him as a versifier, the label is far too restrictive.  Brad's range as a craftsman is broad.  He is a writer of vast and varied competence, a man skilled with words and blessed with a discerning ear.

   Many who write never quite achieve polish, lucidity or organization.  But for Brad the right words fall into the right places with little apparent effort and no evidence of strain.

   Years ago he wrote a guest column for me, a hilarious piece involving hats.  I had lost mine and he was wearing it, with both of us blissfully unaware of the fact.  The riddle wasn't resolved until I found his hat in a restaurant while hunting for mine.

   It took Brad half an hour to write that piece.  It would have taken me half a day.  For years folks told me it was the funniest column I ever wrote.


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