10- Year Work Test is Charted

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE  

of the editorial page staff

published by the StarTribune 

October 20, 1963

   NOW I KNOW WHAT I'll do after retirement--devote full time to leaf raking, painting, gardening, window washing, roof mending and junk hauling and see if it's possible to catch up.  This isn't as exciting as taking banana boats to the Caribbean or playing checkers in St. Petersburg but I yearn for the answer.  And I want my epitaph to say, "He got his work done."

   It'll be nip and tuck, but given 10 years, with only an occasional Sunday off and no sick leave, I think I can make it.

   Always in the back of a man's mind is the realization that there's a lot to do that isn't getting done.  This is brought home each fall when you're buttoning things up for winter.  Then you come face to face with the ravages of wear and decay.

   I'm now exchanging screens for storm windows and am acutely alive to--and ashamed of--all the work I'm passing over.  I can let the puttying go for another six months, I tell myself, but a complete job will be a must next spring.  Not one piece of storm-sash is weather-tight.

   THE WINDOWS NEED paint, too.  So do the ledges So do the porches.  The whole house could stand a couple of coats.  And the backyard patio, partially installed in May, remains partially installed.

   Discouragement strikes each time I climb a ladder to clean a window.  This is but the immediate, surface chore, not the basic demand.  It takes time to paint and  putty, though,


and there is too little time.  And if you linger too long on anything but the bare essentials cold weather may catch you with your storm windows down.

   It takes time, too, to wash windows--more time than it should.  It's been my conviction for years, unsupported by my wife, that people expend needless effort trying to make windows shine when they should be content with removing the dirt.  Streaks shouldn't matter.

   You can rub glass until blue in the face, with everything from chamois to winter underwear, and it will, when the light strikes it right, resemble a map of the Missouri watershed.  And even should it sparkle to your wife's satisfaction, it will sparkle only until the next rain.  Then it again will be a mess.

   My wife and I spend considerable time in billing, cooing and smooching, but every October we have a row about the dining room windows--after I've washed them.  The top half of these heartbreakers consists of six small panes, each one determined to remain smudgy.  

   "JUST LOOK AT THOSE dining room windows!" my wife exclaims.  "I never saw them look worse.  Those two corner panes at the top obviously haven't been touched."

   These are fighting words.  "What do you mean, they haven't been touched?  What do you thik I was doing on that ladder for half an hour, fanning the glass with my hat?"

   Such exchanges are quite exhausting and unless my soul mate quits being so finicky about how the glass looks I'll quit wahing windows after retirement.

   It's barely possible that seeing so much of each other will make both of us somewhat touchy.  Wrangles about windows might be just too much.

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.

      

Guthrie columns will resume Oct 20

I'm on the Camino de Santiago (the Way of St. James) in Spain.  Look for "Camino Trails and Tribulations", a possible real time blog.  ----TKG

Old Fashioned? Sure, He Is! (Advertisement for Guthrie's column)

Comes the Time to Leave Home

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE
of the editorial/opinion page staff
published by the StarTribune
September 18, 1965


   THE BOY NEXT DOOR went away to school the other day.  As he drove off with his mother and father we yelled final goodbyes.  A lot of memories then came flooding back and I got a lump in my throat.
   Such farewells can be traumatic even when you have but fringe involvement.  I'd lived next door to this lad and his brothers and sisters and parents for seven years and felt a partial claim to him.  The eldest of six, he was the first to take off for new scenes and experiences.  Departure was a dramatic time.  Such occasions are rife with aches and poignant silences and hollow gags and small talk.
   He'll be less than 100 miles away.  He'll get home every three or four weeks.  Still, it's the start of the family breakup.  Things won't again be quite the same.

   OF COURSE, NO PARENT in his right mind would want his progeny around permanently, and those of practical and realistic turn perhaps rejoice when the kids are out from under foot and increasingly able to shift for themselves.
   Departure for college isn't an unmixed calamity for the high school grad, either.  If he's normal, he's chafed at parental restrictions for some years and is pained by the havoc wrought by the younger members of the clan.  The challenge of education gives him the chance to shake off the shackles and enjoy some peace and quiet and independence.
   However, the vast majority of youngsters leave home for college for the first time with heavy heart, acute nostalgia and the realization that little sister isn't such a pest after all.  Home is a sure sanctuary, a place to lick wounds and rekindle morale, a place where the meals are good and the service first class.  To be pushed out of it, even when the pushing is by mutual agreement and when the thirst for education is strong, is decidedly unsettling.
   That's how I felt it was with the quiet lad next door, and that's why my throat went tight.  I know that for him the bonds of home are inordinately strong.  The spirit in this household is unusual.  Sweetness and harmony naturally don't always prevail but the family is a cooperative unit, one in which the members have abundant fun and frequent laughs.  And the place is the play center for kids of all ages up and down the block, which is revealing.
   This is the first time the boy from next door has been on his own away from home, his parents tell me, and though they know he'll make out, they fear his situation will be difficult until he conquers homesickness and makes other adjustments.

   THIS MAY BE SO, but he's so much better equipped for new situations than college-bound lads were a generation or two ago that there's no comparison.  Today's young may be damned as delinquents, impudent loudmouths and defiers of authority, but they are much more knowledgeable and sophisticated than their parents and grandparents were.

The boy next door

   The boy next door and his contemporaries may wonder and worry about their future because of the Viet Nam imbroglio and the Communist threat, but they aren't unwary, apple-cheeked and home-clinging introverts who lack a sense of direction and who break down when dad and mother send them off to the ivied halls.
   My young friend will take it in stride.  I'll be eager to see him when he comes home for that first visit.  By then many barriers of doubt and uncertainty will be lifted.  He'll be on the way to becoming a man.


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.

Garage Job Is a Smash Success

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE
of the editorial page staff
published by the StarTribune
September 6, 1964


   IT HAPPENED in early summer but has been too sore a subject to discuss.  Now, however, the end of the garage, though the new wood lacks paint, is free of holes and has no bulge.
   I had one of my momentary lapses that fateful evening.  I had returned momentarily to boyhood and was driving Dad's Model-T.  Anyone old enough to remember the car that put America on wheels recalls that the brake was about where the accelerator is today.

   I was easing the car into it's berth and, in my Model-T seizure, stepped on the gas to stop.  A dramatic rending of timbers resulted.  My alarmed wife and son came running.
   As we surveyed the damage I avoided their gaze, being almost as embarrassed as I had been years before when I backed over a brother-in-law's suitcase.  "Well," my wife said, "this is a great way to fight the war on poverty.  This should shoot another hundred or so."
   I thought her estimate conservative.  Four studs were splintered and the damaged wall had a hole big enough to allow entry of a St. Bernard.
   But next day the damage appeared less extensive-- something I might repair myself.  "Sure you can," said my wife's brother, who is ignorant of my limitations.  "Just saw off those two-by-fours above the break and push the wall back into position.  Put in some new timber to replace the bad studding and then all you have to do is install new siding."

Garage simulation

   He made it sound simple.  Licking the bulge was.  The siding was something else.  I ordered a jag of the stuff, acting as if I knew how much I wanted and hoping delivery would be slow.  It was out next day.  It sat on the garage floor for a month, a mute and mocking challenge.

'57 Dodge rammer

   AT LAST CAME the time of decision, the time to roll up the sleeves, spit on the hands and get at it.  The obvious first step was to remove the shattered siding and, armed with a wrecking bar bought in a surge of prescience, I went at it.
   But removing this particular type of siding cannot be done like beating a rug.  Each board is interlocked with its neighbor and, in removing one, you risk ruining the one immediately above or below.
   Also, none of the siding was damaged its entire length.  To save time, money and energy, it seemed wise to leave the sound sections undisturbed.  But how to saw off a spoiled section in the middle of a stud so that new siding could be nailed on to replace it?  I thought in terms of a circular saw and consulted my book, "How to Use Hand and Power Tools."  It provided no answers.
   In such a situation I go for help to the hardware store.  I acquainted Max and Floyd with my problem.  They told me what to do and Max, knowing the instructions had to be rudimentary, drew a picture and sold me a keyhole saw.

   AFTER THAT I was in command, though my garbage-can sawhorses barely sufficed.  Progress was further slowed by difficulty with measurements.  If a six-foot board is called for I add a fraction just to be safe, knowing that a piece too long has more potential than one too short.  This results in a good deal of extra sawing.
   The job was finished before dark and my lumber order was right on the nose.  Only a two-foot piece of siding was left.  I rate this as an even greater triumph than my bookshelves.


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.

Thomas K.'s note of truth:  it was my mother who ran the car through the garage.  I was there, standing by as she burned rubber and rammed it.  (Dad protected her in his writing regularly).

So You Think Writing's Easy, Eh?

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE
of the editorial page staff
published by the StarTribune
December 20, 1964


   UNTIL MY DISQUIETING contact with a college-level English text the other day, I'd thought that writing was a simple and orderly recording of thought, in the process of which you gnawed pencils to shreds, bit your nails, or beat an anguished tattoo on the typewriter while dredging for pungent phrases.
   Writing is much more complicated than that, the book shows.   It is everything from semantics and rhetoric to the proper length of paragraphs.
   As a result of this enlightenment, I may give up writing altogether.  I don't know enough of the rules and am too old to catch on.
   Up to now, writing has seemed as much fun as work--something to be done not only at a desk but while waiting for a bus or sitting in a restaurant after ordering a grilled cheese and awaiting its arrival.

   UNFETTERED by restrictions and prohibitions, ignorant of the true function of paragraphs, and not knowing a topic sentence from a gerundive, I've broken all the rules, ignored construction, and been warmed the while by self-satisfaction born of ignorance.
   Now, hunched over the typewriter, I am mired in a procedural morass, wondering how in the name of heaven I ever got involved in a craft which seemed, at first blush, to consist in merely putting words together to convey impressions, characterizations, opinions, mood, description and atmosphere.
   Completely frustrated, I've decided to counterattack, to condemn the book as appallingly wordy, as a flayer of the obvious, and a standout example of academic devotion to minutiae.
   I had not heretofore known that there were so many kinds of paragraphs.  They may be classified as "(1) thesis or introductory paragraphs, (2) transitional or organizational paragraphs, (3) concluding paragraphs, and  (4) ordinary--expository or narrative--paragraphs."
   True enough, no doubt.  Anyone who's ever composed anything more complex than a grocery list has employed all four of them.  But I doubt that many folks wrestle with the classifications or are even aware of them.
   And the paragraph, it is pontifically noted, is not a mere handful of sentences.  You begin with a clear notion of the total idea you want to present.  Then your chances of writing something coherent are good.  Anyone who didn't learn this in grade school is in bad shape.

   SOMETIME OR OTHER during the academic years I must have had a brush with the topic sentence.  The book nailed it down in a manner clear to any Philadelphia lawyer:  "A topic sentence is to the rest of an ordinary paragraph as a thesis or introductory paragraph is to the rest of the theme and as a transitional or organizational paragraph is to the paragraph that immediately follows it"
   There you have it.  And nobody, the reader is told, should attempt a theme without first preparing an outline.  Otherwise organization suffers.  I'm willing to let organization go right ahead and suffer.  An outline, in my opinion, for anything within the 1,000-word range, means unnecessary toil and torment and gets in the way of creativity.
   It might be the wrong approach but it seems to me that the English student would profit by being granted a free hand to write themes in his own manner for a couple of weeks before having his head filled with rules, some of which closely resemble gobbledygook.


Copyright 2013 StarTribune.  Republished here with the permission of the StarTribune.  No further republication or redistribution is permitted without the express approval of the StatrTribune.

That Summer Work Pressure

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE
Of the editorial /opinion page staff
published by the StarTribune
June 26, 1966

   WE GO INTO rhapsodies about the glories of youth, but the person who has it--and fully appreciates it--is a rare individual.  He may be happy to be snappy on a tennis court but his situation frequently galls him.
   He has reason to be galled.  He's always being reminded that he's the hope of the future and that if he doesn't shape up and modify his dedication to girls, thrills and hamburgers he'll wind up a bum, a pick-and-shovel man, or a charity case.
   The heat is particularly oppressive in summer.  He must get a job and store up money if he's going on to college.  Otherwise he'll be a dropout and a failure.

   AS I PREACH this line I keep trying to forget that the only man among my relatives who ever got rich was a dropout.  He quit school after eighth grade and was quite happy with his lot, even though he may have thought Swinburne a pitcher for the Dodgers.
   The teenager who hasn't found a summer job by now may have to turn to occasional lawn mowing assignments, some baby-sitting, and some work around home.  The odd-jobs boy has the leisure to swim and acquire a tan.  He can shoot firecrackers on the Fourth and perhaps cruise about in the car when Pop isn't yapping at him to clean the basement.  But he realizes he isn't on solid economic footing and that the work he does is piddling and lacks challenge.

The Guthrie sheep

   FORTY YEARS AGO he scarce could have avoided seasonal farm toil.  This had challenge aplenty, especially to the back, and gave the toiler definite kinship with the ox.  It was a type of labor now done largely with machines, which is fitting and proper.
   There always was work at haying and harvest time when I was a lad in Montana, and you could, if you had no sense of pride, herd sheep at lambing time.  If you had a sense of smell, a few weeks of this was enough.
   If you insisted on status employment, such as jerking sodas at the drug store, you might go without a job, but you didn't have to hunt much for temporary work.
   The rancher (Montana had no "farmers") came to town and dragooned kids from the pool hall.  Or father knew a rancher, or you were a pal of a rancher's son and got work through him.
   I hear tell of some present-day lads making $1,000 to $1,500 through summer work.  Back in the '20s this was more than the rancher made.  If the kid who worked for him started back to school in the fall with $100 in his pants he was affluent.
   The going wage was $35 a month--with room and board.  The "room" was a bunkhouse barren of amenities, but the board usually was great.  The rancher knew that a good table was as essential to completion of the harvest as the threshing rig and exhorted the cook not to spare the culinary horses.

CM Guthrie in transition

   THE TRANSITION from boy to man is grim and devitalizing.  Childhood days finally are done and it's time for serious business.  An emptiness comes to the stomach when the sufferer raps on the door for a job.  The prospective employer, who may be a lamb, forthwith assumes the bearing of a drill sergeant and, as a boss, it is plain to see, would be a veritable Captain Bligh.
   I well remember the early-teen days when life was a melody.  They were days meant for baseball and fried chicken and swimming.  Duty plucked but feebly at the sleeve and one could lie on a gravel bar beside the Teton, look at the blue above, know a languorous peace, and not fret about a job.

A.B. Guthrie, Sr.

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.