Home Repair Victory and Defeat

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE
Of the editorial/opinion page staff
Published by the StarTribune
August 1, 1965


   SOME OF MY BEST friends are plumbers and electricians. They've gotten me out of many a mess and have my enduring gratitude. I long ago learned that repair work was not my forte.
   However, let me paint a lawn chair or push home a thumb tack and my wife brags about what a "good fixer" I am--and with no show of banter. Whenever there's anything to do, even to putting a new compressor in the furnace, she suggests that I take a whirl at it.
   There was the case of the bathroom light switch. Months ago I knew it was on its way out. With increasing frequency, when you pushed the button it didn't engage. "One of these days," I sighed, "I'll have to shave the left side of my face in the dark because the light won't go on. Then we'll call the electrician."

   "NONSENSE," said milady. "You can put in a new switch. It shouldn't be hard."
   "It isn't. It's only hard when I do it."
   But the more I thought about spending $5 or more to hire an electrician-- to do a job everyone assured me was simple--the more determined I became to tackle it. One day as a prelude I flung myself at a bedroom lamp long in need of a switch identical to the one required in the bathroom. A muff here would be no calamity.

   After I'd finished, the lamp worked--for a wonder. I then conquered the bathroom light with a minimum of pain and looked around for more challenging tasks. One was close at hand. The toilet had an almost indiscernible leak, with the water in the tank rising close to the top and the float nearly submerged.
   "Gotta have a new float," I said expertly. I got and installed one. The leak persisted. When thus confounded I seek help at the hardware store. Max heard me out, got pencil and paper, and drew a picture. He always draws pictures for me, knowing things must be plain.
   "If yours is the conventional type," he said, "you have a couple of thumb screws close together at the top left. Unscrew these and lift up the valve right there in the center and put in a new washer. I think that's your answer."
   For a trifling sum he sold me a circular, solid piece of rubber the size of a quarter. I thanked him and went away, torn by doubt. I never have been sure about the appearance and function of a valve.

   REMOVAL of the thumb screws was easy and I went after what I judged to be the valve. A few tugs later and I had in palsied hand almost the entire working assembly of a flush toilet. When panic had subsided I deposited the float, rocker arms and other working parts in the bathtub and scrutinized the valve. Sure enough, there was the washer! I pried it out, installed the new one, got everything back into the tank, affixed the thumb screws and turned on the water. Even a plumber would have been aglow with satisfaction.
   I then decided to clean up a few more trifles. I got a new light bulb for the vacuum cleaner and a cord for the steam iron. Then the old sense of inadequacy returned. There was no clue as to how to install the bulb, a job I'd estimated would take but seconds, and a special trip to the store was required to get the word. Written instructions should come with all appliances. If they do, ours always get lost.

   IT USED TO BE that an ironing cord was little more than an extension cord. It could be unplugged from the iron and easily repaired or installed. Those days are gone. The cord on ours is embedded in a mass of rubber and tightly affixed to the iron. It was here, of course, that the wires burned out.
   Me install a new cord? Don't be silly. The orders of procedure I've been given would confound a master electrician. It will be simpler to buy a new iron with the money I save on light-switch and plumbing jobs.


Copyright 2017 StarTribune. Republished here with the permission of the StarTribune. No further republication or redistribution is permitted without the express approval of the StarTribune.

Thoughts About Bomb Shelters

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE
Of the editorial page staff
Published by the StarTribune
September 23, 1961


   UP TO NOW the thought of a bomb shelter has struck me as fantastic--not only too expensive to contemplate but too silly and impractical. But with the Berlin crisis building up and Khrushchev showing diminishing regard for peaceful coexistence, I catch myself wondering which corner of the basement would best lend itself to two weeks of enforced hibernation.
   It's a gruesome commentary on human brotherhood, as the prospect of nuclear war increases, that man's dignity is profaned to the point where he must prepare a hole to pop into. Still, if we must turn gopher to improve our chances of survival, we should get at it.

   I'VE BEEN doing some research on bomb shelters and find that they can be installed in either basement or backyard. The backyard is better, they say, because if you're tucked away in the basement and the nuclear warhead gets within 10 to 15 miles, the house may catch fire or tumble down around your ears.
   But the backyard shelter represents more digging than one of my years can stand. Besides, I'm not about to do violence to the lawn after waging what appears to have been a successful, and expensive, war on crabgrass.

   MY WIFE thinks the fruit cellar represents an ideal setup. All we have to do, she says, is board up the one window and move in some canned goods so we aren't stuck with a diet of pickled peaches, apple butter, apricot jam and rhubarb.
   I didn't care for this careless comment about the rhubarb. Over the years I've developed a sentimental attachment for the stuff. One cannot make light of a thing that has remained ubiquitous but steadfast for close to two decades, patiently awaiting the hour of need. It represents our ace in the hole although, in the clutch, choosing between it and radiation burns might be difficult.

   THERE would be more to converting the fruit cellar into a shelter than milady imagines, of course. All those glass jars, which in better days held mayonnaise, peanut butter and pickles and have been given asylum for no valid reason, would have to be discarded to make room for us. Flagons of water would be required, ventilating and sanitary systems installed and the cubicle sealed off to prevent the intrusion of radioactive dust and neighbors.
   Boarding up the windows wouldn't do, either. Another wall of cement blocks would be needed. This would take off several square feet of living room, if you could call it living, but would improve our chances of emerging, after a fortnight, under our own steam.
   The more I dwell on the horrendous complications and the backache, the more I'm inclined to keep the whole operation as simple as possible. The chances are I'll shovel dirt against the window and trust in divine providence.

   BUT THOUGH not charmed by the thought of living like a mole, I'm glad to see more emphasis on bomb shelters and less on getting out of town. Here indeed would be chaos unlimited, with cars backed  up for miles, intersections choked and everyone involved in the wild rush for the hills either fleeing on foot into the hostile countryside or wasting away in traffic jams.
   If the world is sufficiently crazy to involve itself in nuclear war I am selfish enough to hope that the outbreak finds my brood at our lake retreat well removed from target areas. There we could live on fish, if need be. But even this would be a rugged go. None of us cares much for fish--and with our luck they'd all be radioactive.

Copyright 2017 StarTribune. Republished here with the permission of the StarTribune. No further republication or redistribution is permitted without the express approval of the StarTribune.

Hating Is Easy But Devitalizing

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE
Of the editorial page staff
Published by the StarTribune
January 7, 1961


   DESPITE all our attacks on sin and our prayers for tolerance and peace, we seem just as sinful and intolerant as ever--and peace is just as elusive.
   It's all the fault of the Communist conspiracy. If the Russians and Red Chinese would see the light and abandon their evil designs everything would be dandy. The millennium would be at hand and the lion would snuggle up to the lamb.
   This is just too cozy a rationalization. The threat of world war would diminish, of course, if the Communists became agreeable. But since man is imperfect even under a democratic govermnent the little office, church and neighborhood wars would continue and backbiting would not cease.

   WE HAVE just been through a season which emphasizes the virtue of goodwill and brotherhood. But its message too often is forgotten, scorned or submerged by prejudice. We all know that hate is a monstrous and self-consuming thing, but we keep on hating regardless, usually for picayune reasons.
   We hate someone's looks or his tone of voice. We hate him because he's too aggressive or too patronizing. If he's aloof it's not because he's shy but because he's conceited. If he has a ready laugh he's not an affable fellow but a phony.

   I'VE ACQUIRED an imposing list of hates in my time but am not as good a hater as formerly. I lack the strength for it. It's robbed me of sleep, composure and rational thought. And as I ponder the list, it shames me to realize that most of my hates have sprung from envy.
   A lot of people throw themselves into hate with missionary zeal and abandon. They cling to suspicion, gossip and grudges as though they were meat and drink. They are constantly being slighted, constantly having their feelings hurt and constantly plotting revenge.

   THOSE WHO have immunity to hatred are as rare as sand hill cranes, and the irony of it all is that we so often hate without reason. You sometimes meet a person you dislike on sight and whose faults you magnify in subsequent encounters to bolster your nonsensical notion that you are "a good judge of character."
   Then this social misfit does something that opens your eyes. By act or word he reveals himself as a solid citizen and may even become a bosom companion.

   YOU CANNOT honestly hate anyone unless you know him. And if you know him you seldom hate him. There are some genuine jerks in the world but the good guys far outnumber the bad. For every one who would hold your head under water there are thousands who would pull you to shore. Despite his faults, his frequent ill humor and his parsimony, the other fellow is basically decent. Anyone who doesn't think so either has a persecution complex or is letting hate destroy him.
   If I had the capacity to keep a New Year resolution I'd make this one: "Be charitable, compassionate and patient. Avoid snap judgments.

Be good to those you hate. If you find this too tall an order, avoid and forget them."

   Copyright 2017 StarTribune. Republished here with the permission of the StarTribune. No further republication or redistribution is permitted without the express approval of the StarTribune

Peanut-Butter Addict Tells All

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE
Of the editorial page staff
Published by the StarTribune
October 28, 1961


   IF YOUNG enough to go trick-or-treating, I'd count it a good evening's work if I got nothing more than a slice of bread plastered with butter and peanut butter. This combination, washed down with milk, has served me well as long as I can remember. If eaten just before bedtime, it gets one through very nicely until breakfast.
   My youngest is a peanut butter fiend, too, and so were his older brother and sister. But I always was more the purist than they. Whereas they defiled peanut butter with jelly for sandwiches, I've never even cared much for plain peanut butter when it was imprisoned between two pieces of bread. I want it spread thick and I want it straight up.

   HOWEVER, I don't like peanut butter all the time. It is repugnant in the morning. Some odd balls enjoy it on toast at the start of the day. None of my brood ever had this revolting habit and I'm humbly grateful. The odor of it at that hour rocks me.
   Also, unless plagued by starvation, I can walk away from a platter of peanut-butter cookies without effort. The same goes for peanut butter candy. I hope to be spared any such goodies during the holidays.
   But if forced to limit my intake to a dozen items of food from now until the finish, I'd include peanut butter. I couldn't live comfortably without it, particularly before going to bed. Ordinarily I spread it on bread but for really fast refueling eat it direct from the jar.

   I WAS an even greater addict years ago, before the food processors got in their licks and made peanut butter smooth and creamy so it would spread prettily for television. Slaves of modernity claim that this has improved it. I say it hasn't and deplore the fact that today's small-fry is largely unaware of just how good peanut butter can be when left alone and not put through the homogenizer.
   There's little current demand for old-fashioned, pre-Madison avenue peanut butter but in my estimate the spread popular today compares about as favorably with the original article as cultured buttermilk does to the kind we used to get from the churn.

   FOR YEARS I've implored my wife--for Pere sake--to buy some peanut butter with a quarter of an inch of oil on top. Supported by my son, who rates my tastes as Neanderthal, she's resisted, saying our grocer had more brains than to stock it and that if she did get some she'd have to throw it away when it was half gone because it would get dry and hard as a rock.
   I admit that the oil has to be worked in with practically every using, whereas the homogenized article will remain pliant until the next presidential election. But must even our salivary glands be sacrificed on the altar of convenience and easy spreading?

IN a small-town store the other day I chanced upon a jar of old-style peanut butter. It was comparable to seeing a barrel of pickles, a round of cheese and a bunch of bananas hanging from a rope.
   I pounced on it with a glad cry, took my treasure home and, at the first opportunity, plastered a generous potion on a slab of bread, poured a beaker of milk, and went to work.
   Here was big-league eating. Here was time flung backward. Here was the unglamorous, unrefined article. As I intermittently ate and cleared the roof of my mouth, I recaptured a flash of childhood. I was a boy again, sitting beside the kitchen range or stretched under the old cottonwood out back, having a snack in a blissful yesterday.


Copyright 2017 StarTribune. Republished here with the permission of the StarTribune. No further republication or redistribution is permitted without the express approval of the StarTribune.

To Be Happy, Forget to Regret

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE
Of the editorial page staff
Published by the StarTribune
October 24, 1959



   NOBODY can be perpetually happy. This is perhaps just as well. It might get monotonous. Still, happiness is a boon, and those who enjoy a greater portion of it than the rest of us aren't just lucky even though they may be healthier and naturally more optimistic. Whether or not they realize it, they also have a happiness formula.
   Pursuit of happiness is a constitutional right but many of us chase it with less verve than do others. Those who chase it hardest appear to be happy even when stretched on a hospital bed or playing canasta. From all visible manifestations they are gloom-proof.
   They are not gloom-proof. Nobody is. But they have more-than-average happiness because they've learned to shrug off misfortunes and not relive embarrassing scenes. They can forget financial blows, flubbed bridge hands and loss of possessions.

   WHY, after the initial shock, should a husband be rankled by the fact that his wife blew $30 for a pair of shoes or a purse? Stern admonishment is permissible as a hedge against future folly. But what purpose is served in repeatedly asking what will be used for money to pay for the stuff? This only makes for bad blood.
   Or if you lose the grocery money playing poker, you only compound your misery by wishing you hadn't. The boys won't return your money and you might as well charge it all off to experience, resolve not to let it happen again, and dismiss the loss from your mind--if your wife and the grocer will let you.

   THE PEOPLE  of little happiness are those who wish they could do it all over---and do it differently. They grieve about the jobs they should have taken and didn't, or the jobs they took and shouldn't; the stocks they bought or didn't buy, the wrong cars they purchased and the accidents they shouldn't have had. They suffocate in a slough of it-might-have-beens.
   Weeping and repining never took the wrinkles out of a fender or undid a mistake. Mistakes are water over the dam. They serve only as guides to the future. And the loss of a watch, ring, jacket, glove or scarf is not vital enough to curdle the future.

  I WRITE from bitter experience. The whole subject is close to my heart. Regret is with me almost constantly and new hats only fleetingly. I have a talent for losing toppers that borders on genius. And because I used to mourn such losses exceedingly and wallowed so much in self-condemnation, it was difficult to find happiness until I adopted the mental attitude that happy folks have. Now the "forget it" formula is working for me, too.

   After going without a hat all summer, I was driven by the autumn chill to the hat box on the closet shelf. Removal of the lid established the dismaying fact that no hat was there. It hadn't been there, apparently, since early summer.
   I made half a dozen unrewarding phone calls and then said to heck with it. There were other hats. But often at night, before sleep came, I lay in bed and suffered, trying vainly to retrace the comings and goings of months ago when I thought I was wearing a hat.
   It was the best hat I ever owned, but its loss will worry me no more. It's probably hanging in quiet, neglected dignity in some roadside cafe. I hope though, that this is not so. I am not little. I hope it's being worn and giving comfort and satisfaction to some lucky stiff whose right to it is questionable. I'm as happy as if I still had it--or never had it.
   It was gray with a black band. It was size 7 5/8 and had my initials inside. If it doesn't fit you, I'd appreciate a call.


Copyright 2017 StarTribune. Republished here with the permission of the StarTribune. No further republication or redistribution is permitted without the express approval of the StarTribune.
 
 

Home's the Place for Christmas

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE
Of the editorial page staff
Published by the StarTribune
December 20, 1958


   I'LL BE HOME for Christmas--and glad to be there. None of this honking down the pike to Aunt Mary's for me , risking my neck in holiday traffic and wearing myself out driving. Aunt Mary lives too far away, and her mince pie isn't good enough to lure me from the fireside.
   Christmas is a home day and Christmas Eve a home evening. I have children and grandchildren I'd love to be with but don't hanker to see them and don't want them to come and see me.

   THIS sounds heartless and demands explaining. Had my wife and I only ourselves to consider we might be induced to hit the road for the holidays. But we have a 10-year-old who associates Christmas with home. He would kick like a mule if he had to be away.
   Our grandchildren are of similar mind. They love us dearly, I assume, but our home is not their home. They want the thrill of being tucked into their own beds. They want to imagine the reindeer on their own roof. They want Santa to come down their chimney. They want to gather at their own tree next morning and observe their own Christmas customs.

   CHILDREN get too much jouncing around at all seasons. I have yet to see one with much tolerance for long travel, irregular and unfamiliar meals and strange beds. And Christmas gets such a big and early buildup now that young ones are half sick from excitement by the time the day arrives. To be pushed and pulled through pre-Christmas crowds is no boon to their health, either.
   There is always the chance, too, that a moppet will go south with too hefty a piece of fruitcake on the big day and suffer sharp and insistent misery in the midriff. If he's going to be sick, he's better off being sick at home.

NOT  NORMAL FOR CHRISTMAS

   TO ME the ideal Christmas Day is leisurely and undemanding. At our place breakfast is an uncertain, catch-as-catch-can, serve yourself affair. That's how we prefer it. It usually comes about 10 a.m. after the gifts are opened.
   We set no store in bountiful Christmas dinners. Unless guests are coming and expect them, we don't emphasize big feeds. A big feed means work, and kitchen slavery is particularly onerous on Christmas Day, even when the slave is your wife.
   After all that shopping, gift wrapping, stamp licking, cookie making, decorating and double-checking to be sure that a card has been sent to the Greens at their new address, a wife shouldn't have to wrestle a turkey or mash potatoes. She shouldn't that is, unless so inclined. Some women think it their bounden duty to knock themselves out on special days. Those so inclined are beyond help.

CARROMS

CROKINOLE 

   YOU SHOULD allow time to play those new Christmas games with your child. We played a lot of crockinole and carroms on Christmas when I was a boy and my father enjoyed it all as much as we did.
   Such pastimes would be laughed out of the living room today, I suppose, as would primitive wind-up trains and automobiles. I spent considerable time last Christmas playing Monopoly with my son, however, and think crokinole would have been preferable. Crokinole doesn't demand much thought.
   Dad also read aloud from our new Christmas books. That sort of thing isn't done much now.

   BUT EXCEPT for the greater advance blare, Christmas hasn't changed fundamentally and won't. There's still the humble beauty of its divine origin, still the promise of peace on earth and universal goodwill.
   I think it should be kept simple and uncluttered, undefined by raucous celebration or frantic scurrying about. There should be time for meditation and appreciation of family. There should be some singing around the piano, some harking back to Christmases past.
   You can do all this only in one place--home. That's why I'm glad I'll be there.

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.

Why the Friendship Barriers?

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE
Of the editorial page staff
Published by the StarTribune

December 30, 1961

   I HAVE in mind a few dozen couples I wish my wife and I knew better. If, during the year ahead, we could get them on our social circuit we'd be well pleased. We're on jovial terms with folks we like very much, nearby residents and people we meet in church, at PTA meetings and parties.
   But the chance of enlarging the area of close friendship during the next 12 months isn't particularly bright. We'll doubtless remain in the same familiar groove and run with the same old crowd.

   WE'RE TOO busy and preoccupied to do otherwise. So is everybody else who's lived in one place long. It's convenient and enjoyable, a custom less taxing than extending invitations to persons who have never been inside the house. But time is more the villain than habit.
   To know the Whites better, you must invite them over to dinner or an evening of bridge and dessert. But if this cultivation of new friends isn't kept within bounds something has to give. There aren't enough evenings to go around, unless you jettison your old buddies.
   Social climbers, in their struggles to attain eminence, don't hesitate to do this. But they are a sparse breed, praise be, and confined almost entirely to ambitious young sprouts eager to know the right people and who haven't yet attained a true sense of values.

   STILL, though old friends are beyond price, it's nice to enlarge the scope--and too bad that the process is so time-consuming and shackled by form. Back in a far yesterday you could invite the Whites over on the spur of the minute for nothing more sophisticated than coffee and conversation. You could even pay them an unannounced call. You can't now. This informal technique can even estrange close companions.
   You invite the Whites over a couple of weeks in advance, being very specific about arrival time so they won't catch you vacuuming the carpet. You plan decor, food and diversion with all the care of a general mapping battle strategy.
   Since you can't do this often without killing yourself, you seldom do it at all. The result is that many potential friendships never flower and strangers have a tough time putting down roots. If they could drop in for cheese and crackers they'd have it made.

   IV'E DONE my share of yapping about church but am not blind to church benefits, one of which is sociability. Those who dismiss the church as "the poor man's country club," impress me only slightly.
   The criticism is partially true, if it qualifies as criticism, but just what's wrong with church being a social center? If that isn't one of its functions then I've missed the message. I've found many of my best friends in a "poor man's country club." So have thousands of others.

   THE ONLY contact my wife and I have with a lot of people we're fond of comes on Sunday in church. I have some misgivings about the destiny of my soul but none about such contacts.
   If "having folks in" had not become such a protocol-encrusted flap, a lot of people we'd like to have as close friends would become just that. If you're one of those we'd like to know better, if cheese and crackers aren't beneath you and you don't mind a place with a "lived in" look, drop around and give friendship a chance.


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.