Why the Big Urge to Keep Busy?

By CHARLES M.GUTHRIE
Of the editorial page staff
Published by the StarTribune
November 22, 1958


   THE MORE leisure time we have the more we have to do.
   This is one of the great paradoxes of our time. Like a thirsty man spurning water, we cannot seem to get hold of the ease that's around for the taking.
   Thus it is that the ulcer is almost epidemic, and heart disease and mental instability increasing.
   You can understand why a person with a burning sense of mission, or with a goading desire for wealth and prominence, should drive himself.

   BUT WHY should the average mortal, content with his no-tail-fins car and indifferent to fame or a ranch house in the suburbs, be caught up in the swirl? Too many of us feel guilty whenever we catch ourselves indulging in idle contemplation. We equate loafing with a sinful waste of time. This is too bad. Loafing used to be one of the nobler and more relaxing art forms.
   We are at the apogee of a mental cycle which demands that we do something incessantly, with activity an end in itself. If not working, we must play. If we sit down we must read, not for sheer pleasure but for profit.
   Other permissible sitting-down activities are driving a car, watching television, rowing a boat, playing bridge or doing needle-point. We cannot simply sit down and speculate on how we'll pay off the mortgage. That is indolence.


WHENEVER I get one job finished and start groping for another, I try to shake off the mood by lying down. But it often persists. And when one, as phlegmatic as I, is beset by repeated unrest, you can be sure the malady is obviously widespread.
   For a couple of months one time, after realizing that certain jobs listed for execution remained undone from year to year, I kept a list of "things to be done." This would stimulate production.
   Instead it bred frustration and despair. Too many things marked for accomplishment still remained undone and the list only emphasized my ineptitude.

   THIS PRESSURE to do things, this intolerance of meditation, does not, I believe, defy explanation.
   It has come about because man's genius and productive capacity have provided too many things, too many facilities for recreation, too much sporting equipment, too many avenues for leisure that is leisure no longer. Competition for the sale of leisure-time accouterments is as fierce as competition for anything.
   Competition, in fact, is scattered all over the place. One automobile doesn't merely vie with another. It competes with boats, television sets, power mowers, freezers, vacation trips. The refrigerator competes with the furnace and carpeting. Should you buy that shotgun or do that cement work, buy rose bushes or garage paint, golf clubs or a suit?


THE PRESSURE is on to buy and to do--to live it up. The battle is on for your time as well as your money. You're led to believe that you should fish and hunt, like Joe does. You must play golf and ski and swim. You have to catch up with your reading and television viewing so you'll know what to talk about. And you must sand those floors and get at that job in the den--and have time for some concerts and plays.
   The catch, of course, is that the day has but 24 hours, approximately eight of which should be devoted to sleep. How sad that nature made it so!
   And how sad, too, that we haven't enough sense to be selective, to do that which we enjoy and which is compelling and enriching. If we didn't spread ourselves so thin we'd have time to dream.
   Then we'd live longer--and have more to live for.


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

Some Impressions of the '58 Cars

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE
Of the editorial page staff
Published by the StarTribune
November 9, 1957


   I AM as susceptible to the allure of the long, low, two-tone job as anyone but as I scan the assortment of '58 automobiles I wonder how much more of this allure we can take before widening the streets, resetting the parking meters and being forced to crawl aboard on all fours.
   For several years now, fellows with stiff backs have experienced difficulty getting in and out of cars and the situation keeps worsening as the designers get 'em nearer and nearer the ground.

   THE CAR of yesterday was a poor thing by comparison but it had some merit. You could get into it without knocking your hat off and could travel a country road without fear that a four-inch stump would shear off the oil pan.
   On the mountain driving I once knew, today's car would be as useless as a hobby horse. All its oil would be deposited on hummocks this side of the first rise.
   A veterinarian I know, who must drive over all sorts of roads, is happy enough when his new car is on pavement, which it is built for, but is torn by anxiety when it isn't. "Too low," he complains. "They don't build cars for this kind of country. Since September I've knocked off the crank-case twice."

   THE OLD Model T was as good as anything ever devised for rugged, high-crown terrain and, up until he died a few years ago my father-in-law vowed it was as good as anything anywhere. This was because he never drove anything but a Model T, but he was not one to let a thing like this keep him from passing emphatic judgment.
   The closer to horse-and-buggy transportation a car was the better he liked it. When the self-starter was first introduced he branded it a fad that would never catch on. And he had no time whatever for the foot accelerator. You needed your feet for the clutch, brake and reverse pedals, he maintained, and the gas lever belonged on the steering post.

   MY OWN father was of much the same mind. A graduate of the Model T school of chauffeuring, where his grades were mediocre, he found shifting gears senseless and baffling. Only after he'd run through a couple of fences, wound up in numerous irrigation ditches and bowed out the back wall of the garage did he finally wake up. And even then he never shifted into high unless prompted. Second gear seemed adequate. He readily accepted the self-starter, however, having spun enough cranks in cold weather to be sick of the chore.

   But neither of the above-mentioned gentlemen would have accepted today's car, with its myriad buttons, dials, lights and automatic transmission, for a minute. And only a madman would allow such characters behind the wheel of one.

   AT THE RATE automobiles are changing, in some near tomorrow nobody will allow me at the controls of one. I'm at the point where I, too, accept change ungraciously and am forever amazed at the flow of mechanical innovations and varieties of appearance. I cling to the hope that one day the engineers and designers will say, "Here is the ultimate automobile. It can't be any better. To hell with model changes. We'll stick to this one."
   The ultimate automobile, if the trend continues, will be as long as a freight car and the backseat driver will not be a nuisance but a necessity. He will be needed to turn the rear wheels so the behemoth can negotiate corners hook-and-ladder style. Already you court heart failure getting one of today's long babies into the clear at a parking lot. Unless you have power steering, this is a job for the young and vigorous.
   The one development that might arrest the make-'em-longer mania is the emergence of the sports car. This little fellow may be lacking in room and comfort but it demands only a fraction of the road and the space between parking meters is ample.

   BUT GRIPING aside, only a chronic sourpuss could wish for anything but a brisk market for the '58 cars. Our economy rides with them. Their plants give jobs to three quarters of a million workers and the living of millions of others is tied to the auto manufacturer's prosperity--salesmen and servicemen, parts and equipment makers, those who produce and sell gas and oil, steel makers, highway and bridge builders.
   I see where one in every seven U.S. workers owes his job to the automotive field. The figure would be even more impressive if they counted the carpenters busy lengthening garages.


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 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.