It's Time for More Tolerance

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE
of the editorial page staff
published by the StarTribune
March 10, 1963 


   EXTREMISTS are detecting subversion and racial bias in everything but the seed catalogs and toothpaste commercials. Robin Hood and his merry men have taken their lumps, the minstrel show is under the gun, Aunt Jemima, the pancake-mix lady, emerges as a female Uncle Tom, and censors are sour on a lot of authors and historians.
   We seem in danger of losing our sense of humor, tolerance and proportion in the fields of human relations and democratic ideology. If rational consideration of disputes and weaknesses is stifled by hysteria and hyper-sensitivity, good fellowship will curdle into hostility and suspicion will stalk the land.

   TAKE the NAACP rumblings against the minstrel show. For years the minstrel show has been a waning institution. Since its heyday early in the century, it seldom has risen above bush league entertainment and is now all but dead.
   Absolute death would come sooner were it not for the promotion provided by periodic and self defeating NAACP protests. Silent disregard would seem a wiser reaction, even though Negroes, still chained to second class citizenship and discrimination, cannot be blamed for regarding minstrel shows as insulting and unfunny.

   TURN NOW to censorship extremes. A member of the Indiana State Textbook Commission has declared that Robin Hood and his comrades were straight followers of the Communist line. This constitutes quite a tortuous accusation. The legendary exploits of the rebel leader of Sherwood Forest predated the Communist manifesto by several hundred years and if Robin Hood and his lads, in robbing the rich and giving to the poor, took their cue from Karl Marx at least they did so unwittingly.
   If we must endure many more such stabs at censorship, Communist infiltration of the schools might well succeed. We cannot combat communism with lunacy.

   NEITHER can we combat it by rewriting history--a favorite Soviet practice--and attempting to show that every phase of this country's development has been ginger-peachy, with Uncle Sam always nobly motivated and the people always prosperous, well fed and uncomplaining.
   Our system is the best yet devised. The proof is in our living standards, freedoms, technological and scientific progress, industrial plants, educational facilities and individual opportunity.
   This, however, doesn't mean that it's faultless or that critics should not be heard. It doesn't mean that Carl Sandburg, Aldous Huxley, Oscar Hammerstein, John Steinbeck and other novelists, lyricists and historians are a baleful influence and that their works should be rooted out of school libraries.

   CRITICISM is good, controversy is good, and so is dissent. When we lack the steam to argue, find fault or seek fresh approaches to old problems, or when we suspect those we don't agree with of subversion and skulduggery, progress will stop and we'll yawn our way into oblivion.


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Views on After-Death Adulation

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE
Of the editorial page staff
Published by the StarTribune
October 15, 1960


   IT IS FITTING to speak well of the departed but too bad that a person has to be dead to be fully appreciated. There is an innate reluctance to dispense compliments, even though the practice enriches both giver and receiver. But when tragedy strikes, flattering words flow--to come into flood with death.
   This is regrettable but probably understandable. If  you go around praising the living it isn't because you're a nice fellow but because you have an angle. You are currying favor with the boss, contemplate running for assessor or becoming president of the PTA. So, not wishing to appear insincere and being loath to be gracious, you keep your mouth shut and don't tell Joe how well Gertrude thinks he dances.

   BUT THE hypocrisy apparent in a lot of post-mortem adulation is both galling and amusing. Certain people, when someone dies, should, to be consistent, keep their eyes dry and their mouths shut. I don't refer to survivors or close friends but to persons who knew the deceased only casually and who seek to impress survivor or friend with displays of sham sorrow.
   Since free speech is a constitutional right even when indulged in behind the back, most of us have done our share of belittling and insulting. "There is nothing to Joe, really," we'll say, "but a thick hide, brass and monumental ego. He'd push his own mother out into the storm for a dollar and wouldn't give you the time of day."
   It comes with poor grace, then, when Joe dies, to dab the eyes and tell everyone what a dear friend you've lost.

   WHEN IT comes to mourning, however, I'm tops among the flops, which may account for the fact that I hold many weepers and lamenters suspect. I can't even manage a tear when honestly grief-stricken.
   This can't be attributed to stoicism, either. I often get dewy-eyed at sticky movies, hymns frequently shatter me, and when the kids were small I sometimes choked up, to their amusement, when reading them touching passages from "The Jungle Book" or "Black Beauty."

   THE FASTEST person I ever knew--male or female--with a funeral tear was the undertaker of years ago in my home town. Old Charley was the salt of the earth and no hypocrite, either. He was quite a jolly man when not engaged in his profession.
   But all aspects of his business saddened him beyond belief. He apparently thought that his tears solaced the survivors. For the fee involved he gave them a package deal. He not only was funeral director but paid mourner, and he mourned with convincing earnestness as part of his job.
   Death was a frequent visitor at our house in those days and though in the years since then we've laughed about old Charley, I remember him fondly. His conduct had some merit, too. He provided a macabre comic relief as he
sniffled about.
   He had this in his favor, too. He never spoke meanly of the living.


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To Enjoy Food Less, Learn More About It

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE
Of the editorial page staff
Published by the StarTribune
April 13, 1969


   THE MAN in the street only knows the essentials about food and is willing to let it go at that. He eats when he's hungry and prefers to eat what he enjoys most.
   It's probably just as well. To study the subject is to court confusion. My wife says I'd live a lot longer if I lost 10 or 15 pounds but she's never convinced me that I could do this without starving, and I'd rather live to be 70 on a full stomach than 80 on an empty one.

   SHE NEARLY won me over the other day, though. She sprung a carbohydrate chart on me. She'd been talking for weeks about getting thin the carbohydrate way. She pretends to be talking to herself but I'm not deceived. The message is for me. She doesn't need to lose weight.
   "Look at this,"she said. "Here's the way to get thin and not feel hungry. If you limit your intake to 50 grams a day you get as lean as a greyhound."
   I took a quick look and shook my head. "Nothing doing. Breakfast alone would put me over the top.  A glass of orange juice, an egg, two slices of toast and a bowl of cereal come to 60 grams, 10 more than allowed. Then what do I do, skip lunch and dinner?"
   "It would be quite a change," my wife admitted, "but you'd be all right if you cut out the breakfast toast. For lunch and dinner you could eat beef, pork, lamb, Swiss cheese, lettuce and dressing."

   THERE COULD be worse fates. I took a less hostile look at the list and was comforted by the knowledge that I could gorge on celery, olives and bouillon.
   The more I read, in fact, the better I liked what I saw. If you stuck pretty much to high protein fare you could keep within 15 to 20 grams of the 50 gram limit and eat like the rich people. Meat, fish and eggs are low in carbohydrates and so is butter, mayonnaise, cream, asparagus, sauerkraut, crackers and peanut butter.
   I'd have to give up pie at noon, though. "A four inch wedge of apple comes to 53 grams," I was warned, "pumpkin is a shade less--and mince is loaded."
   Still the diet didn't seem bad. Life never would be completely gray as long as I had an egg for breakfast and peanut butter and crackers at bedtime.

   THEN HOPE was shattered. My dreams of losing weight while eating well were blasted by a friend who is an authority on nutrition. I was telling him about the diet I was about to adopt. "It has calorie counting beat to death and my only regret is that I didn't learn about it sooner. Now I'll have bacon and eggs for breakfast and pour cream on my cereal instead of that carbohydrate-loaded skim milk. I'll eat the way I want to, except to go light on bread, pastries, fruit and juices. Bananas, grapes and apples are out but I can live without them."

   MY FRIEND shook his head. "It isn't that easy, man. Load up on stuff like bacon and eggs and cream and your veins clog up. Haven't you ever heard of cholesterol?"
   "But people are different," I objected. "Some have a big cholesterol buildup and some don't. There's a difference in body function."
   "Your assumptions are incorrect," said my friend. He mentioned a magazine article based on a heart study. "The piece leaves no doubt that cholesterol is the culprit. Eat as you say you're going to eat and you'll not only get fat as a hog but have an early ride in a hearse."
   So now I've decided to forget about dieting and go back to my carefree ways. It seems the more you know about food the less you enjoy eating.

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.
 

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.


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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.