Evening Star Newspaper, April 21, 1940, Page 82

THIS WEEK MAGAZINE AM AN OPTIMIS sy Hdione H HE other day I ran into a friend whom I had not seen in ten years. We had gone to high school together, and we got to talking about old times, about the dreams we had dreamed when we were in school — and of what the past decade had done to our ambitious plans. He had been able to stay in school, working toward the realization of his dreams long after I had fallen by the wayside. But finally he, too, had to give up the career he had planned. And because his defeat had been more recent, and had overtaken him when he was almost in sight of his goal, I suppose it was natural for him to feel a bitterness that has already left me. “Still incurably optimistic, aren’t you?”’ he said to me, and his expression added: “You still haven’t dis- covered the ugliness in life and learned to face realities.” I have seen that same attitude in another friend who planned to become a doctor, but who is now a clerk in a hardware store; and in still another who had dreamed all his life of becoming a lawyer, but who now works in overalls beside me in an industrial plant. My old high-school friend knew something of the weather through which I had traveled. He knew of my boyhood in a family of twelve children on a Georgia farm that was burdened with gullies and a mortgage; of my joy at graduation, so great that it smothered all consciousness of the shiny, three-year-old serge suit which I wore when I was handed my diploma; of hopes for part-time work and a loan to pay college expenses . . . then 1930 . . . '31 . .. '32 . .. five-cent cotton, boll weevils, no money to be borrowed, no jobs — the dreams of boyhood shattered. Finally a job at $13 a week and the accumulation of a wife, a boy, hospital bills and installment payments that swallowed up each wage raise. And still a confirmed optimist? Why not? I’m only twenty-seven, I'm healthy, I have a job, a home (it’s rented, but it's a home), and I have a‘future in the greatest country in the world. I didn't get the college education that I thought I would need to make life worth while, but I have acquired experience and a philosophy that college would not have given me. And I know that, regardless of my age or occupation, every day offers a new opportunity for getting an education. I’'m not saying that I'm glad I didn’t go to college; but since I could not, I think it would be stupid to let this handicap blind me to the experiences I have enjoyed, or to detract from the opportunities ahead of me. l PROBABLY have just as much reason for a grouchy attitude toward life as has the average pessimist or cynic. And such an attitude might give me a certain morbid satisfaction — I should be able to dodge the blame for not being what I wanted to be, for not having what I dreamed of possessing. But the cost of that gatisfaction would be too great. It would give me only contempt for the present and it would kill my hopes for: the future. I think it much more sensible to be honest with myself; to consider not only the bad breaks I have had, but to compare them with.my good fortunes. And. ' it is out of such a practical consideration of my position in life, the problems I face and my chances for success, that my optimism has been born: - ¢ Being a wage earner, I Joould easily become bitter Page I AM AN OPTIMIST. ...ooonnnininrnniiniieecneeeinne by HUDSON Nix ¢ PUTTING YOURSELF ACROSS THE MAN. WHO GIVES AWAY MOUNTAINS ...... by ARTHUR BARTLETT 4 MAKE IT SEEM LIVED-IN “PRETTY PECULIAR PEOPLE" ... .......connvannnne by JOSEPHINE BENTHAM 5 SHADE OVER MAIN STREET Niwtrated by Eorl Cordrey WALLY'S WAGON ............. LITILESHOT ......covnnnnn. e soaiieini s M ..by SAMUEL TAYLOR 6 RHYMES ABOUT TOWN vstrat y Geoffrey N CLILLESUEIEEL et by CECIL ROBERTS 7 TO PLEASE A MAN'S PALATE Hiwstrated by Somes Schucker WHITE-COLLAR JOB OR WORK-SHIRT JOB?......... by LYLE M. SPENCER 8 DO SONS LIKE THEIR FATHERS?. .by VIRGINIA TERHUNE VAN DE WATER 9 A CAT AND A CRICKET STEAL A SHOW......., ... by JIMINY CRICKET 10 Copyright, 1940, United Newspapers Magazine Corporation over the fact that my job pays less than does the average electrician’s, or mechanic’s or plumber’s. But instead of wasting time in envying others their good fortunes, I find it more pleasant and practical to plan the spending of my small salary so that it will bring me the greatest possible happiness and security. And when I look around at the possessions I already have, I find a surprising number of what I once thought of as the “finer things of life.” When I was in high school my chief reason for want- ing to attend college was my belief that a college education ocould enable me to enjoy good literature, good music, good plays, a comfortable home and a car. I never got the job for which college would have fitted me, yet during the last few years I have listened in my own home to many of the great operas and outstanding stage plays, and to the orchestras and. concert artists of the entire world. Libraries and friends have made available the books that I cannot buy and I have a car for fishing, hunting and Sunday-afternoon trips to the country. WHEN 1 sit down to my Sunday dinner I could easily frown because our dining room is also our kitchen and pantry, and because we still haven't been able to discard the dime-store silverware we bought *to start off with."” Although conscious of this, I gealize that my dinner is far better, both in the quality and variety, than any that was set before a king only a few generations ago. Thinking of the opportunities I missed, I could easily grow despondent over my ability to provide for the future of my son. Yet he is now in a modern city school only three blocks from home; for eight years I walked two miles through mud and cold to a one-room, one- teacher school. Later on, he will be able to go to a won- derfully equipped high school; mine was poorly fur- nished, inadequately heated, without modern plumbing. And plans are now in progress that will assure him at least a good start in college ten years from now. There are men in the United States Senate, on the Supreme Court bench and in the executive offices of every large company who did not have as good a chance. Toward the future, I feel the same optimism that caused me to buy a car, a radio and a refrigerator on the installment plan. I knew the payments would be easy to make if everything ran smoothly; in case of sickness or unexpected difficulties, I realized that meet- ing them would call for a sacrifice. But I was convinced that the service and pleasures made possible by the purchases would be worth a sacrifice. Now the payments are made, and it is the memory of the times those pay- ments came hardest that gives me a sense of earned happiness in the use of the car, radio and refrigerator. The future looks promising to me because I possess energy for earning happiness. I-know that in the life of every individual there must . come problems, ugliness and tears; I know also that every life can have its measure of peace, beauty and happiness. My optimism is a challenge to one side, a keen appreciation of the other. Of course, I realize that the cynics and pessimists will say, “How naive!” I don’t mind, for I have been too near the brink of human despair not to be thankful for the balanced viewpoint that makes me optimistic. Sitor O\ s page we publish another editorial by that new author and young philosopher, Hudson Nix. We have had many requests for reprints of his other articles. One interesting request is contained in a letter from L. E. Jenkins, constable in Macedonia, Ohio, who asked for reprints of Mr. Nix's article “I Like to Obey the Rules,” to hand out to traffic violators. “If every motorist would read that article,” he says, “there would be fewer traffic deaths than we had last year.” Hudson Nix dreamed of going to college. He had to go to work in a mill. But he has made something of his life, he is respected in his community, and is finding this is a good world in which to live. Hudson Nix epitomizes our American spirit. * * Il-‘ YOU slam the front door behind you and leave the key inside, you should do as the Romans did. Charles Courtney, ace locksmith of New York, explained the system to us. He owns a reproduction of a huge Roman lock and key, dug up at Pompeii. The lock, two feet square, weighs about fifty pounds; the ten-pound iron key is nearly two feet long. The Roman method, which sounds pretty complicated, was to chain a slave just outside the front door. The key was chained to the slave. When the house owner came home, the slave let him in. If a marauder appeared while the master was out, the slave bopped him on the head with the key. Mr. Courtney says the Romans called their door slaves janitores — whence, of course, our modern word ‘‘janitor.” * * R. F. FOSTER sends us this strange news item, clipped from a newspaper published in South Africa: Mr. J. J. Horn and his young brother were driving across a low bridge one evening about 8. Suddenly their headlights picked out a two-ton hippopotamus standing in the middle of the bridge. Dazzled by the ~ lights. the hippo lumbered toward the car and started climbing over it. Mr. Horn put the car in reverse and backed away. Result: bashed fenders for Mr. Horn; a surprised and shaken hippo, which finally waddled back into the friendly darkness. Hippos, at least, are one hazard that Amer- ican motorists don’t have to worry about. * * THE story ‘“‘Achilles’ Heel,” in this issue, is based on a letter which the author received just as he was leaving London last October for a lecture trip in the United States. Both the boy and the bachelor who inspired the story are now “somewhere in France.” Cecil Roberts is one of England’s most loved writers. His Elizabethan home at Henley-on-Thames, which he calls Pilgrim Cottage, has become a famous spot in England. Queen Mary arrived at the cottage unan- nounced several years ago, and stayed for tea. Many literary sight-seers followed Her Maj- esty’s example, until frequently Cecil Roberts has had to close the cottage and go to London in search of his lost privacy. So many of his American fans have run down to take a look at Pilgrim Cottage that it has been nick- named for that other popular rendezvous of our traveling countrymen in prewar days, “The American Express.” Mr. Roberts’ last two novels, which scored hits on both sides of the Atlantic, were “Victoria Four-Thirty"’ and *“They Wanted to Live.” M. Page ............................ by SYLVIA BLYTHE 12 ................................... by EMILY POST 14 ......................... by MERRILL DENISON 15 ........................ by WALLY BOREN 16 ......................... by MARGARET FISHBACK 18 ......................... by GRACE TURNER 19 Cover by Paul Hesse The names and descriptions of all characters that appear in short stories, serials and semi- fiction articles in THIS WEEK MAGAZINE are wholly fictitious. Any use of a nome which happens to be the same as that of any person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. 4-21-40