Evening star., 1942-10-21

away from us you WOulQ tnlnK CnaC'
life would be insupportable without
them, yet when was girl we all
wore cotton shimmies and cotton
stockings every day. If we had one
pair of silk stockings to wear to balls,
we thought we were lucky, and we
danced just as gayly and had just as
many cut-ins as the girls do now.
So maybe girls good times do not
depend on her hose after all.
And how long has it been since
we have had gas ranges and electric
iceboxes and master mixers and
automatic toasters and vacuum
cleaners? Practically only since
yesterday. But we are acting as
though we had been born with an
electric refrigerator in our mouths
and we couldn't live without one.
Yet I'll bet that 80 per cent of the
middle-aged women in this country
began housekeeping with wood or
coal stove, swept their floors with
broom and beat up their cakes with
their own good right hand.
"Of course, we are shedding bitter
tears over the servant problem. But
have you noticed with what forti-
tude our husbands seem to bear the
prospective loss of our cooks? When
I moaned to mine that our Jane had
given notice she was quitting to be-
come a riveter, he said, sort of
dreamy like and reminiscent: DO
you remember how you used to cook
pot roast? Oh, boy! I haven't
tasted anything like that in IS
yearsr Seems kind of funny to
think that we used to be as proud
of our special dishes as we are now
of our bridge. Maybe we will go back
to it. Stranger things have happened.
The thing that is really cutting
us to the soul, though, Is having our
gasoline taken away from us and
not being able to jump in our cars
and go hither and yon as we please.
Having to stay at home is going to
cramp our style, but am phophesy-
ing we will like it after we get used
to it. At any rate. the very novelty
of the thing should appeal to the
present generation.
II can remember-and I am not
Mrs. Methuselah either-when it
never occurred to persons that in
order to have a good time they had
to leave home to do so. and when it
would have been almost an insult to
entertain ones guest at restaurant
| instead of in ones own house. Per-
haps 1t was because I was young
then and had a better appetite than
I have now, but I remember those
long, leisurely home dinners at
Mrs. Smiths or Mrs. Browns, with
plenty of good conversation, after I
have forgotten thousand feeds that
I have been handed out in night
clubs, where you can't hear yourself
shrek above the jazz band, and
from which you rush to some other
place of torture where you hope your
sufferings won't be so great.
my daughters seem to think that
when the taboo is put on joyriding
they had just as well enter a num-
merry, so far as dates are concerned.
But, in reality, it is their opportu-
nifty, II they only had sense enough
to see 1t. For it is law of nature
that every woman shows up at her
best against the background of a
charming home. 1t is the domestic
atmosphere that turns a mans
thoughts toward matrimony, and it
gives a girl a chance to put on her
best acts, such as producing a cake
she alleges she made. or doing tricks
with a chaf1ng dish.
There is nothing in gadding
about from place to place that
makes man sentimental. Nor can
any man pop the question when he
is driving 10 miles an hour and try
ing to keep from skidding. It is be-
ing in the kind of home he would
like to have that does 1t. In proof
whereof IL the fact that Ia the old