Evening star., 1942-07-13


and when our morals and our morale
get as flabby as our collars. We do
things in the summer we would be
incapable of doing in the winter.
Men who are Josephs in January are
Don Juans in August. Women who
are models of virtue in December
daily elong the primrose path in
July. Prim maiden ladies strip off
their inhibitions along with their
high-necked red flannel under
wear and appear on the beach in
bathing costumes that would make
Sally Rand feel that she was over
dressed.
Why summer has this affect upon
us we do not know. 1t just does.
1t is Just part of the tradition that
in the dog days we must do differ
emily and live differently and be joy
Gus and carefree and sing merry
roundelay, though heaven knows
this imposes sufferings upon us that
makes us often wonder If we will
have the strength to live through it
until fall.
To attempt to catalogue all of
the disadvantages of summer would
take bill of indictment longer than
one of Mr.. Dies reports about his
suspicious But, passing lightly over
the mosquitoes and sand-hies and
red-bugs and poison ivy and such
minor Affections that pertain par
ticularly to summer, let us leap at
once to that ever potent source of
torture-the summer cottage or
shack in the woods, or the tent by
the brookside.
What agonies of discomfort, what
WEAKNESS of bone and muscle, what
sleeplessness of nights, what bore
dom these impose upon poor, guile
less, innocent men and women, no
tongue can tell. Yet every year,
driven by some inner compulsion
they cannot resist, millions of peo-
pie who have comfortable homes,
with a delicatessen store handy and
Joe's right around the corner, in
case the cook leaves, go and live in
squalor and eat out of cans and lie
on beds that seem stuffed with rocks,
Just because 1t is summer.
Summer Is also responsible for
that other horror-the week end.
At other times of the year your
friends are humane enough to let
you have your Saturdays and Sun
days to yourself and exercise your
constitutional right to life, liberty
and the pursuit of happiness, ac-
cording to your own taste. But just
let July show its head and the
thermometer hover around the COS,
and you are dead duck.
Every one who has anything
against you pays of the score by
not only asking, but positively
shanghaiing, you into spending a
week end with them at their little
place in the country, where you bake
in cubicle under the roof, help with
the housework, nurse the baby, listen
to your hosts old stories for the
steenth time, and lose the money at
bridge that would have bought the
hat you have been dying for and
felt you couldn't afford.
Still another drawback to summer
Is that it is vacation time. Espe-
cially for the children. OF course, we
all adore our own precious darlings
and want them to be happy and to
indulge In all of their innocent
sports and pastines. We like to
think Of their merry laughs ringing
out as they engage in games with
their little comrades.
But when the back yard is filled
with mob of kids from morning till
night. who yell and shrek like wild
Indians; when there Is an incessant
cry Of: Mother what can we
do next?" Mother give me S
cents for an ice cream cone"-well
our nerves aren't what they used to
be. and we long for fall to come when
we can pass the buck to the school
teachers for part of the time any
way.
Oh, summer is a good old time;
It is wonderful thing to look for
ward to and make plans about 1t
Is great to talk about after 1t is over
But while we are going through it,
1t is not so hot? Or is it?