Vagabond Editorials

By Jack Dionne

The house of dreams in which I tive, Has beamed old ceilings high, It sits far back amid the trees And a brook runs laughing by; It has a'quaint old'fashioned hall, Where soft light filters through, Red roses on the newel-post, And on the stair-case-YOU.

-Elizabeth Gordon.

Everywhere are signs of spring. It was &lna St. Vincent Millay who wrote:

Spring rides no horses down the hill, ' But comes on foot, a goose-girl stitl; And all the loveliest things there be, Come simply, so it seems to me.

Not all spring things come so simply, I would have you to know, Miss Poetess. Frinstance-f looked over the 1936 Panama hat, shook my head sadly, and decided to have a new one. The windows are full of them. As I looked, I recalled how two years ago there were big price tags on all the Panama hats. Then I remembered that a year ago the tags were small. And finally I noticed that THIS year THERE ARE NO TAGS on them. It didn't take long to find out why. And the old hat is in the hands of a Greek friend of mine right now, being polished and blocked.

Same way with everything else we buy, of course, including building materials. I personally have heard of nurnerous building prospects, some of them very large ones, that died a natural death when the spring bids for material and labor came in. Of course, there is plenty of demand left, and the lumber and other building material markets are booming; but plenty of potential demand has gone back to the waiting list; just like my Panama hat.

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Most people fight fat. I didn't understand why until I saw the figures the other day on sugar consumption in this country. We eat one hundred and twenty-three pounds of sugar per person p€r year in this land of the free and home of the sweet. About one-third of a pound per day per person. And I admit I eat more than my share.

I listened to a most interesting speaker the other day, a famous dietitian, scolding a gang of business men about the idiocy of their eating. And he really whipped us sugar hounds. This guy held to the philosophy that you c:rn overcome even the ravages of advancing years, and cure almost any disease, by proper eating. According to his figures I should have been dead lo'ng, long ago, for verily, I like everything he thundered against,-and vice versa. rt,|<*

Jack Benny should have been there to listen to the terrible things that guy said about eating alleged foods made by boiling the "hoofs, horns, and hides" of animals. And here I've been a big eater of those jellatine dishes. Finally this speaker caustically commented on our national habit of over-eating or silly-eating, and then rushing to the soda jar for relief from our folly. He said that soda will furnish the immediately relief sought on such occasions, but will then burn out the lining of your stomach a little more slowly but just as definitely as though you swallowed carbolic acid. It's really dangerous to be alive these days.

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Not long ago I printed in this col,umn the statement made by a famous preacher concerning the high moftality of banks and the low death rate of churches during panics and depressions. I was reminded of that statement again recently when I read that thirteen thousand banks closed their doors permanently during the past ten years; and scarcely a single church folded up. There is fodder for some mighty stout sermons right there. The famous Sam Jones, whom I used to listen to in open wonderment during my kid days, would have "gone to town" with those figures' !r :r rf

Which reminds me of how Sam used to pick on stuck-up churches and church people. He loved to tell of a stranger in a certain town who dropped into the nearest church on Sunday morning to attend divine service. He was unfortunate enough to drop into one of those high-toned churches Sam despised so heartily. The stranger stood at the head of one aisle, and no one paid him any mind. He moved to another aisle. Same result. Then he tried the third aisle. No one asked him to sit with them. So he touched his finger to the shoulder of a tall hatchet-faced guy sitting in a swell pew, and asked in a mild voice: "Whose church is this, may I ask?" The dignified one frowned deeply, and answered: "Christ's Church, Sir, Christ's Church-" And the mild-voiced visitor calmly asked: "Is He in?"

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