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Show HIGH TIME: Tte Ms By FLORENCE BITTNER September is the beginning of a new year. We could have the horns and whistles and auld Jang syne routine if schools would synchronize their acts. Even without the noise and fanfare, every school student, teacher and parent of students knows it is the new year. KINDERGARTEN is a tearing out by the roots of maternal apron strings. In between are long stretches of going to the same place with different rooms and new teachers. Going away to college is akin to putting the children up for adoption. THE AMOUNT of living space consumed con-sumed by one child is measured by the silence when they leave. One teenaged boy can keep a house in a perpetual hurricane. Two teenaged boys and assorted as-sorted satelite teenagers make life in their home like living in the path of a typhoon. Then one day you pack their bags, load the car with paraphernalia, replenish their pockelbooks and watch them drive away. THE SILENCE is a blessed relief. Put a bottle of milk in the refrigerator and open the same refrigerator in the morning and the milk is still there. All these years I suspected that machine was fueled by milk. Clear off the kitchen table, pick up the newspapers and they stay cleared off and picked up. This disproves the theory long held by mothers that there is life in inanimate objects. Sideboards do not attract at-tract clutter through a secret-magnetic force. THE SPONTANEOUS generation theory of dirty laundry is false. I have always al-ways known that one item left in the vicinity of a washer caused the m-breed-ing of other items of dirty laundry. Not so When the kids leave home, do the wash and it stays done. Television sets do not turn themselves on. A made bed will stay made. Automobile Au-tomobile gas tanks are not sieves. Donuts and cookies do not evaporate. Bathroom towels do not absorb moisture from the air and fall in sudden heaps on the floor. - THE GREATEST marvel of all is the cashed check revelation. Put a dollar in the wallet and it snuggles down and goes to sleep. My money has always had legs. No matter what size check I cashed on Friday, there was never anything left on Monday. Now, if I don't spend it, it stays put. At bedtime, I turn out the lights and go to sleep. No more of that lying awake watching the hands of the clock go round and round and telling myself not to worry. He knows exactly where he is and what he's doing. NOW HE'S probably doing the same things, only I don't know whether he's staying out till all hours, so I might as well go to sleep. The peace and quiet and serenity and order of existence is incredible. Who would have believed that two boys could create such turmoil? ITS WONDERFUL. Isn't it? Of course it is. I love the peace and quiet. I'm basically a very neat person and I enjoy putting something down and being able to find it again. Don't I. Well, don't I? Then why am I so restless? Why can't I sit down and soak up the silence? Why is there this nagging ache that won't go away? MOTHERS ARE a sorry lot. We live on an emotional yo yo. We can't wait to get the babies here and then we can't wait to get them walking and trained. We push them into nursery school and look forward to their going to kindergarten. And every time one of them does one of the things we push them into doing, we go find a quiet place and shed some tears for the lost baby. Since they began talking, college was part of their vocabulary. I insisted on it frequently, vocally, forcefully. They were going to college and that was the end of the discussion. SO WHAT do they do? They go to college and leave me home and leave me organized, peaceful and utterly desolate. |