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Show Damn these mechanical contraptions that we've gotten so used to we cant seem to live without. DDD (that's direct distance dialing, dial-ing, in case you didn't know; we found a telephone operator oper-ator recently that didn't) went kaplooey again Tuesday. We tried for several minutes be -fore we were finally able to get through to the operator to report the phones were out. Guess the first thing she vv told me "Sir, there is a toll-free number you can use to call repair." That toll-free toll-free number is a DDD line that wasn't working. , -0- She finally agreed to hook us up with Dee Jensen, Ce -dar City District Manager, and we relayed the problem. We wanted to get right to Dee since, if we don't lodge our complaint immediately, some wire walker comes around later and says everything every-thing is fine they can't find anything wrong. Dee called back about 3:00 p.m. to tell us the trunk between be-tween Milford and Beaver had been out. We were so relieved re-lieved to learn we weren't again imagining things, we forgot to tell him that our phone didn't disconnect for about 15 minutes after our earlier call to him. -0- Now we really hate to com -plain, but even more than having our telephone out of order, we hate the looks we get from the repairmen. "Just humor him, and get out of here as fast as we can." 'Sorry, sir, we cant find anything wrong." "We've checked everything and it's working alright now." Another thing we don't understand un-derstand is how Ma Bell can manage to get all repairs made before 5:00 p.m. but never makes a repair before noon. Now, forget about having the phone taken out. I've grown too accumtomed to using us-ing it when it works to ever be without one. And despite the contankerous con -traption's way of quitting on , Tuesdays, it still is generations gener-ations ahead of the next best thing. We're not crazy (some will debate that) about the rise in prices, but really it's a better bargain today than thirty years ago. No, Dee, there's no chance I'm going to kick the habit. I've become addicted to calling call-ing who I want, when I want. It's my immediate contact with everybody, from my next door neighbor to the White House. The only solution, as we see it, is to leave a set of keys to that block building in the alley, at the COUNTY NEWS and whenever anything any-thing goes wrong, we'll run out and kick a few relays until it works. -0- Got a come -on for a book, "Why S.O.B.'s Succeed, And Why Nice Guys Fail In A Small Business". Some people peo-ple will say I don't need it, but I ordered one. Regular edition is $20.65 and the deluxe de-luxe $27.00. I got the deluxe. Figured if you're going to be an S.O.B., you better have a little class. -0- Looks like they've got a gung-ho recreation program going for this summer. (See story on page one). The only thing that got to us was the physical fitness program for senior citizens. I suppose that fits right into today's concept of growing old, but we often wonder if these physical phy-sical fitness nuts ever considered con-sidered us older folks like we did when I was a kid. -0- Nobody ever organized group calisthenics for the oldsters. Nope! We let'em do just about what they wanted. want-ed. There was the horseshoe i courts beside the black-' black-' smith's shop. Had some pretty good pitchers, tool At i one time that little town claimed the Individual champ In seven states, and the doubles dou-bles champs in four states. Of course, we kids didnt have much to do with their success. We mostly let them alone, and they did likewise. Once In a while, when they didn't have a foursome, we'd play with them just so's (ConMmind on Pbto V ed, sanded, complete with big half -Inch steel wickets, that the kids couldn't hurt. They played with hard rubber rub-ber balls and most had custom made mallets, generally gen-erally out of hedge. They were very heavy, tipped with leather. Sometimes us kids would drag the court for them, and then play a couple of rounds to make sure It was alright before the oldsters would show up. There'd be 15-20 of them almost every night, and they'd be there until 11-12:00. They'd almost never nev-er need any help from the youngsters after nine o'clock. -0- Yep! Now that I think of It, them oldtlmers back then were pretty enterprising. Why, the young people dldnt have to do hardly anything for them. And what we did do was so uncomplicated and hardly any effort at all. Of course, senior citizens back then dldnt have to stay up until 11:30 every night to see Gunsmoke. They dldnt have to spend all day Saturday Sat-urday and Sunday in one of those soft easy chairs, watching ballgames. I reckon oldsters in them days were in better shape and that's why we didn't have to get'em all organized for calisthenics. calisthen-ics. -0- We still haven't broken through that below 40 barrier bar-rier but the percentage of residents over 40 who can read took a sudden jump last week, evidenced by the Lions paper pickup. It was the best week ever. The Lions sure do appreciate that extra effort. HERE'S MORE ABOUT Just Between they wouldn't have to play singles and walk back and forth after every pitch. -0- Senior citizens back then were pretty industrious, and we didn't have to do much for them. They built their own croquet court. It was sunk into the ground to give stability to the sides for true ricochet shots. It wasjevel- |