Show re 0 0 abw comfort in Trave traveling linc T on a cross coun LATELY JL try prowl two of us invaded vad ed one of the remotest corners of the desert until our car broke down wo we crawled along some of the roughest back waya ways in creation then escaped on what by quaint irony was called on an accommodation train over a side spur of a prehistoric railway line when wo we lilt hit concrete high roads and a air 1 r conditioned liters fliers I 1 caught myself saying our forefathers put up with irvin g S cobb plenty of misery in order to move about and then 1 I realized that what wo we had endured did not date brck to former generations so soon havo we grown accustomed cus tomed to luxury with speed wo we forget that most oi of america fifteen years ago lacked what wo we now accept as common traveling comfort why less than two decades ago for my sins I 1 rodo rode on a certain jerkwater railroad in tho the deep south the last work done on its tracks was in 1804 1664 by general sherman ho tore lem cm up 1 I made the mistake of trying to shave while en route when I 1 got through I 1 looked like one of those german student duelists but nowadays even those who uso use homemade trailers seem almost m ost happy at times 4 4 diplomatic bo be the next member of bour our diplomatic corps to open his and put his toot in it clear up to his hip joint it has been nearly two months now since our ambassador to germany had a bad dream and before could quiet him was proclaiming that a certain billionaire was willing to put up ono one of his loose billions to buy a dictatorship for this country ile he tailed failed to furnish the name and address maybo maybe they got left out of the nightmare hardly had paregoric wooed this distinguished sufferer back to hush a bye land when our now new representative in the philippines began demanding that when it camo came to drinking official toasts his name must come higher up on the wine list or ho he bo be responsible for the consequences however the excitement subsided before he could summon the pacific fleet to born bom bar manila theres a rumor that washington sent him word ho he worry about being appropriately pria tely saluted bo be a nationwide tion wide bronx cheer awaiting him on his return homo home since then theres been a lull and the american public is getting impatient we do so love a free show i and especially when its am amateur ateer night ilard hard bitten females buring about over certain TW TOURING western estern states where open 9 am bling either is by law permitted or by custom winked at I 1 noticed this generally speaking the feminine patrons are tho the steadiest drinkers the most persistent gamesters ga tho the most reckless betters of all and frequently their manners are the rudest and their faces tho the grimmest grimmeit grim determined seemingly to disavow the theory that their sex Is the gentler sex on the other hand the men patrons des descended c ended many of them from old gun fighters old prospectors old path finders grow increasingly docile and subdued absorbing less than their share of the hard liquor maybe because they fear there wont bo be enough left for marna mama and the girls and risking their dimes where the gallant ladies plunge with dollars sometimes a fellow watching the modern modem processional from the protection of the sidelines gets to longing for the bygone days when as kipling might have put it and in fact almost did a woman was only a woman but a good cigar was ten cents these candid cameras ONCE NCE a citizen had a right to object to tho the publication of a flashlight view showing him beating his wife or exhibiting his appendicitis scar or taking out his uppers or something that was before they they began printing magazines magazine tor for those dhove abandoned the old fashioned habit of reading and writing and its doing glamorous movee queens no real good when these betraying close ups prove that maybe the Is only paint deep thus the last strongholds strong holds vf our onetime one time personal liberty crumble I 1 used to think a passport picture a was about the rankest frankest thing wo we ha had d in tha line of intimate likenesses excepting of course the xray x ray but this candid camera business which catches you unawares and otten without your under wears elther either Is the most fiendish attack of all against our practically vanished privacy IRVIN S COBB |