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Show KATHLEEN NORR1S Don't Lose Happy Middle Years give him a chance of gardening on a larger scale, give her a real chance at interior decoration, and give the cocker an all-day run, instead in-stead of a few moments of freedom morning and night? Mildred doesn't mention Lee's job. Is it a job that could be transferred to a smaller city, more accessible to suburban farms? There is no joy in the world like feeling the ground under your feet to be your own, like feeling that every faucet, every picket, every shingle you add to it ,is making it more yours. You don't have to do without hot water, electric light and power, radio, gas stove, as your grandmother did when she moved into the country. You can still get your consomme canned and your peas picked. But you'll hear the logs crackle in your own fire, winter nights; you'll see the moonlight whitewash your own roofs and fences in summer. To say "we raised that, rooster" when you serve the fried chicken, to send people home carrying armsful of huckleberry and bunches of long-legged white violets, vio-lets, to hang your Monday wash out in blazing sunshine, and eat your Sunday breakfast under your own grape-arbor, this is to find youth and life and delight again. Peaceful, busy, healthy, un-worried un-worried age is a goal worth working work-ing toward. It has to be achieved according to pattern, and with intelligent in-telligent effort. Don't lose these all-important all-important middle years. "WE ARE IN A RUT' and u's getting on our nerves. Lee isn't as kind to me as he used to be. I tore him. He seems tired and quiet all the time. If I start a subject sub-ject he may say wearily, "Let's not talk about it.' Sometimes he says, 'Please don't use that word.' Often he hardly seems to hear me. "We are run-of-the-mill people," continues the letter of Mildred Miller, Mil-ler, of New York City. "Lee's salary sal-ary is $100 a week. We. pay $85 rent for five rooms in the West Sixties. Lee is 52, I am 47. We lost our one son in 1945, and his widow has remarried and lives with our grandson in Los Angeles. Our daughter died as a baby, so we have weathered two great sorrows. But until now I always felt that while Lee needed me I had reason for living. Now there isn't any question that he feels himself tied to a woman who means nothing to him. Security Isn't Enough "I am a good cook, I keep the house going. We've never been in debt. We have a good nest-egg in government bonds, and insurance all that. But that isn't enough, i it, if one's heart is restless and unsatisfied, and life has grown duller dull-er and quieter day by day? There is no other woman in the case, I know, although Lee is at the age when men sometimes fall for flattery flat-tery and interest. And physically, we are both well, sleep and eat like the normal human animals we are, 'and feel bewildered at this apathy that has fallen upon us. "As for amusements, Lee has a cocker he adores. He works on the window garden which is quite a success. He likes walking, bridge, and a few special movies. I like movies, am taking a weekly lesson in interior decoration, and love to ". . . am a good cook . . ." fuss with curtains and flower arrangements. ar-rangements. "I want to save our marriage. I want to go into the fifties busy, happy and useful. Thousands of persons live as we do, on less money, and seem content. Neither Lee nor I had any religious training train-ing when young, but we both believe be-lieve in God, and sometimes go to church." Mysterious Element This is an ordinary enough story, and yet it has one mysterious element. Why is it, one asks, that what makes certain couples absolutely ab-solutely content, with a nice home, adequate income, health, companionship, compan-ionship, isn't enough for other couples? Well, the answer is that one couple has found what it wants, and the other one hasn't. The very fact that Mildred considers herself her-self and Lee to be in a rut, shows that she doesn't belong there. That reaching out for interests, his fussing fuss-ing with window boxes, her patient attention while professional decorators decora-tors lecture to her, shows that both are unsatisfied. Has it occurred to Mildred- and Lee to move out of the city? The rent they are paying would more than cover the monthly payments on a small farm within well, not an hour of the city, but an hour and 20 minutes. Wouldn't buying a small ne elected farm somewhere |