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Show i! ! first lady of the garden hose . . . . I Oh, Can You See by the Lawn's Early Blight? ... BATTLES FOR THE THIRSTY BLADES i By H. I. PHILLIPS ; ; MISS PRIDGETT'S LAWN 1! N ANY PROLONGED dry spell there is in every community the man and woman who find an out- i let for a full expression of their I I sense of sacrifice in all-out solici- I tude for the lawn. Here they make the ultimate effort, the grand fight, ' the supreme battle. Their heart j bleeds for every blade of grass. I They are shaken to the depths by the tiniest yellow patch. In our neighborhood Miss Arabella Ara-bella Pridgett is easily tops as the great lawn lover. In any moderately dry spell she can go to extremes, but in a real drought, when the reservoirs are low and the water supply critical, she is a study in devotion devo-tion to the cause of the ever-damp ever-damp lawn. Then she becomes a first lady of the garden hose, a duchess of the sprinkler. The lawn is her first thought at dawn and her last at night. Famous battlers for great human causes have shown less energy. Fighters to ease the plight of undernourished un-dernourished peoples have shown no greater energy. Yes, a water famine is threatened, families are urged to go easy, orphan asylums and hospitals have been cautioned to watch the outlets, but with Miss Pridgett her grass is a "must," with top priority. Lincoln showed no greater concern for the slaves. Clara Barton was no more zealous for the sick and wounded. She was marked. Her mother was frightened by a bare patch in a green hall runner or something. She has a bare-patch complex. Were she with Noah in the flood, she would have come aboard the ark with two lengths of hose and two sprinklers. Her lawn is an astoundingly vivid green when everything else in hollyhock heights is sere and drab. You can see her busy about it morning, noon and night, every fiber of her being astir over the thought one little blade may be thirsty. She is haunted by a fear of dry patch. One hose is not enough. Miss Pridgett has two. And her second love is the sprinkler. She likes the wide,- full-throated, fast-revolving type. When not watering the lawn she goes window win-dow shopping for new automatic sprinkler models. A grand canal mood marks her premises. "It Ain't Gonna Rain No More" is her theme song. She shoots the waterworks not only on dry hot days but even when it rains. Her faith in Providence and the elements is shaky. Let it rain all night and she is out there with the hose in the morning. Miss Pridgett's slogan is "The HOSE must go on!" Yoo hoo, move the larger sprinkler sprink-ler over a foot, lady! There's a blade there that seems undrenched. Hitler's yacht Ain't so hacht; So whacht! In a visit to the Grille, once the yacht of der fuehrer, we are sure we should . imagine that great nautical figure, that wonderful ex-, ponent of all fine sea traditions, rolling and pitching in a terrific storm and bellowing "All is lost! The microphone has been swept away!" f go to the movies, and what do I get? Romance and romance, and more of it yet. 1 turn on the radio, I go to a show-r-More mushing between a dame and a schmoe. I pick up a pulp or I pick up a slick Again it's a rooster chasing chick. Ifs most revolting; it makes me ill 'Cause I'm a Jack without a Jill. Tom Weatherly The American association of university uni-versity professors upholds the right of all teachers to be communists provided they keep it out of the classrooms. This is like saying it is all right to carry lighted matches match-es in a hay loft provided only good will is shown toward the barn. We liked Bill Vaughan's crack In his K.C. Star column: "The woman scorned is now surpassed in fury by the babe who never even met the guy, but shoots him anyway." The active head of a yacht club is called a commodore. A commodore is a cross between a humidor and a matador. He has to be kept damp like a humidor and bull-throwing like a matador. Being a commodore entitles you to wear a motorman's coat, white duck pants and a cap. There's good news in the economic eco-nomic picture. A slight slump is reported in the slight slump. |