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Show Kathleen Norris Says: ioxZ Up Your End Bell Syndicate. WNU Features. I " fretted about being a household drudge, and that made George cross, and i or children heard a great deal that was quarrelsome and unpleasant' By KATHLEEN NORRIS IF YOU are one of those women who feel that they have made a general mess of matters, that your life up to this point has been one long mistake, misunderstanding and failure, then remember that we can always start fresh from where we stand, that it is always possible to look our affairs honestly in the face, make a plan that includes everybody ev-erybody and everything, and begin again. This is a good time to try it, because life just now is at a low ebb for us all. The incredible incred-ible dreadful thing has happened; hap-pened; the world is at war, and all the money and all the manpower man-power we have are smashing civilization to pieces on a score of battlefronts. Our hearts are sick with longing for our boys, with prayers for them; our home life is disorganized and changed. Nothing is as it was, and from buying a new car to buying three shirts for the new baby, we can't get what we want. , So, since things are bad, make them a little worse by getting your own problem ready for solution. We all hate to do it. We hate to pay old bills, to forgive old wrongs, to change old ways. We hate dullness, we Americans, staying at home instead of floating all over the highways; high-ways; discussing brown points with our friends instead of cutting into great thick red steaks; putting up jam or fruitcake for Christmas instead in-stead of buying things in shops. Good Credit Important. But it's going to be that kind of a period, and believe me, it will be one of the most interesting of your life if you determine that in 1944 you will live well under your income, pay up your bills to the last penny and be able to fnce whatever the future holds confidently. There is a family in our town that has paid off about three thousand dollars in petty debts in the last 18 months. They own their own home now, and while the big salaries go on they are planning to buy some modest mod-est bits of rentable property, so that when the war is over, if the girls marry and have babies, the older couple can offer them holidays in the old home, help them get started, and live themselves without money anxiety. Yes, that's what these years might easily mean to you and yours, if you use them wisely. The woman of whom I write is one of the mothers whose boys won't come home; she . is carrying a deep load of sorrow as she plans for the postwar world. "I wish I'd known," she said to me the other day, "that it was so simple to solve the money problem. We had plenty, all those years, for George never made less than about $50 a week. But I was younger, and extravagant, and the children needed so much. I fretted about being a household drudge, and that made George cross, and our children heard a great deal that was quarrelsome quarrel-some and unpleasant. They tried so hard to avoid trouble, to keep us friendly I see that now. "Just before Pearl Harbor we began be-gan to talk divorce; we were all miserable and upset looking back, it seems so sad to me, for if I could have Hugh back, just for a fewhours. he'd never have one moment of in-hannony in-hannony at home to remember. Our darling one boy. he was 18 just one week after Pearl Harbor and in the navy one week after that. He went away in January, was lost at Coral sea. For awhile it seemed to me as if I never could enter his room again, but now we've all shifted about, so that the association is slowly slow-ly dying away. War Makes Mother Wiser. "Now there's plenty of money, for our girls of 18 and 16 are both in the production line, and I earn my WHEN JOHNNY COMES MARCHING HOME We will always be indebted to our soldiers now going through the trials of war. The least they deserve when their fighting is done, is to be greeted greet-ed at home by happy families in a position to help them back to civilian normalcy. If there are debts, quarreling or any other unpleasant conditions condi-tions in the family, now is the time to get them straightened out. Don't-wait until Johnny comes marching home to unburden un-burden your troubles on his shoulders which already have felt the weight of more suffering suffer-ing than most civilians will ever be subjected to. $300 a month, too. We'll be independent inde-pendent when. all this is over. But I wish I could have those lost years back, to share George's responsibilities responsibili-ties better than I did, to keep expenses ex-penses down, to keep home the happy hap-py place it might have been, instead of the scene of so much worrying and bickering. I wish I could see my boy just once, to tell him how much happier and wiser we are now!" Life is going to be changed for us all, make sure of that. We are not going to rejoice in an armistice as we did 25 years ago, and go back serenely to the old ways. It has to be a belter world, now, a safer place for us all. We will have to assume some of the responsibility for making and keeping it so. Thousands on thousands of women making big salaries today will be out of work. Taxes will soar, for we are counting on the care of a million injured men. Anything that you are buying on the installment plan will be badly wanted by someone else, and your failure to pay up promptly will mean that you lose it. To face postwar conditions with a load of debt, to start right in complaining and worrying when the boys come home, will mean being a bad citizen, an American who is dragging down the struggling nation rather than holding it up. We can do our returning soldiers no greater service than to meet them with good news. The house is paid for; we've bought a little farm; we don't owe anyone a cent. We're all in good health, we've a pound of butter in the icebox, and we're all ready to enjoy the better times with you, when they come along. Service Men Want Normal Life. Our boys don't want to come home to any troubles or any complaining at all. They don't want to hear any bad news. They'll be tired and demoralized, de-moralized, and sick of troubles. The one thing we can do for them is to be normal, to have serenity and books, good table talk, confidence and affection waiting; to convince them that the towns to which they come home are the most prosperous and contented in the world. Your share of that, however small, is very important. If you don't do your share, your soldier will have a right to feel badly treated, when he comes home. So clean house. If the family is quarrelsome, get out of the quarreling quar-reling habit. If there are unpaid bills, settle them. If there is grief to bear, remember that when he finds you quietly cheerful, more interested in-terested in the welfare of the living liv-ing than in mourning for the dead, his own heart will feel an uplift; he will love you all the more. Two brothers went out from the house next to mine two years ao; one came home last month. The whole family dreaded his lone return; re-turn; but afler the first moment everything ev-erything went smoothly, and his leave was a hapj.y one. "I found out what a dad and mother moth-er and sisters I've got," he told me. "Courage ana faith and love like that are something to come home to!" |