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Show Kathleen Norris Says: Don't Be Someone Else Bell Syndicate. WNU Features. i She never saw the beauty of the rolling waves or the brilliance o ik, ... crowd oj soldiers and sailors and their girls streaming up and down tkt walk. By KATHLEEN NORRIS DON'T spoil your life longing for something just because someone else has it. This is a real fault in American women, partly because they have so much, and because their leisure time lets them think about their neighbors. If life was a little more real for us, if grim necessity more often knocked at oui doors, we would be cured of this weakness. The women of the Orient don't know it at all. They drive straight ahead, each one planning and working for the comfort com-fort and protection of her own little group, not embittered by the fact that luxury and leisure and all the prettiness of life are denied her forever. for-ever. But the days of many an American Ameri-can woman are darkened by constant con-stant watching and comparing her neighbor's fortunes to her own. She doesn't appreciate at all what she has all that matters is that the Browns have more. For example, I once knew a woman named Sally. She was healthy, beloved, a happy wife and mother. I met her when she had her three small children at the seaside. ; She and I had rented neighboring cottages for a fortnight's vacation. We were within a block of the shore and all the wild delights of childhood child-hood merry - go - rounds, dodge-ems, dodge-ems, popcorn, slides, whirls, museums mu-seums and sandy beach were close at hand. Nobody could call it an aristocratic resort, but it was inexpensive, in-expensive, joyous and wholesome as only the shore can be. Craved for Luxury Resort. However, to Sally, the blight was that she had a friend who had taken her child to Tahoe remote, refined and, in spots, very dull. But Tahoe is fashionable and Santa Cruz is not, and Sally kept comparing the two places until her vacation was ruined by fretting and discontent. If Sally had been a child, how simple it would have been to say, "Now, not another word about Tahoe or what Nancy is doing. If I hear any more of this nonsense, Miss, you go straight to bed!" But Sally isn't a child, so we had to put up with it. She never saw thA hpanlv nf fh rnlltnir nraxrpe nr ENVY AND DISCOXmi F oolishly longing for itk others have blights the liven many women. That yeank; to "keep up with the Joneifi makes life miserable or uor en who have all the essenlii for happiness. If they coi only curb their childish em of other people who may It, little richer, or more orfu in some other way, they cot: be much happier. Sally was one of these sit discontented women. She k. health, beauty, a loving L band, three children, mi; middle-class family incon But these blessings wen t sufficient for Sally. Her rift: Nancy could afford to go to s1. expensive and exclusive rest . for instance. Sally had fo ; to an ordinary seaside colln; colony. The only dijjenw as far as pleasure was m cerned, was the social rant: of the two places. This J tinction, nevertheless, ! into Sally's spirit and spo'h: her vacation. 7 Miss-Norris compareslkl of the average American nr an with that of the fiuropf:' or Asiatic woman, jor A" life is a constant struggle to maintain existence in J k torn world. How trivial most of the American wow difficulties appear in sucl ' setting! health, youth, beauty, love, pr-tion pr-tion and plenty; she had a t car, water, heat, clothes, -' pleasures, leisure, radio, telegas tele-gas stove, electric light. SaE? wifehood and motherhood, coe;-ionship, coe;-ionship, responsibility, a keen an active body, bright eyes, f hearing, strong legs and elevf-gers. elevf-gers. ; She had, even in this rented , tage, a comfortable bed ana books to read; she had whiles and fresh blankets; she bad of garden, the sight o(P'; , the nearness of that eternal e-j; , the brilliance of the happy crowd of soldiers and sailors and their girls streaming up and down the boardwalk. She never smiled when everyone was in the glorious salty surf, clinging. to life lines, lying wet and breathless on the float. She didn't brighten when we gathered for a delicious hot breakfast in the coffee shop or took hamburgers and buns down on the beach. Not Sally! Nancy was at Tahoe, where everything was' elegant and expensive, expen-sive, so there, was no pleasure for Sally anywhere else. Nancy, as it happens, came back with a bad case of hay fever and her little girl was sent off to camp, 1 but that didn't interest Sally. She continued to remark frequently that 1 she wished the holiday was over. Ninety-nine women out of every hundred in the world would have thought her crazy. Some would have ! wondered why she wasn't struck dead for ingratitude, stupidity and ' blindness. j Had Almost Everything. For if there are 100 good things for 1 a" woman of 30 in this world, Sally surely had 98 of them. Sally had of healing, the sea, ana miracle to which men ban -since the earliest days of , history the great line of ris; , mountains. But it is ridicul--tempt to list what the ba would be tragic to compart ; tall by detail, with the b , that millions of women o - k are facing. , 1 These women, fright ;'; o tute and desperate, have ( dusty roads looking only1-first, only1-first, rest and then perW dark bread and a few b or cabbages. They have ( terrified children, promis eo - , curity. shelter, milk ac . to have the little ' V , tie hearts break and W lie down beside the road M . . even rating a grave- -v K known that their meo . ever and with them w y. old life of home, 8";; . familiar stove and treasures never to k One week with them the mirror around for (. her see .not what sne what she has I Pitching the fortunes ol her I neigfioori. . . . |