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Show THE TOWN DOCTOR A lady wrote me a letter recently re-cently in which she asked, ''what do you mean when you say one of the monkey wrenches in community com-munity machinery is 'contemptuous 'contemptu-ous familarityt' I understand," she continued, "what you mean by'monkey wrenches,', but I don't get this 'contemptuous familiarity.' " "Contemptuous familiarty" is the opposite of "wide-awakeful-ness." It is the blindfold that keeps you from seeing,' the ear muffs that keep you from hearing opportunity tliat is to the right, to the left, above and below you, right in our community. Whenever the civic ; clubs of your community performs a task for the good of all, it causes you to sayj "Well they are supposed to do it, therefore they deserve no thanks for it." " . And When your newspaper editor edi-tor takes up an issue vital to your welfare and the, welfare of your ieighbor8 you' ire moved to say, "He is paid to do it-he has an axe to grind." '" . When local business men say, 'All we ask is a chance, to serve you," it causes you to say, "Why should we do them any favors; what have they ever done for us!' It. is that which pu'.is the idea in your head that there is noth-( ing for you in our town, and to he something or do something you have to go elsewhere; that which causes you to feel that our town is not) big enough for you, when the truth of the matter is that our town is just as big as you make it. To be "contemptuously familiar" fami-liar" keeps you down, belittles you and belittles your town, and causes all wide-awake people who know of you, and with whom you come in contact, to fell sorry for and pity you. "Contemptuous familiarity" is worse than a monkey mon-key wrench in the machinery it is a disease, playing havoc with communities everywhere. You know the story of the man who moved away because itl was such a nuisance to pick up' the stones full of little black lumps that littered his field and hindered hinder-ed his plowing each spring. Today To-day that field is the largest diamond dia-mond mine in the world. Also the man who sold his farm because be-cause there was so much oily scum on the creek the stock could not drink today one of the country's coun-try's finest oil fields. Both of these men were infected with "contemptuous familirty." ' For years a pretty little stream of clear pure water trickled from the side of a rock-walled hillside, within four blocks of the center of a community of some 5000 people. peo-ple. Hundreds of local citizens saw it every day,, many passing it by, some stopping to drink of it. A stranger came one day, saw and drank, but he did not pass. He is a millionarie today, through the sale of that water in bottles, land overgrown with "worthless" willows were joyfully unloaded by Several hundred acres of swamp land overgrown with worthless willows were joyfully unloaded by local people onto a'-" sucker" who is worth his weight in gold, through resale of the . selfsame timber to a reed furniture manufacturer. manu-facturer. . Look around you. See, hear and recognize the advntages of your town. They are there if you will but take advantage of them. ... |