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Show Kathleen Norris Says: ; Don't Be Someone Else ! Bell Syndicate. WNV Features ' ! She never taw the beauty of the rolling waves or the brilliance of the happy crowd of soldiert and tailor and their girlt streaming up and down the boardwalk. By KATHLEEN NORRIS DON'T spoil your life longing for something -just because someone else has itj. 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 Amerit 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 in-expensive, in-expensive, joyous and wholesome as only the shore can be. Craved for Luxury Resort However, to Sally, the blight was ENVY AND DISCONTENT, Foolishly longing for what others have blights the lives of many women. Thai yearning to "keep up with the Joneses" makes life miserable for worn-en worn-en who have all the essentials for happiness. If they could only turb their childish envy of other people who may be a little richer, or more fortunate in some other way, they could be much happier. Sally was one of these silly, discontented women. She had health, beauty, a loving husband, hus-band, three children, and a middle-class family income. But these blessings were insufficient in-sufficient for Sally. Her friend Nancy could afford to go to an expensive and exclusive resort, for instance. Sally had to go to an ordinary seaside cottage colony. The only difference, as far as pleasure was concerned, con-cerned, was the social ranking of the two places. This distinction, dis-tinction, nevertheless, ' bored into Sally's spirit and spoiled her vacation. , Miss Norris compares the lot of the average American woman wom-an with that of the European or Asiatic woman, for whom life is a constant struggle just to maintain existence in a war-torn war-torn world. How trivial would most of the American woman's difficulties appear in such a setting! 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 the beauty of the rolling waves or 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, but that didn't interest Sally. She continued to remark frequently that she wished the holiday was over. Ninety-nine women out of every hundred in the world would have thought her crazy. Some would have j wondered why she wasn't struck dead for ingratitude, stupidity and blindness. Had Almost Everything. For If there are 100 good things for a woman of 30 in this world, Sally surely had 98 of them. Sally had health, youth, beauty, love, protection protec-tion and plenty; she had a home, car, water, sheath clothes, food, pleasure's, leisure, radio, telephone, gas stove, electric light Sally had wifehood and motherhood, companionship, compan-ionship, responsibility, a keen mind, an active body, height eyes, good hearing, strong legs and clever fingers. fin-gers. ' -' i She had, even in this rented cottage, cot-tage, a comfortable bed and good books to read; she had white sheets and fresh blankets;- she had a strip of garden, the sight of great trees, the nearness of that eternal miracle of healing, the sea, and that other miracle to which men have turned since the earliest days of Biblical history the great Hue of rising dark mountains. But It is ridiculous to attempt at-tempt to list what she had and it would be tragic to compare it, detail de-tail by detail, with the bitter need that millions of women overseas are facing. These women, frightened, destitute desti-tute and desperate, have traveled dusty roads looking only for water first, rest and then perhaps a little dark bread and a few boiled turnips or cabbages. They have reassured terrified children, promised them security, se-curity, shelter, milk and food, only to have the little feet falter, the little lit-tle hearts break and the , children lie down beside the road to rest not even rating a grave. They have known that their men were gone forever for-ever and with them all the dear old life of home, garden, kitchen, familiar stove and beds and home treasures never to be found again. One week with them might turn the mirror around tor Sally and let her see not what, she hasn't but whaT.she has. " I I 'mi II I . . . HTotcrtin the fortunes of her meighbort, ... |