Banner Graphic, Volume 12, Number 94, Greencastle, Putnam County, 29 December 1981 — Page 4

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The Putnam County Banner-Graphic, December 29,1981

Hints from Heloise No-wax floors don't have 'no-effort shine'; oil revives can opener

HI: I am on the rampage about a subject that has been bugging me for a few years now: Nowax floors! Don’t they look lovely on the TV commercials and in the magazine ads? And, don’t they just shine like glass 0 Have you ever, and I mean ever, seen floors like that in a home with a pattern of family traffic running through it? (A still-shiny brand-new floor doesn’t count). They sell the stuff as being "no wax," right 0 Doesn’t that mean that you don’t wax it? Yet they offer products especially for use on these floors. Sounds like Catch 22 to me.

Dear Abby Boxer shorts help bear 'fruit of the womb'; bachelor is all talk

DEAR ABBY: Around the first of the year you had a lot of letters in your column advising men to wear boxer shorts, instead of the tight kind that hugged the body, if they wanted to become fathers. It so happened that my wife and I had been trying unsuccessfully for years to have a child. The doctors found nothing wrong with either one of us, but none could help us. The last doctor told us to give up and adopt a baby. Then we saw the letters in your column recommending boxer shorts to increase fertility. We both laughed, but my wife said, “Let’s try Abby’s suggestion for just one month,” so I bought three pair of boxer shorts and started to wear them. Guess what? The second month my wife got pregnant! On Nov. 19 she gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. She weighed 7 pounds 6 ounces and we named her Catherine Ann-Marie. (I’m enclosing her picture.) God bless you, Abby. My wife, Carol, and I both love you for your wonderful column in the Cedar Rapids Gazette. GALEN A. LUKE, CEDAR RAPIDS, lOWA DEAR GALEN: Congratulations to you and Carol. Catherine Ann-Marie is indeed a beautiful baby. May the Lord richly bless you and your family. * * * DEAR ABBY: I’m a bachelor living alone. There’s

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The advertisers get around it by calling these products "dressing” but, darn it, they mean you have to clean and polish that new floor just like you did the old floor. Then why call it no-wax? You may not use wax but you are going through the same steps of cleaning and polishing. When you spend your money on flooring, be sure to read the care instructions. Care instructions for many types of floors specify that you have to apply an initial and periodic dressing or coating. (Why don’t they just say wax?) If you have this type of product in your home and the shine has not lived up to its advertised life, check with the

manufacturers, and by all means, write the Federal Trade Commission, Pennsylvania at 6th St, Washington, D.C. 20580, or to me! Heloise EASIER CAN OPENING Dear Heloise: I have a handheld can opener which I was about to throw away as the gears would hardly turn, making opening a can difficult. Then, I thought of oiling it, but didn’t want to use regular machine oil as it would come in contact with food. So, I tried using vegetable cooking oil and those gears are turning easy as pie again. Del lafelice * * ★ Be sure to give it a good

another bachelor in my building who drops in often, and we rap. He seems like a nice guy, but all he talks about is his sex life which according to him is terrific! His biggest complaint is that once he scores with a woman he can’t get rid of her. I don’t know whether to believe him or not. He certainly doesn’t look like a ladies’ man, and I’ve never even seen him with a date. What is your opinion of a guy who is always talking about sex? DOUBTING THOMAS IN THOMASVILLE, GA. DEAR THOMAS: He’s probably doing what he does best. Talking. * * * DEAR ABBY: You said you couldn’t understand why anybody would refuse to share a recipe. The enclosed poem may give you a clue: She didn’t have potatoes So she used a cup of rice. She couldn’t find paprika So she used some other spice.

THE FAMILY CIRCUS^

"Why don't we hafta write 'hank you letters to Santa Claus?"

CONNOISSEUR OF WINE

NEW YORK (AP) - Connoisseurs of wine today couldn’t hold a cork to John Quincy Adams. According to Jack Shepherd, author of “Cannibals of the Heart: A Personal Biography of i-ouisa and John Quincy Adams,’’ Adams drank two or three glasses of wine every evening, and knew the beverage well. In fact, although Adams considered himself socially stiff

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scrubbing before you oil it again. Heloise SLICE FROM THE CENTER Dear Heloise: When you need a slice of onion or tomato for one hamburger or sandwich, don’t bother to peel the whole onion or tomato. Just slice through the center and remove a slice or two, then push the two halves back together. Wrap in plastic wrao or foil and place in the fridge. Keeps them much fresher. I also do this with my twopound rolls of sausage. Irene Hobbs INCOME TAX RECORDS Dear Heloise: Here is a hint for those who itemize their income tax deductions:

By Bil Keane

and awkward, he put his wine knowledge to good use. At a dinner given in New York City in 1840, the host summoned from his wine cellar 14 different madeiras. When he filled the glasses and passed them unnamed around the table, Adams delighted and surprised the other guests by sipping and correctly identifying by year and vineyard 11 of the 14 wines.

Pick up a small, purse-sized date book calendar (it’s free) at your favorite greeting card counter and put it in your purse. Use it to keep medical records for tax purposes. When you make your first trip to the doctor in the new year, take it out of your purse as soon as you register at the doctor’s office and, in the space for that day, record all pertinent tax information. Keep this all year and you will have all medical expense records needed for your income tax at your fingertips. And it will have cost you nothing, not even in terms of time as you do it while waiting for the doctor. Jane Baker

Tomatoes weren’t in season So she used tomato paste. The whole can not a cup, dear She couldn’t bear to waste. And now she isn’t speaking; She’s convinced I pulled a fast one. So don’t ask me for a recipe That one was my last one! MT. VERNON, OHIO

House kids Survival kit helps kids cope sans parents

(c) 1981 Boston Globe “My daughter, at the ripe old age of lOV2, announced that she no longer wanted a babysitter, it was too embarrassing. And she didn’t want me to come and get her when school was out, also too embarrassing,’’ Elaine Chaback recalls. “That very day I started looking for a book on kids getting around on their own. And there wasn’t anything. Oh, some cookbooks for kids. But nothing that said what to do if you lose your keys, or there’s a fire, or you smell gas, or someone tries to break in. I thought if I told her all these things all at once, she would be hysterical.” So Chaback wrote what she calls “The Official Kids’ Survival Kit” - a book that may help ease anxiety attacks caused by leaving kids to their own devices. Some real-life kids helped two working mothers, Chaback and Pat Fortunato, write the book. That’s why “official” is in the title. Although the authors and their consultants live in ultra urban New York City, most things in the kit also apply to the suburbs and the country. A “how to” reference work, the 224-page book goes from A to Zfrom “Accident Prevention” to “Zits”-and it tells kids aged 9 to 14 how to do things on their own. Some things are purely practical. How to change a fuse or light a gas stove or save someone from choking are things everybody - including adults - should learn. Stressing safety and security, the book also tells children how to distinguish between a real emergency and a temporary problem. (“An emergency ISN’T,” says the book, “not having one ingredient for the coconut cookies you’re baking.”) Other topics in the survival kit are “heavy,” right

... \ » I

Friends of Roy and Lenore Sutherlin are invited to join in a reception celebrating 50 years of marriage, New Year's Eve at Mathena Manor from 7 to 10 p.m. Compliments of their children Nancy, Rea, Becky, Sally and Steve

DEODORIZING TIP Dear Heloise: I have intended to send this in before, but this morning after reading about removing the odor from antiques, I must tell you that cat box deodorizer does a great job in many instances! Just put it in the drawers and leave it for several days. G.B. * * * Cat lovers, send along your favorite pet-care hint to Heloise, P.O. Box 32000, San Antonio, TX 78216. She can’t answer your letter pesonally but will use questions of general interest in her column whenever possible.

out of those popluar teen novels set in the modern-day “Blumesury” of quarreling parents, child molesting and loneliness. But “The Official Kids’ Survival Kit” is also for parents. The book won’t assuage their guilt about leaving children on their own, said Chaback during a recent interview, but parents who go over the contents with their kids may feel less frightened-she does-about leaving them alone. “This is not a book the parent buys and just gives the child,” Chaback said. “You should go over it together.” Chaback went back to work when her daughter Leah was 3 weeks old. That was 14 years ago, when “the best full-time help cost $55 a week (in New York City), and I always had the best,” says Chaback. “Now it’s close to S3OO a week.” In the interim, she has become a single parent. “I have to work,” she says. She’s editor-in-chief of Dell’s Purse Books, a line of nonfiction paperbacks for women. (“Calorie counters, how to encourage you child to read, games kids can play,” she explains.) For her interview that day she was appropriately costumed for the canyons of Manhattan-Calvin Klein jeans, western boots, plaid shirt and a motherlode of silver rings. “This book will be controversial,” admits Chaback, “because it brings up the whole thing about ‘latch-key’ kids.” An English term, says Chaback, “latch-key” means someone who comes and goes on his own, using his own key because there's no one at home. A decade ago in America, a lat-ch-key child was assumed to be poor or on welfare. Times have changed. Nowadays, the controversy over latch-key children is not so much

Calendar of events Thursday The Beech Grove United Methodist Church will have an* oyster and chili supper on Thursday, Dec. 31 at 6 p.m. Everyone in the community is invited. The Putnam County Singles will hold their annual New Year’s Eve party on Thursday, Dec. 31 at 8:30 p.m. Children will have their own party in the basement. There will be a breakfast and clean-up at 2 a.m. Passports will be your favorite dance record or tape. There will be a slight charge. For details, call John Jones at 653-6081 or Bill Gould at 6539625 ’ Saturday There will be a euchre party (weather permitting) on Saturday, Jan. 2 at 7 p.m. at the Putnam County Senior Citizens Center, 9 West Franklin St. Sunday Alpha Delta Kappa sorority will meet on Sunday, Jan. 10 at 5 p.m. at the home of Aral Groner. Tuesday Tri Kappa will meet on Tuesday, Jan. 5 at 8 p.m. in the Episciopal Church. Wednesday There will be no Parents Anonymous Meeting at Gobin Church this week. Meetings will resume next week on Wednesday, Jan. 6. Tots Time Center will be closed during school vacation on Wednesday, December 30. Babysitting will begin again on: Wednesday, January 6 from 9 a.m. to noon, at First Baptist Church, Judson Drive. Watch Calendar of Events for information about getting arjde for that day. For further inquiries, phone CONTACT, 653-2645 (collect calls accepted) The deadline for calendar of events items is as follows r Monday evening - 1 p.m. Friday: Tuesday evening - 1 p.m t Monday; Wednesday evening - Friday evening -1 p.m. Thursday. The calendar is not published on Saturdays. For maximum exposure of calendar items, they should be mitted 10 days in advance of the scheduled meeting. - *

economic as what it does to their emotional health. “People concerned about lat-ch-key kids ask if children are alone too soon. They worry that kids have no life of their own as children,” says Chaback. It worries her, too, but she shrugs it aside. She says she had no choice. Chaback took her idea for the book to a friend, Fortunato, who was not only a free-lance children’s editor but the stepmother of five kids. When the two women finished the manuscript, they submitted it to a panel of six children they knew for their comments. On the back of the book, published by Little, Brown & Company in paperback ($8.95) and hardcover ($13.95), is a team picture of contributors. Chaback and Fortunato wear T-shirts inscribed “Official Author.” “Offical Kid” T-shirts are worn by the panel of experts: Lewis Brey, then 12; Leah Chaback, 13; Keith Eiger, 10; Doug McAdoo, 14; Michael McBride, 11; and Teresa Mizelle, 12. Elaine Chaback’s favorite O.K. is understandably Leah, now a 14-year-old 9th grader. “She has been stuck with me working since she was an infant,” says her mother. “She’s a very sound kid. A great reader-three or four books a week-who has friends over and is basically a normal kid, not hampered by being an only child or spending so much time on her own. Me? I had a mother who stayed at home. We lived in the Bronx. I was lackadaisical. I was always flashing my keys.” "Leah is far more responsible than I was,” says her mother. “She is very careful. I don’t feel great about leaving her alone so much, but I no longer feel terrible. She rearranges my drawers for me, she does the laundry because she doesn’t like the way I do it. She can do a lot of things. She feels good about that. Once in a while, there’s resentment. She has a friend whose mother is home. She has said to me: ‘lt’s really nice to come home from school and there’s a sandwich or cocoa.’ But almost every one

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of her friends’ mothers is working. It’s the economy: You need that second income these days.” Leah made suggestions about the survival kit as her mother wrote it. “I did most of the book on weekends at our country house,” says Elaine. “She would read it as I went along. I remember what she said about one particular part. ‘lt’s; so heavy! You can’t say things like that. It’ll make kids feel everyone in the world is out to get them.’So I rewrote it.” But Chaback remembers her shock when a much younger girl who read the manuscript made a comment after a page on sexual advances. “What if it’s someone in your family?” the girl asked. So Chaback added this: “If at all possible, tell one of your parents. If you can’t bring yourself to do this, at least discuss it with someone older, not a friend of your own age. (A friend’s parent can be a good choice.)” Here’s where the nuts and bolts part of this survival kit is a treasure trove of information. As Chaback found out, kids are not born knowing how simple household things s ork. “You know how to change a light bulb, don’t you?” Chaback asked a boy. “Sure,” he said. Then he hestitated, and added: “You pop it in.” (Most light bulbs screw in, the book states.) In some situations, logic doesn’t always apply. Kitty litter, for example, should not be flushed down the toilet. And not all ovens are the same. A microwave shouldn’t be used to cook certain things. In fact, parents may not want their children to use certain appliances at all, notes Chaback. “In the introduction we wrote just for parents, we suggest they go through the book and write in their own rules. If you don’t want your child usingltfe microwave or whatever, ydu write in the (book’s) margin: DO NOT USE!” Parents should take their kids on a tour of the household’s appliances, Chaback says. She speaks from experience. Many appliances have their own little peculiarities, she notes. !