Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 8 April 1951 — Page 20

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Inside Indianapolis By Ed Sovola

IF YOU Baver't had the time or inclination, gentlemen, to see what's being offered this spring in the clothing line, lend an ear. Your suits are going to be lighter weight all year around. The men who buy and. sell say the trend is here to stay. Even the tweeds and shetlands are losing weight. The 16- and 17-ounce worsteds will make way for 10% -ounce and 13% cloth. The reason is that you leave a warm home, ride to work in a warm automobile and work.all day in a warm building. Spring and summer suits will be strong in Construction. is

® © <o NOWHERE on the horizon of fashion do

| pleats appear. I talked to several men who have ' passed through that abominable era and they

shuddered when they spoke of wearing or selling

| suits with the pleats and belts in the back. If ' this news makes you happy as a lark, you know

my sentiments on pleats. Gabardine is still king in the topcoat field. The casual, racetrack model is gaining. That doesn’t mean you'll be out of place with a dark blue gabardine, for example. Blue, in topcoats and suits, sports jackets, is strong. Hats are coming in With narrower brims and the center crease will find favor with the guy who makes a point of being smart at all times. Straws will follow in the wake of felt except that the coconut braids will feature wide bands. Nothing to get alarmed about. You can't push men around.

FASHION JOUR be Nothing seviagond this. spring ‘but that's the way men like it.

It Happened Last Night

By Earl Wilson

NEW YORK, Apr. 7T—Over the years, I've fallen in love with NY cab drivers. Every day and night I deposit my life in‘the calloused hands of six or eight hackies. They tell me about life . .. and of their hopes. One night, as I slid into a cab at Toots Shor’s, the driver told me that Toots should have an orchestra in his place. “Nothing could be more out of place in Toots,” I said. “People go there to eat, drink and talk.” “Just the same, he should have a few strolling musicians.” The cabbie emphasized this by barely missing a pedestrian. “Have you ever been inside the place?” I asked him. “No, but I KNOW he should have musicians. Because I'm a musician. And if there were more jobs Yor musicians, I wouldn't have to drive a cab.” They mostly hug to themselves some thin hope of some day getting away from the irritable passengers and maddening traffic, and finding a sweeter life. The world thinks of them as tip-crazy demons to whom the smashing of a fender is sweet music. But many are men with souls . . . such as the one who gives all his fares a flower. Some are fiercely. ambitious to write. % % CABBIE JAMES MARESCA, who wrote “My Flag Is Down,” told of driving one man daily to Wall St. where he took a small bundle that he's brought from home and deposited it in a garbage can. An old bum came up, took the bundle, and walked away. The cabble imagined that his passenger might be a murderer disposing of bodies. But he found the Wall Streeter’s wife packed his lunch daily. The Wall Streeter hadn't the nerve to tell her he didn’t eat it. The old bum was quite happy with it. © THESE CABBIES are the best drivers on earth. At almost hitting a jay-walker, but missing him, and yet still scaring him half to death, they are geniuses just as Irving Berlin‘is a genius. But times aren't good for cabbies now, and some of the 30,000 are rushing into defense jobs. oS. AC TOR BILL GAXTON told me of asking one cabbie why he had a couple of baby shoes on his windshield. The hackie was gruff at first, then he said:

Americana By Robert C. Ruark

NEW YORK, Apr. T—We have with us today a neat piece of dialectics in the case of youngMaster Mickey Mantle, heir apparent to the job of Joe DiMaggio as the center fielder for the New York Yankees. It is Mickey's unfortunate chore to serve as a guinea pig in the athletes’ war with the Army, or t'other way about. In the last unpleasantness it was the habit of medicos to defer athletes who had a slight puncture of the eardrum of a tendency to slump in the arch = &

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department. This delicacy of discrimination on the part of the draft deciders left the athletes free to roam the football field and the boxing ring and the unplowed terrain of the baseball diamond, whilst his physical inferiors stormed the odd beach and sniped a few butts in the compound. Times, slightly," have changed. There is a growing tendency toward the idea that if a guy is healthy enough to perform in a professional sport, he is at least sufficiently hale to work for the armed forces. The realists figure thas a man who can play center field or soak up a belt in the jaw or run through a football line might be strong enough to answer a telephone at HQ or police a barracks or even, maybe, ride in a tank and press the button on a gun. © o¢

YOUNG MANTLE, originally classified as is being reviewed as of now by his draft board. The young man has a history of osteomyelitis, a bone disease. This was sufficient to get him deferred. But he has been hitting at a .400-plus. figure in spring training, and on the bases, bum leg and all, he has qualified as a junior Ty Cobb. So his home-town board is giving him the second squint.

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This causes acute anguish ‘in the tender ° ‘heart of Mr. Casey Stengel, the Yankee manager,

who already has seen his eyes’ apple, young Eddie Ford, go for a soldier. Mr. Ford, called Whitey, could possibly be the best left-handed pitcher to hit the scene since Mose Grove, but lo, the Army claimed him, and Mr. Stengel wept for week. Mr. Btengel’s tear ducts tend to distend another milligram or so, for this new thinking is

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You Can Relax, Men; The Bold Look’s Gone

SHOES are getting lighter weight. Leather conservation was sidestepped entirelyiiMost men have been reaching for lighter shoes and the manufacturers are going to give them more of the same, Big, is the word buyers use, when speaking of the dress shoes without laces. The elastic side-gores are popular and are gaining favor. Suede and calf combinations are being pushed. Buyers clap their hands when they spezk of blue models. Perforated summer shoes, if you can believe all you hear, will take the country by storm. Nylon weaves are guaranted to make your tootsies feel as if they were sticking out in the wind. Brown and white shoes remain the standard although bla¢k and white models are catching on again. Cordovan and white appeal to the budget-wise man. They go with anything. Winged-tip all white bucks are supposed to be making a comeback. The white bucks with red rubber soles have flashed across the fashion sky and now have landed on college campuses to stay until the boys turn to saddles again or some other novelty for year around wear.

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SYNTHETIC materials, orlon, dynel, “fiberV” and nylon are crowding’ wool and cotton in the sock industry. You have a choice of pastel shades, argyle patterns and the knockout colors. The gentleman who cares, experts say, shies away from the loud socks. High school kids are heavy users. Neckwear is getting slimmer and longer. Bow ties are following the trend. The latest thing in bows is the 1-inch wide series. You won't be cool, sharp this summer with a huge butterfly under your chin. That remains to be seen. Experts can talk all they want, we'll wear the first thing that fills our mitts, right? I'm happy to report that the shirt field is quiet. White is still ace high and the “bold look” is gone. Forever, I hope. Oxford cloth shirts with buttoned-down collars, in pastels and whites, are being hailed as potential leaders. Not bad if you can keep the buttons on. My personal experience with buttoned-down collars has been sad.

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DENIM loafing and play slacks with matching shirts might appeal to you. They look good. Ideal for golf. Excellent for the front porch, too. Sport shirts this year can frighten you, if you'll let them, but there are plenty of subdued colors to compensate for the noisy ones. T-shirts, what I saw of them, are as appealing to the eye as I have ever seen them. Somebody is using his head. Yes, sir, the tour has inspired me to break open the cardboard hox with the summer stuff and take inventory. There's no better way to meet the new season than bursting forth with something new. It smells so good.

Cabbies’ Hearts Tick As Well as Meters

“Don’t you suppose I get tired of wheeling this crate around every day? “I get to feeling I'd like to go on a drunk for three or four days. “Or slug somebody in the head and rob him. “Or run over some cop . . . accidentally. “Well, then I look at py kid's shoes—and I keep on wheeling this crate around.” ¢ © ¢

THE MIDNIGHT EARL: wasn't surprised at the “Red

front” allegation. She and

Columbia Pix expected it long ago . .. Comic Joey Adams got a terrific five-page story in the next Look. ... The “Romeo and Juliet” Playbill has Olivia de Havilland on the front and her sister, Joan Fontaine, indorsing a cigaret on the back. . .. Life cover gal Ronnie Porter weds Robert J. Turner, son of Albert Turner, the typoon, June 3. ... Roslyn Woods is the singer at the Algiers.

William O'Dwyer is more popular than ever in Mexico City since his return there from the quiz. Mexicans like him for his speeches in Spanish, his attendance at bullfights and his worship at a different church each Sunday—and DON'T want him recalled . . . NBC would pay all Orson Welles’ debts (a couple hundred Gs) to bring him back from Europe on a long-term TV deal. . . . The Duke of Windsor's book in the limited edition (autographed) will sell for $100 a copy.

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EARL’'S PEARLS: When a wolf said to Dorothy Shay, “Let me put my head on your shoulder;” she said, “You mean it comes off?”

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WISH T'D SAID THAT: “Wedding ring— something that goes around a woman's finger and through a man’s nose at the same time.” — Anthony J. Pettito.

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TODAY'S BEST LAUGH: New dentist's slogan: “Another day, another holler.”—Don Cornell. What a gymnast that Gen. MacArthur is, comments Jack Tirman. How he goes over those parallels. . . .That's Earl, brother.

Athlete-Draft War Shows Times Change

In force. Ordinarily a fellow with a history of bone infection would be safer than a blind man at a burlesque emporium, but some nasty people have been asking, querulously, what keeps a limited-service athlete from work in the wars if he is healthy enough to make a living at his trade? And especially in a time when a draft of women is contempalted for special duties? “> 4 oS

YOUNG MASTER Mantle's beau ideal, Mr. DiMaggio, went to the wars when his knee played more tricks than a tame monkey. It is arguable that a DiMaggio knee is no less a hazard to competence than a history of bone sickness. Or the flat feet that were triumphed over by Mr. Henry Greenberg, a first baseman who wound up as a captain in the Air Force. It is a new kind of war, with lots of buttons to push, and a’ plethora of sitting-down jobs, and the fresh fad in appraisal says that a man who can stretch a double into a triple ain't sick enough to avoid the title of private. This is, of course, tough on the individual. Young Mantle has a great opportunity since DiMag is avowedly resigning from active baseball at the end of this year. But so did Whitey Ford, now. a member of the select group—and so did a great many youngsters with sound futures as pharmacists, tap dancers, singers, store clerks and, for all I know, potential husband$ of Barbara Hutton. ¢ © ¢

IT BOILS down into really a simple skillet of greens. If there is job for a WAVE, or a WAC, or a WAF, there is job for a strong young man with a limited ailment. If his feet hurt, “Mu can put: him on the switchboard. His edrs ache, maybe? Set him to toil in a quiet vineyard with lots of paper to pluck from thé grass. If you say this is demeaning labor, let me remind you that this work ‘has to be done. It has been done in past by semi-perfect physical specimens who got drafted or volunteered away from their chosen chores, professions or careers. I grant you it damages the dignity, but one man’s dignity is as stout as another's. I feel for Mantle, the athlete, but do not suffer too terribly, If he is playing baseball this summer when his. contemporaries are in the Army, a lot of us will Wonder why we need WACs when a 4-F belts one out of the park or winds up safe on third on a hit-and-run."

Judy Holliday

Roslyn Woods

The Indianapolis

Storeroom of Memories—

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‘Waste’ ie Is Eliminated

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By Modern Home Designers By JEANE JELL DOLL, a child's rocking chair, an old slereosiope, stacks of books with yellowed pages . . . these were some of the treasures found in Grandmother's attic.

Remember?

- Perhaps you spent hours strutting before a mirror in one of Grandmother's long dresses, or whiled away

a rainy afternoon reading love letters Dad wrote to

Mother.

But attics, filled with furniture and family souveniers are becoming as rare as a really “big” nickel candy bar. A few “old fashioned” attics are left in Hoosierland. There's one in Edinburg, where four generations have stored furniture “just too good to throw away,” toys and books out-grown and clothes out-moded.

” = s * A. C. THOMPSON, Johnson county merchant and banker, built the house in 1870. His des-

“cendents have lived there since.

Present occupants are Mrs. Imogene Coons ‘and her daughter, Miss Esquiline Coons. The large, roomy attic is a little dusty, a little cluttered. It's not quite spring house cleaning time. Piled in the corner near a wicker picnic basket are old

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books, a few partially used rolls of wall paper, and numerous wooden picture frames. There's a volume on “Decorum,” a forerunner of books on etiquette. A. C. Thompson's song book is there, and another book entitled “The Toilers.” A baby's bed and a large bedstead, both walnut, fill one corner of the attic. A large basket holds a stereoscope and a goodly supply of pictures. A small chest yields candle molds, one arranged for twelve candles, another for six. n E 4 = ALMOST hidden where the roof dips to meet the floor is an iron kettle, a coffee grinder, a Gladstone bag. There's an old water reserIt was disconnected years ago when the pipes became thin. But once it was a curiosity, a “new fangled 'gadget for city folks who had +

Sure

SUNDAY, APRIL 8, 1951

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have running water in their homes.” Waiting for an occupant is a child's rocking chair, one that a youngster sat in when the family moved to Indiana from Kentucky in a wagon more than a hundred years ago. There's a doll too, a large one, dressed in a long white dress. It's body is made of cloth. Stacked on a shelf are copies of “National Geographic,” a stock item in family attics. There's a butter churn, a sausage grinder; an old atlas of Johnson county, with a few pages devoted to Thompson family biographies. = #” » MRS. COONS’ wedding dress, her shoes, gloves, and a few lace handkerchiefs are packed in a tiny cedar chest. There have been several weddings in the house. Mrs. Coons was married there and so was her sister, Mrs. 8. S. Yeoman of Brownsburg. Much of the original furniture is still in use.. In a bedroom hangs a coal oil chandelier, other coal oil lamps have been wired for electricity. Cabinets are filled with china and glass. There are cherry desks, walnut chairs, marble topped tables, handmade chests, and a spinning wheel.

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These reminders of the past are treasured and cared for lovingly. “The contents of the attic changes from time to time,” Miss Coons explained. “A few weeks ago I brought down mother’s play dishes and the coal oil chandelier. We like to have them down here where we can see and enjoy them. When we grow tired of something, we store it in the attic and bring different things downstairs.”

- - BUT ATTICS like this one

are fast disappearing. Many"

are being converted into apartments. Others are losing their treasures and their charm as housewives heed the warning of

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—Times Photos by John Spickiemire the city fire marshal to “throw, away everything that might bea fire hazard.” Housewives, too, have beetls reading articles about “treasures” in the attic and are selling: furniture and. bric-a-brac to an+* tique dealers, and furniture of a later vintage to second hangs dealers. Present day home builders are_ paring “waste” space to a minis. mum, and a roomy attic is a’ good starting place. For many children of today: and tomorrow, there will be no” happy hours lost in daydreams. of what transpired when grand-~ mother and grandfather were. very young.

Inflation Even Hits ‘Cost Of Dying”

Average Funeral Fee Now $441

By CARL HENN INFLATION, the rising cost of living, means an added cost in death. Although funeral and burial expenses have not risen as far in Indianapolis as some prices in other fields, it costs more to die today than

ever before. Nor can that cost be evaded —if such a thing were desired—

| by anyone who can afford to | pay,

since Indiana law specifies that bodies of deceased persons be placed in care of a funeral director in preparation for burial. In the multitude of ensuing expenses, only two have not been affected by inflation. Mortuaries and funeral homes today retain the same “minimum price” available to indigent families — between $100 and $200 — that was standard 20 years ago and more. And the cost of cremation— $50-—has not risen since 1904. But the price of other services and equipment has been boosted by a hike in labor and materials prices, which in turn have been upped by other costs, which in turn, etc.

8 ” " IF AN AVERAGE family were to enter an average mor-

tuary here tomorrow and spend average amount, it would

pe somewhere between $425 and $4

50. Figures supplied by the 500 members of National Selected Morticians show that $445.73 was the average sum spent in their establishments in 1950. On the other hand, Earl T. Newcomer, Kansas City, Mo., counselor to undertakers over the country, estimates the average expenditure in 1950 was $424.60. Mr. Newcomer's records show

that in 1930 the average ‘sum °

spent in a funeral home was $290.40. The average hovered near there until inflationary

pressures during World War II

pushed it to $353.40 in 1945. Another jump in, 1949, brought it to $408.30. So far this year, he says, the average is around $441.

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GIANT SPADE—George Winters, Crown Hill employee, o ger which may cut digging time one-half.

MOST MORTUARIES use the “unit price” system, in which the bereaved relatives choosing a casket receive, for the price displayed, all the accompanying services, A casket priced at $500 does not cost that much, therefore The $500 includes as well the cost of embalming, the funeral service, the handling of flowers, the hearse and limousine rent— everything except the price of classified death notices in the newspapers, special accommodations, and cost of the flowers, grave space and headstone.

Funeral directors are quick to emphasize that the family which can afford to pay only $150— in some cases, nothing—gets the same service as one which can and does pay $1500 for a magnificent casket and accompanying attention. Like the physician who charges a rich patient more than a poor one for the same kind of case, therefore, a mor-

- tuary ‘service charge” may be

higher in ratio to the casket

price. (The word “casket,” incidentally, is the only correct term today. A coffin is—or

was, when coffins were popular —a wedge-shaped container for

the body, wider at the shoul- > ders than at the feet.)

CREMATION is the only procedure which is not based on “unit price.” In this area, cremations follow in less than 1 per cent of

total deaths, since the exist-

ence of family burial plots and strong custom incline nearly all families to burial. Cost of operating a mo: tuary varies with size, but is much higher than many persons realize. Nationally, an average of 91 man-hours is consumed by the average funeral, from beginning to end. A new hearse that ost

.

operates new mechanical gravedig-

$2750 before World War II may cost $8000 today. Other equipment is up, in proportion. Casket prices have risen, tol)

2.8 o COMPARATIVE cbsts vary, but a casket essing °¥e in 1941 may be up 60 to’ 75 per cent today. The lowest priced casket may have ‘risen 100 per cent, because cheaper materials (such as cotton) tend to increase the fastest. A big part of the rise, of course, has occurred since the fighting began in Korea last June 25. :

Cemetery Space

More Expensive, Too =

Flowers have increased inprice perhaps least of all, ace" cording to wholesale florists. This is due, in part, to a drop~ in the price of flowers after. 1945. Flowers were in heavy demand during World War II, and became more expensive durs.ing that “seller's market.” After: the war, demand fell off and’ so did price. Another area of expense 18the cemetery. One Indianapolis cemetery — has a flat interment fee of $40; which is in‘ addition to grave .. space. Grave space begins at =~ a rock-bottom $40 for a single space and rises to as high as~$250 for a choice, two-grave ~ - lot. The initial charge for grave ~ space usually includes perpetual” care. In some areas, however, = the initial fee is less and an™ annual charge is made for> grave care. o » . GRAVE SPACE (per square_ foot) is up, in some cases, only” 23 to 24 per cent over 1940. Big— gest jump is the interment fee, which includes labor (digging, = re-sodding) and equipment (tent, matting, chairs, etc.).. Overall, the service fee is up= 135 per cent over 1940. Finally there is the headstone or monument, wn Today, the cost of markers may run from $40 or $50 (de~~ pending on the cemetery in~ * which it is to be located) to - more than $350. Monument = prices can run to fabulous heights, if you want and can. afford an elaborate memorial,™ In many cases of financial - pinch, that expense comes far : later than usual. A family may = walt 10 years to place a stone above the grave if necessary.* The monument and headstone marker have risen perhaps 33per cent over 1940 prices. > Because cost of operation has risen- more than price to the public in each of the funeral. processes, making the margin ~ > of profit thinner in each there is only one answer tor continued profitable Spesa tien. =

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