European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - September 22, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse Time to build a washing machine that dries cloth Sandy Rooney to Tribune Media Here s still a lot of work to be done on the design of All the things we use in our everyday lives a they be been fooling around a lot lately with telephones and still Haven t conic up with the perfect instrument. I m always ending up trying to hold the phone Between my shoulder and my ear while i write something Down on an envelope. If i hold the phone in one hand and a Pencil in the other the envelope moves because i Don t have another hand with which to hold it. A every car in be owned has some design flaw. I own a car now that i like but its a constant source of irritation to me that i can t leave the trunk unlocked. Every time i want something Back there i have to turn off the engine take the key out of the ignition and unlock the trunk. Whether i lock the trunk or not is my business not the manufacturers. A you have to have both a washing machine and a dryer. In a surprised there Isnit a washing machine that also dries clothes. A one of the most obvious signs of overpopulation is the size of our Telephone books. You can t keep one near the Telephone anymore because there in t room and it s too heavy to hold. Telephone books have become inconveniently unwieldy and we ought to get. Very Quick la. To some computerized system on our telephones so we could look up Nuh Ibers without a Book the Way the information operators do. A will someone Tell me who no one has Ever made a Square umbrella it is also obvious to me that umbrella makers intentionally make their umbrellas so they la break or come apart easily. They May even make them so they re East to lose. A since i started shaving with an electric razor 20 years ago. I be bought or been Given half a dozen of them. Some have been pretty Good and some have been terrible. I still have every one 1 Ever bought including the boxes they came in because i done to throw one out even if i never use it. When its hot i sometimes shave with a Blade because i can to dry my face enough to use an electric razor. I have recently acquired an electric razor with which you can shave when your face is wet. You can even use shaving Cream. A it is imperative that someone design an electrical outlet system that eliminates the Maze of wires All of us have behind our television sets. A inventors have been Busy with new ways to make Coffee. In a impressed with the machine that you can set at night to make Coffee in the morning although we done to have one. When it starts up at the time you set it grinds the Beans heats the water and makes the Coffee. The Only thing it does no to do is Wash the cups when you be finished breakfast. 1 still put All the ground Coffee in a pan add All the hot water to it and then pour the whole mess through a Che mex filter paper. With automatic Coffee makers in a always nervous about whether All the grounds Are getting wet. A a Nail Clipper is one tool that forces All of us to be ambidextrous because there s no Way you can Cut the tinge nails on your right hand with your right hand. A someone should invent a foolproof neck band that keeps hair from going Down a Man s neck when lie s getting a haircut. A considering that the average person will never change a Flat tire on his or her car. The space the tools take up in t Worth it. For the average person to change a Flat tire conditions have to be perfect. You have to Stop on a Flat hard place. You have to be Able to find and get All the parts to the Jack and then you have to he Able to Jack up the car and get the nuts off. The easiest Way to get a Flat lire changed is to Call someone. A Overall we Are making Progress though. I press one Button on my machine now and this column goes from Here to newspapers throughout the country. Andy Rooney is a former stars and stripes reporto spreading the word on sex a sign of the times by Jack Smith los Angeles times my new Hampshire colleague and pen pal Nardi Reeder Campion has sent me a copy of a column she wrote recently for the new York times on her 5 the wedding anniversary. I became acquainted with Campion when i quoted liberally from a column she wrote on the things her College classmates were without a panty Hose Nylon to ballpoint pens Frozen foods and the whole inventory of modern conveniences. Since then. Campion a list has popped up in various columns and at numerous class reunions never with attribution to her original work. It w As inevitable that when she reached her Golden wedding anniversary she would also think of How things have changed since then. Mostly she says the change has been in attitudes toward sex. Keeping in mind the los Angeles times circumspect attitude toward sex in its pages As delineated by David Shaw in his recent stories on that subject i will try to impart the flavor of Campion s piece without offending my editors. It was in the new York times first and consequently must be fit to print her column is tided fifty years of sex which suggests its Tenor at the outset. She says she was Quot a Green girls when she promised to Quot love Honor and obey a fresh Young Blade front Harvard. Neither he nor i had any idea what we were getting exactly nine months later she had her first child. Under the circumstances that was Only to be expected. A i admired birth control Pioneer Margaret Sanger but i had no idea what she was recommending. We did our bit for the population explosion five children seven grandchildren so my wife and i were somewhat More prudent. We had Only two children and the first was six years in arriving. Sex education is where you find it. I got mine As a youth in the merchant Marine. Campion notes that when she was growing up solid information on sex was difficult to come by. A friends Mother slipped her a Book called Marjorie May s thirteenth birthday. Quot we were amazed by its my instruction had come mostly from such novelists As f. Scott Fitzgerald and Theodore Dreiser who unfortunately weren to very specific. But my wife worked for the owl drug store which provided her not Only with Good advice from her fellow workers but also with the appropriate merchandise. Sex was not that great a hurdle. Campion and her mate suffered from a a pm eager sex vocabulary. Quot even if we knew the Correct word for anything we would not utter it. We said a Busty for breast and say Bra in mixed my Wile and i weren t that demure. But to this Day despite two years in the Marine corps i am reluctant to use Lour Letler words in conversation except under extreme provocation. Campion had Little More sex instruction irom her Mother than that Given by the classic British Mother to her daughter Quot just close your eyes dear and think of Campion says she has Learned to see the Wisdom of Malcolm Muggridg cd a remark Quot sex is a funny thing and the older i get die funnier it she has Learned to laugh As her generation has Quot zoomed with the Speed of Light from the Era of the Chaperon to the Era of the a few years ago she recalls a new York l Imes editor deleted the word Vagina from one of her columns. Recently Quot without batting an Eye it quoted a female College student a a year ago i be caught dead with a condom but now its like an american express card a Vou can to leave Home without Quot i recently had occasion to use that word and noted that i had never before used it in this space Quot when i was in College Quot Campion recalls "1 had never heard the word condom a and i thought Oral sex meant talking a Good in his articles Shaw said he found Many journalists who believe that male editors and reporters Are far More reluctant to use sexually explicit words than women Are and pointed out that the older they Are the More reluctant Icv Are most of them coming from a Lime when newspapers could not even use the word Quot rape Quot the acceptable term being Quot criminal i am from that Era myself. I remember Irving to shame my editors into using the word Quot rape Quot by writing such sentences As Quot folic said he kicked her Down the stairs bashed her Over the head with a tire Iron and Tore Oil her clothing but he did not criminally assault such absurdities were actually Pim cd. Campion concludes Quot Allcie Hall a Century that voting Blade irom Harvard still delights see you Don t have to know anything about so 22. 1991 sunday a Page
