Medford mail tribune., January 11, 1959, Image 41

Meditation from a Sofa
I envy not the channel swimmer,
Mountain climbers leave me cold,
And tennis players, though they're slimmer,
Make me glad that I'm too old.
Oh, I suppose such sports could be
Accomplished if I really trained,
But the wisest course, it seems to me,
Is nothing ventured, nothing sprained.
Francis O. Walsh
Deft-inilions
Flock watcher: pastor of the local congregation.
Monday's workers: people who usually arrive in
a week-end condition.
Bridal path: a place where you seldom find
bachelors horsing around.
Ken Shively
' It was New Year's morning. Bleary-eyed but
resolute, a young husband pulled himself out of
bed and padded quietly down to the kitchen. He
carefully prepared eggs once over lightly
toasted the bread a delicate brown, brewed a
strong cup of coffee. He put the savory food on a
tray along with the morning newspaper and
carried it upstairs.
His wife was awake by this time. Her eyes
widened in delight at seeing the tray. "Oh, every
thing looks so delicious," she exclaimed as he set
it beside her. "Happy New Year, sweetheart!"
"Then you notice just what I've done?"
"Every detail, dear."
"Fine. This is my New Year's resolution I want
my breakfast served like this every morning from
now on!"
In America when something becomes "popularly
priced," it simply means that millions who can't
afford it are buying it.
O. A. Battista
Mother discovered that her small daughter was
more agreeable to a bath if a little game were made
of it. One of the diversions she introduced was
letting the tyke select the color of soap to be used.
One day, though, the girl couldn't make up her
mind, and the mother became impatient.
"Jean," she said, "the pink soap or the green
soap? Why should it take you so long to decide?"
The little girl looked at her reprovingly. "J hafta
think about it," she said. "The pink one's prettier
but the green one tastes better!"
Ken Kraft
Good-bye, Holidays!
Junior broke the toys received
As Christmas contributions
Almost as fast as Father broke
His New Year's resolutions.
Ruth Chadwick
Bumbling Along
Come folks just never
get with it. They go
through life pulling doors
marked "PUSH," confus
ing Tab with Rock and
Rock with Rory, and
even to this day planting
their feet firmly where
an automobile running
board used to be. Car
toonist Ben Thompson
has captured a few of
these lost souls in their
natural state, not only to
provide laughs but to as
sure us that we're not
alone in bumbling
through life.
CHECKROOM
"What do you expect
for a nickel tip?"
"pf
"I'm late for work ....
filler up while I dress!"
"Suppose we just make three even piles
of dishes and let you each do a pile?"
SliAWOLF
( Continued)
Captain Laning
Dr. Ebersole came aboard the Seawolf, after
working with the Nautilus project from scratch
and serving as her medical officer for a year, still
under the impression that he had two jobs of
about equal importance: 1) radiation, and 2)
atmosphere control. The 60-day submerged run
in the Seawolf has just about convinced him that
he really has only one job: getting rid of noxious
gases and revitalizing the oxygen aboard.
His and the Navy's success in that role has
upped submarine underwater endurance potential
from 12 hours to the present record of a no-strain,
uninterrupted 60 days. Diesel-driven subs must
surface in about 12 hours to renew their air, but
the A-sub's reactor needs no air. So the only prob
lem is removing gases like the refrigerant freon,
carbon dioxide from breathing, carbon monoxide
from cigarets, and solvent vapors from wall paint
and deck wax. Studies continue in all these areas,
but success (by rigidly classified methods) permits
smoking aboard the Seawolf and other A-subs any
time except when taking on or discharging auxil
iary Diesel fuel, or loading ammunition.
At Electric Boat, the General Dynamics Division
in Groton, Conn., where nuclear subs are born,
two special departments concentrate en "human
engineering" the science of making an A-sub as
nearly habitable as home and reactivating its air.
Of the many experiments in progress, one holds
high promise of solving the latter problem. Elec
tric Boat has succeeded in growing algae (pond
scum) in sealed bottles. The algae absorb carbon
dioxide, generate oxygen, and provide edible food!
By electronic miracles which permit such feats
as celestial navigation while submerged, our
atomic subs will soon roam the world's oceans free
of any surface needs. Hidden beneath the polar
icecap, they will be what the man chiefly respon
sible for them termed "ideal mobile missile plat
forms" defending us night and day. And as that
man, Adm. Hyman Rickover, points out with
satisfaction, the A-subs will be harder to find than
a black cat on a moonless night.
It's also exciting to realize that what we learned
from A-subs is 100 percent translatable to the
needs of space ships. Scientists tell us that voyages
like the Seawolf's are except for direction as
important to man's coming journey to the stars as
endurance chambers and stratospheric balloon
ascents.
14
Family Weekly, January 4. 19S9