The Coral Gables Times

Suburbia Today THE MAGAZINE OF PLEASANT PLACES Published Monthly

In This Issue . . .

Open House For Burglars . . . page 6 ACCORDING TO DAVID SKOWRONEK, #75996 in the State Prison of Southern Michigan, no house is broken into by a burglar unless the felon is openly invited by the carelessness of the people who live there. Mr. Skowronek, now serving time for burglary, makes his valuable experience available to you this month and tells, as only an expert can, how you can best keep the crook from your door. Cerf's Sour Grapes . . . page 12 Bennett Cerf has spent a lot of his time, for many years, collecting the witty and profound and pertinent and impertinent sayings of other famous (and some infamous) people. By now, as you can well imagine, he has got together quite a bundle, and as you can equally well imagine, there are many that he wishes he himself had said. This month he shares a few of the best with us. For I'm A Jolly Good Fellow . . page 14 Distinguished Drama Critic John Chapman is a lucky man, indeed. He can take his best friend along with him, wherever he goes. This month, in a marvelously funny article, he pokes fun at the person he knows better than any other in the world—himself—and reveals that "My Most Unforgettable Character Is—Me!" A Golf Course For $15,000? . . . page 16 Impossible, you say? Not at all. It just takes the concerted will, determination, time, and effort of an entire community. The people of Sulphur, Louisiana, got one simply because they buckled down and did most of the work—clearing the land and laying out the course—themselves. It took a lot of weekends and a lot of volunteer man-hours, but now, whenever a Sulphur resident tees up, he can be especially proud of his own part in bringing it all about.

CEM

Noted cartoonist-illustrator Charles E. Martin, our cover artist for July, shows us all the promise of summer out-of-doors—brisk hikes, long drives, canters through near-by parks, picnics, and long bi-cycle tours. There are enough trees and flowers and off-the-beaten paths for everybody to enjoy, says CEM, so let's all get out and find them.

LEONARD S. DAVIDOW Publisher ERNEST V. HEYN Editor-In-Chief MARION LOWNDES Editor DELMAR LIPP Managing Editor CHRISTINA PAPPAS Associate Editor PHILLIP DYKSTRA Art Director JOHN BAILEY Humor Editor SUBURBIA TODAY is distributed nationally with newspapers in selected suburban communities. Editorial offices at 60 East 56th St., New York 22, N. Y. Advertising offices at 575 Lexington Ave., New York 22, N. Y. Business offices at 153 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago 1, III. Walter C. Dreyfus, Vice President. Patrick O'Rourke, Advertising Director. Ford King, Advertising Manager. Morton Frank, Director of Publisher Relations. © 1961, Suburbia Publishing Corporation, 153 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago 1, Ill. All rights reserved.

"It's the little things that drive me crazy—for example the sitter problem . . ."

SUBURBIA TODAY

GETTING AROUND . . . to Our Pleasant Places and People

THE NEATEST traveling-salesman story we've heard in ages actually happened to a friend of ours and her husband one hot day not so long ago. They live on the Willamette River in Jennings Lodge, Oregon, and one noontime a snappy outboard tied up at their dock and two handsome young men in swim trunks and toppers came up the trail, greeted our friends, and then proceeded to take bread, tomatoes, oranges, and other items from a large hamper and spread out a picnic for the startled householders. Of course, it turned out that they were salesmen for a cutlery outfit and used this way of introducing themselves wherever there were prospective customers with houses along the water. As they took off with our friends' order in their hands (one of them on water skis, at that), they confided that they had a couple of steaks in the locker and had their sales calls carefully timed so as to arrive at the home of someone with a couple of young, unmarried daughters just about dinnertime. Thanks for the tip, Mr. Robert S. Searight, of Long Beach, California. Mr. Searight never throws away large, burnt-out light bulbs but makes tiny models of the Eiffel Tower, ships, and other interesting scenes and installs them inside the bulbs. He has done more than 1,000 of them. First he makes his model, then removes the socket end of the bulb and inserts the miniature scene, using a pin soldered to a long piece of wire to get it in position. It's an absorbing hobby, and, we understand, the decorative bulbs make excellent gifts. Enterprising Mary Alice Baas, ten-year-old entrepreneur and spreader of culture, operates her own library set up in the breezeway of her Troy, Michigan, home. She started with 50 books, but her stock has more than doubled from recent contributions. Mary catalogues her books in a loose-leaf notebook; limits her small customers (at least ten a day, we hear) to five books with a two-week limit; and charges 2 cents a day for books over-due. Mary says science books are fast movers, but one item called "A Chimp In The Family" is the most popular book on her shelves. Mr. Howard Sparber, of Morris County, New Jersey, has come up with a new toy that promises to take the fear and mystery out of giving hypo-dermic injections to young children. Mr. Sparber designed a stuffed elephant called Shotzie, who is carried around on hypodermic trays by nurses. The child is given Shotzie to hold before his own shot is administered. Then the nurse gives a mock injection to the elephant. While the youngster is busy comforting Shotzie and showing him how to be brave, the nurse can give the young patient his own injection, with a minimum of agitation. A sign on a lawn spotted by David Deutsch near Skaneateles, New York, reads, "Your Feet Are Killing Me." Ruth Stocks, of Decatur, Georgia, reports hearing about a tavern whose owner has installed safety belts around his bar stools . . . for the use of the "fast" crowd. Continued on page 4 2 Suburbia Today, July 1961