The Times

Suburbia Today THE MAGAZINE OF PLEASANT PLACES Published Monthly

In This Issue . . .

Fire at the Vance Packards . . . page 8 Christmas Eve a year ago, the Packards were spending a quiet evening at home, when their son suddenly discovered that flames eight feet high were lashing up around the chimney. The fire spread fast over the entire top of the house, threatening to destroy what years of hard work, love, and careful planning had created. This month, the author of The Hidden Persuaders and The Waste Makers tells about that terrifying night and the lifesaving lessons he learned the hard way. Bennett Cerf . . . page 10 The publisher, Cerf, had a yen To collect limericks now and then, Which he put in a book — If you'd like a quick look, You'll find some of his gems on page ten. π In The Sky . . . page 16 "My child is a first-grader who will probably be affected by the Airborne Television experiment," says Muriel Lederer, of Winnetka, Illinois, and she adds, "I am also a curious writer." On both counts, this professional journalist set out to investigate teaching by television. See page 16 — "Will Your Child Be Shortchanged by Classroom TV?" Plan Your Cutting Garden Now . . . page 24 Don't wait till spring to figure out what you will plant, and where, in order to provide enough flowers for the garden and the house. Now is the time to plan, says garden editor John Brimer, with your favorite catalogue in hand. Later, plant carefully — for color and beauty all summer, indoors and out.

Albert John Pucci

Here is ice-boating, depicted by our award-winning cover artist in crystal-cold blues and whites and greens and violets. Here is the speed and excitement and color of the sport, which is all of these things and more, as you will see on page six, in our feature, "Is Ice-boating Dangerous?"

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 405 Park Ave., New York, N. Y. Business offices at 153 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago 1, Ill. 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.

GETTING AROUND . . . to Our Pleasant Places and People

"Thank goodness for that home generator. I'll bet we're the only people on Bayberry Lane looking at Gunsmoke tonight!" A McLean, Virginia, physician hopes he has seen the last of Christmas trees . . . and bargains, too. He bought 20 beautiful spruce trees to landscape his new house at the rock-bottom price of $4.50 and watered them carefully — but they still turned brown. The doctor pulled one up, then another, then another. All the trees were sawed-off Christmas trees complete with crude wooden stands inside a ball of earth and burlap. In Norman, Oklahoma, a University of Oklahoma student went to the library and asked for some information on euthanasia, or mercy killings. After searching the files for some time, the librarian came back saying, "I can't find anything dealing directly with euthanasia, but I did find a book on 'Youth In India.' " Mailman Harold R. Hartpence, of Fenwood, New Jersey, says that cats are to blame for the 27 dog bites he has collected during 31 years of carrying letters. He explains that dogs pick up the scent of cats on a mailman's uniform. They don't dislike mailmen; they hate cats. The last time he was bitten, Mr. Hartpence had been petting the family cat, and "a dog ripped my pants clean off." People who are confined to wheel chairs in Birmingham, Michigan, and who want to go to the library are able to do so, now that a ramp has been installed at the back of the building. The ramp is closed to the general public but will be opened for any wheel-chair patron whose companion notifies the staff at the main desk. Here's a bit of early American history we particularly like. It's about a love letter that found a town. It started in President Jackson's administration, when the daughter of publisher Francis Preston Blair was toppled off her horse by the limb of a tree while she was reading a letter from a young naval lieutenant. Mr. Blair helped his daughter get up, and together they found the horse drinking from a spring in a lovely woodsy setting. The Blairs liked the spot so well that Mr. Blair bought it and the land surrounding it and called his new estate Silver Spring. Over the origin spring he built a high acorn-shaped shelter, which still occasionally houses a pair of meditative lovers, sitting and holding hands. Although the big acorn is the only thing left there to remind us of the original residents, the estate eventually became a town and Silver Spring, Maryland, is now the second largest city in the state, with an area of 44 square miles and a population of 150,000 — and it all started with a love letter. Ever since the Xanthoceras Sorbifolia Bunge arrived, the courthouse square in Sterling, Colorado, has been attracting visitors from all over the state. Now the Xanthoceras Sorbifolia Bunge is a rare, flowering tree, so rare that it is the only one of its kind in Colorado. That, says Chief Custodian Willis Benz, is the whole trouble — the tree is suffering from all the attention, and he'd like to ask tourists to stop snipping off its lower branches for souvenirs. The Clayton Lackmans of Ocean Beach, California, have no garage. When they found their car was suffering from exposure to the beach air, they put double doors on their den and now drive their auto into the house at night. Continued on page 4