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University Daily Kansan Tuesday, December 7, 1954
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS by Dick Bibler
If You Remember Christmas Give to the Children's Toy Drive
Sometimes we become so sophisticated, so removed from everything, so afraid to be sentimental that we forget-or try not to think-about the world beyond the Hill.
We become so wrapped up in campus affairs that we aren't given time to think that there is a world somewhere where people are working for something more than a Christmas formal, that there is a world somewhere where Christmas is just another day in the struggle to keep alive.
And there is a world-not so far away—where children wonder just what Santa Claus is all about, why wonder why other children are happy on Christmas day, wonder why they, too, can't have toys and a Christmas tree.
In the next two weeks before Christmas vacation, several organizations are going to take time out to see if they can't bring a little of the Christmas spirit to underprivileged children. They are going to carry out a toy drive, asking students to take a little time to give toys to a few of these children.
A toy means very little to us now, but most of us can remember that years ago a toy could be life itself. Real happiness, the kind we'll never
really know again, could be found inside a red and green package Christmas morning.
Little things meant a lot to us back then. A doll, a teddy bear, or a Christmas tree produced a genuine delight that left us when we grew older and wanted other things, practical things, things a child could not call important—not when all he wants for Christmas is a silly, useless toy.
We all discarded our toys long ago, tossed them into boxes, and carried them to the attic. We should have known then that there would be other Christmases and other children, not half so fortunate as we were, who might capture the same wonderful happiness from opening a Christmas package and finding our gifts. We should have known that there would be other hands that might tremble slightly beneath the lights of a Christmas tree when they touched the same toys our hands touched long ago.
touched long ago.
Now our hands, much larger, much stronger,
must reach into worn boxes and carry discarded
toys to fill tiny, empty hands on Christmas day.
Now we must support the campus toy drive and fill the empty loneliness of children's eyes that look—but cannot see—a Santa Claus.
Gene Shank
Impromptu Entertainment May Not Be 'Musical'
"She's getting up off the sundeck now—Whose turn to phone her next time?"
Have you ever seen anyone leap up on the stage at intermission during a concert and play any of the instruments? I doubt it.
Then what is it that prompts those charming, if frequently inebriated young gentlemen to be found at almost any party, to head for the stand the minute the band is out of sight at intermission and demonstrate their musical inability?
With the exception of the piano all the instruments used in a dance band are usually the personal property of the men in the band. A bass has to be tuned as carefully as a violin and inexperienced hands twanging away at the strings can get it out of tune in no time.
A set of drums (they are no longer called "tubs") is a very expensive item and can easily be damaged. A horn is a delicate thing; one dent can effect the sound produced.
Apart from the damage that can be done is the fact that a musician takes a great deal of pride in his instrument—it is a very personal thing to him and he finds it rather upsetting to find a complete stranger (or even a casual acquaintance) using it like a play-thing—and without his permission.
Unfortunately the misguided gentlemen who entertain at intermission with their discordant tootlings are under the misapprehension that they are real connoisseurs of the musical art.
The fact of the matter is that no musician would use another man's instrument without his express permission, and to do so brands you as a rank amateur, completely lacking in any knowledge of musicians and all things musical.
Think better of it the next time you are tempted to "make crazy noises on that horn" won't you? It will not only mark you as a considerate person, but you'll be well on your way to becoming a true music lover. Margot Baker
WITH MY TRUSTY KNIFE I
KIN STEAL OFF ALONE AWAY
FROM ALL SNEAKS...
--INTO THE DEEPNESS OF THE WOODS
WHERE NOBODY KIN WATCH ME
AN UN-DISTURBED IKIN CARVE
ONTO A VIRGIN TRUNK THE
NAME WITH HEART ENTWINED OF
HER WHOM I A-PORE-
... Letters ...
To the editors:
Yesterday I went to Watkins hos-pital for a couple of aspirin tablets in the hope that this would soothe a headache I had at the time.
No sooner had I informed the nurse of my want than she prepared herself, very diligently, to write my name down for a consultation with the doctor. Since I had neither the time nor was I feeling troubled by any malady I tried to dissuade the nurse from calling a staff meeting in order for my petition to be duly considered.
In the best of my language I tried to explain to her that 'I would no have bothered to call on the hospital if I had had the time to go downtown. The nurse was not only adamant to my plea but also became highly suspicious of the motive behind it.
Once I became identified as a student, however, her suspicions seemed to subside, enough anyway to write my name down for a consultation with the doctor.
Surely, I, as most of the student body, appreciate the concern and care of the hospital staff for the students health, but I still find it rather difficult to believe that nothing short of surgical intervention is necessary in order for the student to secure two aspirin tablets.
Teodoro J. Ayllon graduate student from Bolivia
I would like to refer Mr. Leibengood to the following articles printed in the Reader's Digest: "Comic Books — Blueprints for Delinquency," May, 1954, and "For the Kiddies to Read," June, 1954. I agree with Mr. Leibengood that parents should pay attention to their children, but I also think something should be done about the crime comics.
I am a regular reader of the Kansas, although I am not a student. If I may, I would like to take the liberty of disagreeing in part with your editorial, "Comics May Not Cause Delinquency."
Quoting from Reader's Digest, "Juvenile delinquency has increased about 20 per cent since 1947, the period corresponding to the great rise in comic-book circulation." And again I would like to quote: "Why should newspapers that stand for the principle of publishing what is "fit to print" make themselves the champions of those who publish what is unfit to print?" Freedom of the press was never so misused and degraded as it has been in the current crime comic books.
Perhaps we who are parents are more concerned over the problem than are college students. We would hardly allow a bunch of rattlesnakes to stay in our front yards; neither should we permit filly books to make their impressions on our children's minds. We are our "brother's keeper." I do believe that comic books contribute a great deal to juvenile delinquency, and therefore, I stand by Dr. H. Richard Van Saun (who attacked comic books recently as the No. 1 problem affecting mental health.)
Mrs. Eudene McLachlan
Women's Basketball
1 teel that some comment by a man is necessary concerning the girl's basketball controversy. It concerns us indirectly, so here is just a brief and simple point of view on the subject from a male.
I am certainly glad there was an answer to Miss Mary Jean Walter-scheid's letter concerning girls' basketball. I do not care to get into the argument (if there is any), but I was pleased to find out that there are some women on KU's campus who do not consider basketball a prerequisite for producing feminity in the fair sex.
I believe, as most men do, in Beverly Orrmont's axiom, "No girl ever became more feminine by playing basketball."
I once enrolled in social dance for the simple reason that I knew I would be more acceptable to the female half of our race if I could dance. However, if I have to enroll in basketball to please today's "newest" form of women (the girls who play basketball to tone their muscles and etc.), then Heaven forbid what will be next on the agenda for the poor female.
I do know this, however, that when they take up weight lifting I shall resign all contacts with the female race and become a hermit. Haven't the Amazons had their day?
William McKee Lynn education junior
Beer in the Union
I found your beer editorial in Thursday's paper absolutely disgusting and outside the bounds of common sense.
Your position that the sale of beer in the Hawk's Nest would promote driving safety would be ludicrous if I didn't think that perhaps you were serious. The sale of beer in the Hawk's Nest would have only one effect on driving and that would be to increase the accident rate on and near the campus.
Part of the editorial seemed to imply that beer should be soid merely because some students like it, and they cannot get it on the campus they go elsewhere to get it. You suggest this even though you know, or ought to know, that a very large segment of the student body belongs to churches which teach that the use of alcoholic beverages of any kind is morally wrong.
Consequently the sale of such
beverages at the University can result only in a lot of very bad publicity throughout the state and could even lead to a large drop in student enrollment.
Since you officially take the position (the editorial being unsigned) that it is perfectly all right to permit anything on the campus which some students desire to do. I am inclined to wonder what your next position will be.
Howard Lydick 2nd year law
George Duerkson
Rhino Research
I did not write the letter that was printed above my name in the December 1 edition of the Kansan. Grove, Duikerson
EDUCATION
Okay, this is a longer time in a row that somebody has been cute and adopted a pseudonym. We'll close the letters column for good if it happens again. Opinion and the names of others are property rights, as we see it. And children under this latter is double crime. We refuse to deal with children—ed. note.)
East is west and west is east in a letter that the Lake Place Chamber of Commerce just received.
Every citizen knows that the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor holds a torch in her upraised hand. But not many know what her left hand holds—the Declaration of Independence—or what lies at her feet—the broken chains of tyranny.
o o o
"I write to you for information with reference to Sun Valley, Idaho," a woman wrote. "I understand that this is up in the Adirondack Mountains."
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