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THE COLBORNE EXPRESS, COLBORNE, ONT. JAN. 8, 1959 SHARING THEIR BURDEN - Seven-year-old twins Julia, left, and Magdelina Urdiales, of San Antonio, are identical even in misfortune. But they make a smiling appeal for contributions to the 1959 March of Dimes campaign against polio and other diseases. The girls are believed to be the only identical twin* stricken' with paralytic polio at the same time. Afflicated at the age of six months, they wear long leg braces and still receive out-patient care at the Robert B. Green polio clinic. TABLE TALKS Blue Ribbons For Attics A lady writes with a wonderful idea, although the details need working out. She thinks there ought to be a national annual award for the best attic-taking into account the neatness, quantity of bric-a-brac, and the entertainment potential on a rainy afternoon. A lovely attic, she says, is a wotsome thing. The general subject of attics is therefore thrown open for dis-cusion. I remember Sally Irish said one time, relative to the way four generations of living had accumulated Irish belongings, "Of course, our attic moved downstairs long ago!" This encroachment of the attic is a hovering kind of thing, and in extreme instances can keep the modern development of the lower floors in balance, but a true attic keeps its distance. When you climbed the stairs, or passed through the scuttle, you left everything behind as going through a magic casement opening on the foam. . . There were two kinds of attics --a barn attic and a house attic. A well-regulated household had a subtle distinction between these, so when Mother said, "Put it up attic," you knew without her saying so just which attic it should go in. The barn attic was best in those old four-square places built back in seafaring days when the far places of the world contributed souvenirs, and treasures from the golden isles were stacked tier on tier. In one such old place they used to play charades--in costume! Charades, to me, always seemed like a desperate chance, something you did in an extremity of ennui, but these people dressed it up beyond belief. When it was your turn to puzzle everybody you would go up attic and rummage around to find something to wea-\ Chinese Mandarins would come out to dramatize, the word "palentol-ogy"; or Gold Coast slavers would appear to act out "dis-combobolate." One evening a man and his wife came crawling in on their hands and knees, dressed in.Tartar tunics and looking ferocious, and they kept shoulder to shoulder and said, "Oink! Oink!" The word was "quahog,". and it was guessed fairly soon, ours being a shellfish region. A good time was had by all, and the value of a ready attic was demonstrated. A barn attic wouuld usually have a flock of chairs past repair, some rockers with the cane bottoms gone, and lots of trunks. Exciting it was to find one of those old leather-covered chests, with moth-eaten camel hair still "GAG" SHOT - Hank McCul-lough prowls downtown streets of Los Angeles with a tankful of "fresh air" fnom less smoggy localities. Reason: air pollution that plagues Los Angeles at times because of peculiar atmospheric conditions that trap ground air and its load of industrial and automotive exhaust fumes. showing, but sometimes it would just be full of coat hangers. There were those big trunks for going far distances, with rounded tops on them. This was to keep the express company from piling trunks on top of one another to the crushing point. In the attics they would sometimes be standing on end, about three high, showing that you could pile them up just the On a rainy day, with the noise on the shingles, almost any attic was a good place to be. Attica were usually darkened, for the windows would be small up there, Our old house attic had one small sash in the gable, and the only way to open it was to take the sash out entirely and lean it against the wall. We did that in summer, for attics were expected to explode if you didn't ventilate--the sun on the roof generated unbelievable heat. It had been the custom from long ago to tack a piecd of netting over the opening after the sash was removed for the summer. You had to tear the netting away in the fall to get the sash back, so in time the frame had become stuck with thousands of tacks, each with its little ruff of fibre. The netting was to keep out wasps and barn swallows, but mud nests of both these critturs hung on the roof boards to show there were some summers when the precaution was neglected. There were efforts now and then to "clean down" the attic. There would be some cobwebs, and kitties, but the job wasn't one of cleanliness mainly, it was neatness. An attic was a place you put things, but seldom took out. To rearrange everything once in ten years or so called for some sense of elimination, but mostly a job of warehouse management. And there were always things you had forgotten but now decided you could use again -- such as our old walnut living room set, which my father bought at an auction for two dollars shortly after he was married. It got shabby after a time, and was taken up attic. Then one year it was rediscovered, and Mother thought she'd like it upholstered. So Father climbed up and passed it down through the hole to her, and after a time in the furniture shop it reappeared n our front room -- a beautiful set. People would inquire, and my father always explained that it was "handed down" to his wife. Antiques handed down in the family were always more precious than those bought in, so the effect was good. Father never troubled to explain that there had also been a time when he "handed it up" to her, too. Almost every attic had a clockreel, or checkreel, for winding yarn. After many turns, it would click, to indicate the length of a skein. How many-many youngsters, absorbed in attic playing, have turned and turned and turned a clockreel, just to hear that wonderful clack at last! And downstairs, all through the house, everybody heard it, and wondered what idiot was up there turning that clockreel for amusement. Or-- where is there more fun on a rainy day than finding some steelyards, and weighing things? Our attic had a cylinder phonograph, one that played disks through a horn, one that had a built-in horn, and then a long radio laid out on a board with earphones. It used to bring in KDKA clear as a bell. But there came a time we stopped keeping such items, for succeeding radios must have been junked and forever lost. A prize for the best attic might prove many 'things. It might make us all glad. I should like to be one Of the judges, and have time for it. A little fellow, calling on a neighbor with his mother, suddenly said, "Mrs. Rand, may I see your new bedroom rug?" "Why, Tommy, how nice of you to be interested. Of course you may go in and look." The boy left, then reappeared. "Gee, Mommy," he said, puzzled, "it didn't make me sick." Pudding Recipe Slightly Delayed Hail, season of jollity and right thinking, and everybody's been so nice I should like to reciprocate, so if you'll gather around and pay attention I shall spread Christmas cheer with a lavish hand: Not long ago this department advanced the happiness of the world immeasurably by producing the recipe for New Meadows Inn sugar cookies. Nothing in a long time seemed to please so many people. It even pleased me, for one lady wrote that mine wasn't the recipe at all, but another one just like it that was different. Thinking On the great good worked so easily, I will hance it again with a Christmas recipe, one that is geared to the holiday from away back. And herewith my greetings: This kind of Christmas pudding is pretty much a lost art. We hear about them in the stories and adages, and see them on the cards and decorations. But the homes where one of these will be constructed will not be too frequent--unless of course all you folks decide to try it. This decline Of the Christmas pudding is probably a gauge of modernity--for one must have a big kettle, and one must have four consecutive hours of stove heat over and above the requirements for the rest of Christmas dinner. This pudding makes the kitchen department the mecca of enthusiasts. It sets the front-room delegation into magnificent expectancy. It will make the most obstreperous youngster sit with folded hands and wait. It steams up the windows, so the whole neighborhood knows. And it is not for time-saving, short-cut new-era ladies of the instant persuasion. Please, then, to assemble the following ingredients: 8 eggs 1 pound kidney beef suet 1 pound flour 1 pound raisins 1 pound currants 1 cup sugar 1 nutmeg, grated 1 teaspoon ginger A little salt 1 pint of milk I am copying these words from the handwriting of Grandmother Lane, who was an ancestor of mine in remoter times. The only internal evidence of this wonderful woman's touch is in that line, "a little salt." In other recipes she left us she frequently uses "some milk," "a shake of flour," and in one place, "a dab of fat." But here she is more precise, and any woman worthy of the name will know what "a little salt" means. You will now "wisk" the eggs. And you will flour the fruit--to fix it so it will hold its place in the mixture and won't settle during coking. Then "ou will mix everything together in a Happy Christmas gesture of amalgamation. Next you need two things: a square of good unbleached cotton, about a yard, and a good, stout cord. The cotton becomes the pudding bag, and the string is to tie it off and, perhaps, to lift by. Soak the cloth in some warm water, to dampen it, and flour it well on what is to be the inside of the bag. This, of course, is to keep the pudding from sticking to the cloth. So you lay the cloth out flat and dump the pudding mix on it, and for this you should have some help. You'll want somebody handy to pick up the corners of the cloth with you, bringing them together so the string can be tied around. There is a little trick to the string--you want to tie it so a little spare room is left in the bag, for the pudcfeng will swell some. Not much. It won't explode, at any rate--but the eggs do constitute "rising material," and you'll get a little increase. Furthermore, when this bag comes out of the pot after cooking, things are going to be pretty hot, and you'll want the string secure and strong enough to use it as a handle. If you don't have a big pot, you are now in trouble. But if one large enough is on hand, have some water in it and have it boiling good. Gently lower the bagful of pudding into the water, put on the cover, and keep the fire going for exactly four hours. One of those can-ners that will take eight or ten jars of plums or peaches for preserving is an ideal pot for this. The four hours can be used to prepare the rest of the holiday feast, or you can go out for a round of golf, or something like that. In our household the schedule of the whole day takes its cue from the time the pudding is set to boil. As soon as we know the pudding's time, we know everything else. I might warn you that the boiling of the pudding will cast a certain aroma of the laundry about the kitchen, particularly in its early stages. It's the cloth. Somehow the raisins and ginger wcn't "come, through to you, but there may be a suggestion of socks and shirts. 'Tis sad that such needs explaining, for happy people know about this, and it is not good to reflect that I am advising unhappy ones! After four full hours, just as the family is finishing dinner, a delegation of accredited females should be dispatched to the kitchen to unlimber the pudding. Get the biggest platter. Uncover the pot. Lift out the bag with a gaff. Don't trust the steam! Untie or cut the string. And, with about six hands helping, roll the pudding out onto the platter. It will be about the size Of a basketball. Relax. Sniff! The trophy may be carried to the table with carols, or it may be dismembered or served from the kitchen. Hard or soft, or both sauces. Try it. You will thank me for my Christmas offering. Hurrah! --By John Gould in The Christian Science Monitor. HE HAS THE JOB - Ifs official. Joe Cronin, 52, is the American League's new president. He succeeds Will Har-ridge. Bucky Harris is expected to step into Cronin's shoes as general manager of the Red Sox when Cronin steps up. Winter Haven For Animals From mid-September to Aprft or May we were alone in th» croft, and for weeks, sometimes months, we saw nobody except each other. Even the postman was rarely able to call in during winter for a chat. The croft was at a fairly high altitude and wa had snow every year. Most animals enjoyed playing in the snow. If it was not too deep the otters would race out when the flakes had stopped falling and roll over and over in it, then chase each other like dogs. As they had been reared in a croft from infancy I had to show them how to maka a snow chute and slide down it. I chose a steep hill and beat a length of snow hard with a spade,-making the first descent myself on a tin tray. The otters were not long in getting the hang of tobogganing. Soon they were flying down the chute, forepaws tucked well into their sides, back legs used for giving a brisk send-off and then kept out straight. No sooner had they reached the bottom than they hurried up to the top for another go ... Hearing birds indoors one realises the strength and carrying power of their voices When the wren uttered its sharp 'tick, tick' in Aunt's bedroom it could be heard clearly in the parlour with both doors closed. We were treated to brilliant displays of singing by thrushes and blackbirds, but these songsters are best enjoyed in the open, for their voices are too powerful indoors. Directly there was a break in the weather those birds which had recovered sufficiently were let out. Many we never saw again but others revisited the croft, some almost daily. Our circle of bird friends grew like a chain letter, a bird which we had cared for during a blizzard returning later, for example with one or two acquaintances. of its species. We often got back to the croft after a walk to find, if a door or window had been left open, several of our lata guests disporting themselves on picture frames and furniture while nervous newcomers flew agitatedly round the room, uttering cries of alarm at our entry ... We returned one day to discover artificial flowers in a bowl pecked to pieces, and a china ornament knocked off the mantlepiece and broken. A starling Was on the writing desk and, having chattered a brief greeting to us, it continued with the task of extracting envelopes from a packet and dropping them over the side of the Deer often came down to the croft in severe weather in search of food, their lean flanks showing the effects of poor grazing. There was nothing we could do for them ... One day when I was sitting in the parlour I was frightened by a loud snort, followed by an antlered head appearing through the window. The stag regarded me calmly for a while, and then withdrew. --From "Seal Morning", by Rowena Farre. NOT "MUSH" - FISH - No Alaskan, .he. Dog sled driver above, is fishing on shores of the North Sea near Cuxhaven, Germany. BiskMs are left on the sands at low tide. When tide rises, small fish get in the baskets. As the tide ebbs, fish are trapped. T'~ 'ibhcrman mokes a twice-a-day run with the dog-powered Designed by David T. Barish, 37-year-old aeronautical engineer, the whirling chute substitutes four sail-like blades of cloth for the standard. campy. Rotation of the blades like a helicopter rotor creates a "vortex ring," or doughnut, of air around the tips. Lines attached to a swivel allow the spinning of the eight-pound chute. The new design has proved to have virtually no oscillation or glide characteristics which make drops in high winds so dangerous. Low opening shock makes the chute excellent in paratroop drops from low altitudes, and from high speed aircraft. Successful tests have brought it to the attention of the military for uses including braking planes, below. L