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Show / -3- Friends look after me. My next door neighbor, Mrs. Paul Shuler, has a key to my apartment. Recently she burst in trembling, saying, "I was worried when you didn't answer the telephone." (I happened to have been taking a shower, under which circumstances I cannot hear it ring.) Dee Morgan, another generous friend, is always trying to improve my appearance. Hex most recent experiment was the gift of a beautiful wig. It is vastly becoming, I have assured Dee that as soon as the weather is cooler I will often wear it. Alas, when tired my memory fails. The first time I noticed it was years ago, after working all night on seating arrangements for five hundred guests at a National Consumers League dinner, my memory collapsed. A recurrence of similar incompetence was recent. I was standing on the curb trying to call a taxi. Instead of the taxi, a beautiful blue Buick drew up to the curb, the driver opened the door and said, "Mrs. Smith, where may I take you?" Because his face and voice were vaguely familiar, I accepted the invitation but it was not until we had chatted for ten minutes that I realized the driver was my dentist. Lacking his professional accoutrements and the usual mask, I failed to identify him. Recently Joan Clark, a State Department executive in charge of seminars for foreign statisticians who come to the USA to learn our methods, brought four representatives from abroad to my apartment. Included were Ali Mohammed and his wife Esin Alwan, both from the United Arab Emirates; J.A.B. Efionayi from Nigeria; and Fung Hing Wang of Hong Kong. I was delightfully surprised to learn that there is no poverty in the United Arab Emirates. Apparently scant population, plus the fact that the ruling fami lie have long been established in that area may explain this phenomenon. As both Ali Mohamed and Esin Alwan, his wife, explained, "everybody knows everyone else." Also, the foreign contractors who operate in the United Arab Emirates pay high salaries. After reading the daily accounts of poverty in the United States from the "Washington Post," it was heartening to learn that at least one part of the world does not know what it means to be poor. The Nigerian gentleman held forth on the excellent schools in his country. I gathered that most of the classes are in English with some attention given to local dialects of which there are evidently quite a few. The gentleman from Hong Kong, Mr. Fung, is nimble-witted, sage, a man of the world. Although his forebears came from Canton he has never visited China. This he hopes to do when conditions there improve. It is probably like trying to stem the ocean's tide, but I am in continual mental revolt against the national bad habit, llfct^- The letter I wrote on this subject and sent to the "Washington Post was printed opposite its editorial page. Likewise, I wrote to the White House along similar lines. Polite acknowledgements, no action taken. Think of the cleanup money that could be saved if s |
