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As time passes, elements we once found essential to daily life become obsolete and are no longer desired or useful. They need to be purged. For example, items in your clothes closet that haven't seen the light of day for decades. Clothing not possible for me to either wear or purge, however, includes a flannel shirt Mother made for me... a duplicate of one she also sewed for my grandfather in his later years. It became the only shirt he wore. I'm also keeping my Zubaz.
Checking the closet shelf for purgeable items recently, a dusty college chemistry notebook from 1969 fell to the floor. Its contents included chemical diagrams of compounds showing which elements bond to each other, all useless information now. Tossing it toward the purge pile, a flyer from Congressman Dan Glickman of Kansas dated March 16, 1984, fell out. Besides its explanation of how wonderful KS House Resolution 5015 was (The Senior Citizen's Tax Improvement Act), the reverse side outlined important purging details worth knowing.
Rep. Glickman did not share who originally wrote what follows -- something his voters needed to know then and N.D. campers headed to Florida should know now. Because this household's leading authority was unavailable, an internet query about the document's author revealed the writer of this classic piece of folk humor which follows is unknown.
If you gotta go, start early
My friend is a rather old-fashioned lady, always quite delicate and elegant, especially in her language. She and her husband were planning a week's vacation in Florida, so she wrote to a particular campground and asked for a reservation. She wanted to make sure the campground was fully equipped but didn't quite know how to ask about toilet facilities. She just couldn't bring herself to write the word "toilet" in her letter. After much deliberation, she finally came up with the old-fashioned terms "bathroom commode." But, when she wrote that down, she still thought it was too forward, so she started all over again, rewrote the entire letter and referred to the bathroom commode merely as B.C. "Does the campground have its own B.C.?" was what she actually wrote.
Well, the campground owner wasn't old-fashioned at all, and when he got the letter, he just couldn't imagine what the lady meant either. So the campground owner, finally coming to the conclusion that the lady must be asking about the location of the local Baptist Church, sat down and wrote the following reply:
"Dear madam: I regret very much the delay in answering your letter, but I now take the pleasure of informing you that a B.C. is located nine miles north of the campground and is capable of seating 250 people at one time. I admit it is quite a distance away if you are in the habit of going regularly, but no doubt you will be pleased to know that a great number of people take their lunches along and make a day of it. They usually arrive early and stay late. The last time my wife and I went was six years ago, and it was so crowded we had to stand up the whole time we were there. It may interest you to know that right now there is a supper planned to raise money to buy more seats. They're going to hold it in the basement of the B.C. I would like to say that it pains me very much not to be able to go more regularly, but it is no lack of desire on my part. As we grow older, it seems to be more of an effort, particularly in cold weather. If you do decide to come down to our campground, perhaps I could go with you the first time you go, sit with you, and introduce you to all the other folks. Remember, this is a very friendly community."
Sommers is a retired Minot orthodontist, violinist with the Minot Symphony and author of the book, "Retirement? You Can't HANDLE the Truth!"