There are laws in this country covering just about everything you can think of, from smoking cigarettes to walking the dog. Since this is an accepted way of life, I think there ought to be laws covering a couple of aggravations that Mom has to put up with while her kids are school age. Laws governing such things as.. . homework and the kids’ free days from school. As far as I am concerned, it ought to be against the law to have to help with homework and put up with the kids when it snows and the schools close their doors.

Let’s talk about birthdays. Birthdays are the only annual event in your life that seem to happen twice a year after you are forty. Sun day was my birthday…again. It doesn’t seem possible that a whole year has passed since the last batch of clever cards and the question, “How old are you today?” Boy. I hate that question. The only time I can remember being proud to answer this question, was when I finally turned 21, after being a child for what seemed like (at the time) 35 years.

Living around a teenager day after day, has prompted me to write about teenagers this week. Not just the modern cool, sweet, awesome 1985 teenager. I am also talking about the swell teenagers of the forties and fifties.

Last week, “Trixie” and one of her live-in weekend house guests, (you know the other half of the teenager pair that is seen most often on the weekends, in the kitchen looking for something.to eat). convinced me to crack open my Mom’s old trunk that has been sitting around gathering dust for the past thirty or forty years. In this old trunk we found the pictures of my high school classmates. I had forgotten how much fun it is to look at the pictures of the people who were so swell way back when. Not only was it swell to look at the old pictures, it was swell to read the little words of wisdom that everyone had written on the back of those swell pictures.

I have always been under the impression that there is a truth in advertising law in this country. Recently, there has been a commercial on television for AT&T that I find impossible to believe. In this particular commercial an excited gang of neighbors are running out in the street to meet the mail truck that is bringing their AT&T bills. Come on folks, if this were the case, we would all be ganged up in the street, blocking traffic once a week, waiting for the mail truck to bring one of our phone bills. I think a more truthful approach for a telephone commercial would be, Ma asking Pa if he had checked the mail box today, and Pa answering, “No Ma, cause I think that one of them phone companies is gonna reach out and touch us again today.”

STRESS. All we hear about is stress and how to handle stress in our everyday lives. They have TV programs dedicated to this affliction of modern day man. Magazine articles and modern day medicine also try to deal with what bothers us. Time Magazine, a while back, ran a front cover of a person’s screaming head breaking out of a concrete block and the title: “Stress! Seeking cures for modern anxieties.” Seems they are all trying to find a cure through Science. Well, I equate stress with simple everyday aggravations. The simplest of things around, that drive you bananas. It doesn’t take a Scientist to figure these things out, all it takes is to live everyday life. I’m not sure Science can cure these aggravations

“It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas” around the Massey household. The tree is decorated, along with the fireplace mantle There are red candles on the tables and “The stockings are hung on the fireplace with care, in hope that Saint Nicholas soon will be there.”

Since last Saturday. I have busily been decorating the house. Last Saturday was also the day that our monster Christmas tree was put up in the family room. I call it a monster tree because it is the biggest stalk of pine that has ever graced our family room. Actually I think when it was cut down, it was destined for the world’s largest shopping mall, but in- stead it ended up in the Massey’s family room.

This might not be true for everyone but it works around our house. First, let me say that I drive a classic car. If you are wondering what a classic car is, it is the car you buy new, it gets old and then when you have it long enough it turns into a classic. Well, my classic started looking pretty bad with her hubcap missing and the inside so dirty that it looked like we had used if for an emergency rabbit hutch. I might add that the hubcap had been missing for two years (you can’t buy spare parts for antiques, on sale, at K-Mart.)