LIFE BEFORE PIZZA - BACK IN THE '50S - WAS A REAL `BUMMER'

By Deseret News Feb 12, 1992, 12:00am MST

Sharon Nauta Steele

For a long while I've had a hard time convincing my children how tough things were back in the '50s, when I was growing up. Somehow, the old "I had to walk 10 miles to school through 3 feet of drifting snow" routine doesn't work on youngsters who spend more time on a school bus than they do on homework.

My kids, who fight over the two full bathrooms in our house, are not at all impressed when I tell them my childhood home had only an outhouse during the three years my dad took to build the house.

They take even less notice of the fact that I didn't know anyone who had a television set until I was 4 years old, and they shrug their shoulders when they learn that cars came without either air conditioning or GPS and houses came without automatic dishwashers, microwave ovens and wall-to-wall carpeting way back then.

My daughters yawn when I say I never saw a pair of panty hose until I was in college, and my sons are only mildly interested in hearing how the smallest computer in my childhood world filled several good-size rooms.

They really ganged up on me the last time I tried to help them see how many advantages their generation has had compared to mine:

"Yeah, Mom, you sure had a rough time of it. . . .

"When hamburgers were 19 cents. . . ."

"And two Snickers cost a dime. . . ."

"And all the movies were double features. . . ."

"And there was no pollution or acid rain. . . ."

"Or hole in the ozone layer. . . ."

"Or half as much crime!"

And I never tasted pizza until I was in fourth grade, and your grandmother came home from Homer's Market with the newest rage - a boxed mix that baked up into something resembling a thin sheet of cardboard sprinkled with tomato sauce, oregano, and Parmesan cheese. That night she had a party and invited all her friends over for a slice. I got a corner piece and thought it the most delicious thing this side of Elvis Presley.

"Gosh, Mom," one child finally put things in perspective, "life must have been a bummer before pizza!”

Yes!  This unabashedly is me.  My mother’s caption said, “Sharon meditating.”

Originally published in the “Friend” by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

Jake’s Costume

By Sharon Nauta Steele

The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts (Rom. 5:5).

“Would you like to be a clown this year?” Mother asked as she rummaged through the Halloween costume box. “We could paint your face all white and red.”

“No,” Jake answered solemnly. “I want my own face to show.”

“Your own face would show if you wore this cute Teddy Bear suit,” Mother suggested next.

“Uh-uh.” Jake shrugged. “I want to wear my Sunday suit.”

Mother looked surprised. She knew that Jake didn’t usually want to wear his Sunday suit anywhere besides church. Even when he’d played “Lightning Ranger” in the first grade talent show, Mother hadn’t been able to talk him into putting on his coat and tie. Instead, he’d worn a lightweight sweater neatly tucked into the waistband of his slacks.

“You could wear your suit and be a vampire,” Mother said, handing him a set of scary-looking plastic teeth.

“No way!” Jake exclaimed. “I don’t want to scare people this year, I want to be nice,”

“Magicians are usually nice,” Mother told him. “Maybe we could make a magic wand for you to carry.”

“Nah!” Jake shook his head. “I’d like to carry a book this Halloween.”

“Whatever you say,” Mother agreed, then wondered out loud if Jake was planning on dressing up like kind old Mr. Larkins, who worked at the city library.

Jake began to giggle when his mother mentioned their friend. Mr. Larkins was just about as nice as a person could be. He wore a suit to work each day, and you hardly ever saw him without some kind of book in his hand. But Jake didn’t plan to be a librarian this October 31. He had something else in mind.

“Wait a minute, Mom,” Jake said, “and I’ll show you what I want to be.”

Mother had time to put away the costume box, dust the storage shelves, and sweep half the basement floor before Jake returned. She grinned from ear to ear when she saw him standing there all dressed up in his Sunday suit with a white shirt and tie. His face was freshly scrubbed, and his hair was parted straight.

In his hands he held a very special book, and pinned right above his pocket was a black construction paper name tag with white chalk letters that read: Elder Jacob B. Adams.

“I see,” Mother said softly, brushing a happy tear from her cheek. “You’re going to be a missionary.”

`HIM/HERCULEAN' EFFORT HELPS COLUMNIST TO AVOID GENDER BIAS IN HIS/HER WRITING

Deseret News Jul 29, 1992

I've been having a hard time with genderless language. When I speak, saying he or she, his or hers, him or her ties my tongue in knots. When I write, it clogs my sentences, restricts their flow.  

Besides, like my daughter’s college roommate Sara Bellum says, "I'm secure enough in my femininity to know that if I someday become a fireman, people will be able to tell that I'm a girl."

“You just don't get it," my best friend, Golda, sputters.

Golda fell in love with Dr. Benjamin Spock the year he revised his best-selling child-care manual so that the subject of every other infant case study became a politically correct female. That was about the same time Golda began calling her dog His-or-Herman, because she'd just had him or her spayed (or was it neutered?).

Ever since then, she's been on my case. A couple of years ago, she even quit reading my column. "Who cares whether or not the language flows?" she hollered. "It's not like you're Roberta Frost."

I got so mad that day, I almost returned (one by one through the air) the dozen eggs I'd borrowed back in 1976 to bake a huge birthday cake in honor of America's bicentennial year. 

All the neighbors came over that July 4, and we sat around listening to Golda, with her lyrical soprano voice, sing "God bless America . . . Land that I love . . . Stand beside her and guide her . . . "

These days she sings that line a little differently.

Still, I have to admire anyone so dedicated to the cause of eliminating gender bias from the English language that she calls her church songbook a hers-or-hymnal. That's why I'm finally beginning to see things Golda’s way. From now on my future stories will read like this:

Through Him/Herculean effort, Farmer Him/Herbert Jones taught fourteen His/Hereford cows to moo and stomp to the tune of a song called "His/Hernando's Hideaway."

Unfortunately, the hooves of the cattle kicked up so much dust that Him/Herbert began to sneeze. 

When his anti-her/histamine hay fever medicine did little to relieve the symptoms, there was nothing else for Him/Herbert Jones to do but try sneezing on the beat as those His/Herefords made entertaining hers/history on stage.