Word: plumbers
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Dates: during 1960-1960
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...appearance of a new writer whose viewpoint is mature and who knows how to say exactly what he means is something of a literary event. Author Wallant. 34, is such a writer. His first book deals skillfully with an unlikely subject-the grief of a 59-year-old plumber after the sudden death of his wife...
Brief, well-structured and without bravura effects, Wallant's novel compresses whole chapters about the sorrowing man and his marriage into a few sentences. Plumber Joe Berman, the hero, packs a quarter-century into a single moment of nostalgia as he daydreams about his wife on their 25th anniversary: "He knew the little collapses of her body, the age-ugly folds and wrinkles, and he loved and revered her all the more for the neat, attractive exterior she was still capable of. He was her proud ally in the public appearance...
...Arvada, Colo., pretty Shirley Jean Havens, 21, wife of a young plumber, registered as a Republican. Last November Shirley Jean wrote President Eisenhower and Harry Truman asking their advice on how to cast her first vote. Truman sent her a grumpy reply, advising her to read her history books, but Ike responded by aiming a national fund-raising address at the young woman and thrusting her into the national spotlight (TIME, Feb. 8). What finally made up her mind to be a Republican, she said, was unfair Democratic criticism of Ike over the U-2 incident...
...born 317 years after his death, scrubbed herself only once a month, "whether she needed it or no." Thus it may be seen that the history of the human race's sanitary habits is by no means an unchecked upward gush. British Expert Wright-an architect, not a plumber-charts the flow with scholarship, wit, and handsome illustrations ; the resulting volume is better bathtub reading than most recent novels...
Political Morticians. Ike's frankly political speech was couched in the form of a reply to Mrs. Shirley Jean Havens, 21, wife of Arvada (Colo.) Plumber William M. Havens, and mother of two. Last November she wrote the President asking for a statement of Republican principles. (Two months later she was tactfully scouted by Ike's old friend, Denver Banker Aksel Nielsen, who subsequently promised she would be answered by TV and swore her to secrecy.) "It is true," said Ike, "that government has to do many things which, individually, we cannot do for ourselves . . . But the principle...