While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.
—Matt. 25:5
3174 “Silent Partner” For Women Drivers
Some enterprising manufacturer has invented and is selling “A Silent Partner” for unattended ladies driving alone in a car at night. This “Silent Partner” is a “made-to-order” companion, even if he doesn’t speak to her. He is life-size and “inflatable” and he sits next to the girl in the front seat, so she doesn’t appear to be alone.
—Christian Victory
3175 Time To Feel Lonely
Actress Joan Blondell uses a common kitchen timer to pull herself up out of the dumps. Says she: “I set the timer for 6½ minutes to be lonely, and 22 minutes to feel sorry for myself. And then when the bell rings, I take a shower, or a walk, or a swim, or I cook something, and think about something else.”
—Bits & Pieces
3176 Daughter’s Death Kills Father
A heart-rending story was reported by the press, telling of a young father who shot himself in a telephone booth. James Lee had called a Chicago newspaper and told a reporter he had sent the paper a manila envelope containing the story of his suicide.
The reporter frantically traced the call, but it was too late! When the police arrived, the young man was slumped in the booth with a bullet through his head.
In one of his pockets, they found a child’s crayon drawing, much faded and worn. On it was written, “Please leave this in my coat pocket. I want to have it buried with me.” The drawing was signed in a childish print by his little blonde daughter, Shirley, who had perished in a fire just five months before.
Lee had been so grief-stricken that he asked total strangers to attend his daughter’s funeral so she would have a nice service. He said there was no family to go to because Shirley’s mother had been dead since the child was two years old.
The grieving father could not stand the loneliness or the loss, so he took his life.
—Selected
3177 Lonely Wife Kidnaps Self
Guatemala City (AP)—A disillusioned wife convinced her husband she had been kidnapped, and got him to raise ransom money. But instead of ending up at home she wound up in jail.
Angela de Leon Carrillo de Chavez, 53, said she has been married to her husband, Luiz, for 22 years, but that he no longer seemed to care.
Mrs. Chavez telephoned her home Thursday to tell her husband she had been kidnapped and that he would have to pay a $500 ransom for her release.
Chavez apparently did care and was concerned. He raised the ransom money, but then went to the police—who in turn located Mrs. Chavez and jailed her for faking a kidnap.
3178 Walking 12,000 Miles For Home
In New York in the spring of 1927, Lillian Alling, a young servant, became very homesick and decided to return to her family in Russia, although it meant she would have to walk the 12,000 miles because she had saved only $100 and would not accept lifts from strangers. Equipped with maps, a knapsack and an iron rod for protection, the frail girl passed through Chicago, Winnipeg, British Columbia, the Yukon and Alaska, arriving in Nome, the halfway mark for her epic journey, in July 1929.
Not only had Lillian endured untold hardships, but she had lost her dog. After having been her pet and companion for a year, the little fellow had died back in the Yukon and she, unable to part with him, had stuffed his skin with the aid of a trapper and was carrying his body with her in a cart.
Soon after leaving Nome, she was seen approaching Cape Prince of Wales and that was the last time anyone on this continent is known to have seen or heard of her. She had apparently reached the Cape, as she had planned, obtained a boat and rowed across the 36 miles of Bering Strait to Siberia.
—Freling Foster
3179 The Lonely Solitaire Player
How will you keep busy after age sixty-five? I read about a seventy-one-year-old retiree in Detroit who spends most of every day playing solitaire. In ten years he has played 132,400 games and has recorded the results of each one. He can show visitors six ledger books filled with the figures.
—David McCarthy
3180 Sentry Afraid To Stand Alone
Salvatore Chiappa, a 21-year-old Italian navy sentry, was sentenced to five months in jail by a military tribunal because he left his post. He told the court that he was so afraid of standing alone in the dark that he left his post unattended until dawn.
Chiappa’s problem was twofold: he feared the darkness, and he did not like to stand alone.
—Prairie Overcomer
3181 Isolation Machine Proves Miserable
An English doctor built an experimental room where one can get away from everyone. But his experiments showed that isolation produces misery instead of ecstasy.
Dr. S. Smith’s quiet place was a 9’ x 9’ x 7½’ soundproof room suspended by nylon rope at the top of a large building. Each volunteer was equipped with padded fur gloves and heavy woolen socks to reduce the sensation of touch. Each was given translucent goggles over his eyes to eliminate patterned vision. Volunteers were observed through a one-way screen, but they could not see out. Meals were eaten inside the isolation box.
After an hour or more, concentration was lost. Then came anxiety or feelings of panic. Many could not stand the aloneness for more than five hours.
—Selected
3182 Cosmic Claustrophobia
The late Dr. Samuel Shoemaker somewhere used the provocative expression “cosmic claustrophobia.” Claustrophobia is the irrational, abnormal, unjustified fear of enclosed places. Sometimes a person with this kind of emotional problem will walk up twenty flights of stairs rather than get into an elevator. He says that he “just can’t stand being closed in.”
—Paul T. Culbertson
3183 Afraid Of Desert
Earle Stanley Gardner, a writer of detective stories, has created the character of a prospector who loved the desert, where he sought for gold. He has him say: “Lots of people hate the desert. That’s because they are really afraid of it. They’re afraid of being left alone with themselves. There are lots of people you could put down in the middle of the desert, go away and leave ’em for a week, and come back and find ’em completely crazy. I’ve seen it happen.
“A man sprained his ankle and couldn’t travel. The party he was with had to go right on, but they left him with lots of food. All he had to do was keep quiet for three or four days. He showed up in civilization just about half-crazy. His ankle was all inflamed. He said he’d rather have lost the whole leg than to have stayed in that desert another ten minutes. People can’t bear it, because out there they are alone with their Maker.”
—Albert Mygatt
3184 Sentimental Miner Got Her Back
Over in England. William D. McCann, a miner was separated from his wife. The couple couldn’t get along. After a period of singleness and solitude McCann became lonely, so he thought he’d get himself another wife. So he advertised for one: “Young man regular work wishes to meet widow.” He received a letter in reply to the ad, and after exchanging several letters of sighing and romantic rapture with the lady, he made an appointment to meet her.
He nearly fainted when he saw her. It was his wife, the same one from whom he had separated, and in her hand she had a document for him. It was a summons to appear in court on a charge of non-support.
When the grave and solemn British judge heard the story of the sentimental miner and the sentimental advertisement, he burst out laughing.
—Selected
3185 Humans Can’t Survive Alone
Dr. Leonard Cammer, a psychiatrist who has specialized for thirty years in treating depressed persons, said, “The human being is the only species that can’t survive alone. The human being needs another human being—otherwise he’s dead! A telephone call to a depressed person can save a life. An occasional word, a ten-minute visit, can be more effective than twenty-four hours of nursing care. You can buy nursing care. You can’t buy love.”
3186 More People, More Loneliness
In one year the average American today probably meets as many people as the average person did in a lifetime 100 years ago. And yet he’s far lonelier. There’s a big difference between being lonely and being alone, and the presence of other people doesn’t necessarily help at all.
According to Los Angeles psychiatrist and author, Dr. Leonard Zunin, mankind’s biggest problem is simply loneliness.
3187 Split Personality As Cure?
You’ve probably heard the silly story of the little man who approached his doctor timidly and whispered, “Doctor, could you split my personality for me?”
“Split your personality? What on earth for?” the doctor asked.
The little man squirmed and said, “Oh, doctor, I m so lonesome!”
—Morris Chalfant
3188 “I am Grimaldi”
One evening in 1808, a gaunt, sad-faced man entered the office of Dr. James Hamilton in Manchester, England. The doctor was struck by the melancholic appearance of his visitor. He inquired:
“Are you sick?”
“Yes, doctor, sick of a mortal malady.”
“What malady?”
“I am frightened of the terror of the world around me. I am depressed by life. I can find no happiness anywhere, nothing amuses me, and I have nothing to live for. If you can’t help me, I shall kill myself.”
“The malady is not mortal. You only need to get out of yourself. You need to laugh; to get some pleasure from life.”
“What shall I do?”
“Go to the circus tonight to see Grimaldi, the clown. Grimaldi is the funniest man alive. He’ll cure you.”
A spasm of pain crossed the poor man’s face as he said: “Doctor, don’t jest with me; I am Grimaldi.”
—John Wimbish
3189 The Sea! The Sea!
You are doubtlessly familiar with the story of the retreat of ten thousand Greeks under Zenophon. After great hardships and privations, they finally came to the top of a lofty hill from which, in the distance, they saw the blue waves of the Mediterranean. Its gentle wavelets flashed in the light of the morning sun! From thousands of throats rang the joyous shout, “The Sea! The Sea!” In that time of jubilation, battle-wearied soldiers forgot their months of weary marching and nameless privations. Yonder were home and their waiting loved ones!
3190 The Feeling Of Homesickness
William D. Howells, the well-known American author, in an autobiographic sketch tells how as a boy he once left his Ohio home and went with an older brother to take a job in a nearby town. His brother got him settled in his lodgings and then went back to the station to take the train home. But when the train came in, William was there, too; and together they went home, as if from a far country and after a year’s absence.
It was a winter afternoon when he turned up at the station, and the sky was apple green. All through his life, Howells said, he could never see a sky that color in the winter without experiencing the same feeling of homesickness and desolation that came over him that wintry day in the long ago in that Ohio town.
—C. E. Macartney
3191 Death Of Confucius
One day Tszekum, the disciple of Confucius, watched his master pacing feebly in the sunshine, dragging his stick behind him, and heard him mutter—
“The great mountain must crumble,
The strong beam must break,
And the wise man wither away like grass.”
“Ah!” cried his friend, “I fear the master is going to be ill.”
Confucius then tells him that he knows by a dream that he is soon to die. His last words are those of a weary and disappointed old man: “No wise ruler comes; no prince invites me to be his counselor; it is time to die.” So saying, he took to his bed, and passed away in a very few days.
—R. H. Haweis
See also: Fear ; Friendship ; Sorrow.