AND FOUR TO GROW

A few years have passed since Minding Our Own Business, and Charlotte and her husband Ed are still in Snoqualmie, Washington, carrying on the way of life they worked hard to establish. Ed continues to own and run his small town paper which is not only an independent enterprise- but a chance to have a family partnership with Charlotte, and the boys, working right along with him. They are solvent, and except for the chronic default of linotype operators, making a go of it. But there are other troubles to come: the boys, now 14 and 15, want jobs of their own- Hi on a (Seattle) paper route, Johnny in a grocery store, and Ed is bruised by their attempt to break away. Charlotte too has her low moments- as she realizes she is losing contact with her youngsters. She tries to re-establish communications- and fails; she gets bursitis (and panics at the prospect of a session at the Tumor Clinic); her mother dies; but finally- they learn to let go and slow down and find a satisfaction in another kind of freedom... Certainly not a stylish (nor a very good writer), still Mrs. Paul's account of a year filled with middle-aged doldrums has a certain home- styled human interest, motherly, wifely and womanly.