BY-WAYS - 10/18/46 - More of Long Beach - Columbus Day, 1946.

Greetings, fellow countrymen!

This is the day that Columbus 'discovered' America. The sand on the beach of San Salvador was white and clean, according to the sample that was handed down to me - in a glass-covered box - among the family knick knacks. But it wasn't a bit different from the beautiful sand of Long Beach. I was just thinking that the natives weren't so different, either. The original inhabitants of America were red and dark with the heat of the sun; they painted their faces - maybe their toe-nails, too - wore colorful and bizarre beads and bracelets, fancy and startling headdress - and did as little work as possible.

Next week I want to begin a series of articles on the large things in Long Beach - for instance, the giant $20,000,000 air-ship, that can carry 700 passengers - and many other things on a large scale. But today - Discovery Day - I'll tell you of the little things I've discovered; that the birds seem to sing just a bit more sweetly where the sun shines warm; that Long Beach is a special paradise for the old or the lame or crippled. The very streets are built to accommodate their delightful little autoettes, that go quickly, silently, easily, surely, along the sidewalks of our city. They are built for two, are well upholstered, have three wheels on balloon tires, are run by electric battery and are entirely hand-controlled. Many an old man or woman, whose legs fail them may journey alone all over this fair city. Often they travel on the streets, fairly close to the curb. But at every intersection the street slopes (rises) to meet the sidewalk - or maybe the sidewalks dips a little, I can't tell. I only know that it's a perfect setup for the young mother with her baby buggy or for the plucky one whose decrepit body cannot match the adventurous spirit within. You may buy everything in Long Beach from $5000 trailers down to penny gadgets at a rummage sale. I have to do our washing at a public laundry. (You rent a good machine and the two laundry tubs at 65c an hour. Quite satisfactory). Right next door is Ye Olde Book Shoppe, with rooms in the rear where churches and various organizations hold rummage sales. Well, it's just fatal for me to go to a rummage sale. When you come to California (which of course you will) and come to see us (which, of course, you had better) don't ask me the cost of the beautiful dish that holds the fluffy white potatoes - or maybe the Irish stew, for, being honest, I should have to tell you that it cost me only a quarter (not the stew - but the dish). The vegetable grater and nutmeg grater were a penny apiece. Also jelly glasses. Now for the sugar to make the jelly to put in the glasses to put in the house that love built. One queer old duck (of the genus homo-male) came in and bought all kinds of dishes and kitchen utensils - and then announced in a cracked old voice, "Now, if I jest had a wife, to make use o' these here things." A stately lady near him said, with a twinkle, "Is this a proposal?" Naw, he 'lowed not. He was too poor tu git married again. They say it takes all kinds of people to make a world. It certainly takes all kinds to make up the city of extremes and paradoxes - Long Beach. Until next week,

Sincerely,
Florence B. Taylor.

Next - 11/20/46 - RAIN in Long Beach
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