What not to do on a date : pamphlet on some problems of dating He, Q>\ oiV / j • i >ui*d- *©4 4«» A QUEEN'sy/ORK Pamphlet What Not To Do On A Date Pamphlet on Some Problems of Dating by Joseph T. McGloin, S.J. THE QUEEN’S WORK 3115 South Grand Boulevard St. Louis 18, Missouri Imprimi potest: Joseph P. Fisher, S.J. Provincial , Missouri Province Imprimatur : Joseph E. Ritter Archbishop of St. Louis September 5, 1956 Any financial profit made by The Queen's Work will be used for the advancement of the Sodality Move- ment and the cause of Catholic Action. Copyright 1957 THE QUEEN'S WORK DeacMed What Not To Do On A Date (Pamphlet on some problems of dating) by Joseph T. McGloin, S.J. THE CHARACTERS APPEAR A bout every two weeks, George and I save enough money to stake Janie and Maggie to a lunch at Ern- ie’s. Ernie’s food is always good, the atmosphere is very nice, and the juke-box is loud enough. The only trouble is that Janie and Maggie al- ways seem to go on a starvation diet for some time before this splurge, so that by the time old George and I bring them out to feed them they are usually ready to eat anything and ev- erything in sight. George is an old buddy of mine. Maggie is really a sort of girl I run around with. She is a brunette with a nice voice, and 1 like to hear her use it because I like to have her around. Janie is often seen in the company of old George. She is as blonde as Mag- gie is brunette. This makes for a nice color-scheme. My name is Her- man. — 3 — FATHER ROBIN ENTERS We were in the back room at Er- nie’s Supper Club, and we had just finished putting away a good lunch. I think Maggie was beginning to dis- like the juke-box when the back door of the place opened and in walked Fa- ther Robin. We call him Father Robin because we like to kid him, when he is in a good mood, about rob- bing the rich to help the poor. He doesn’t of course, or he wouldn’t be so poor himself. “You,”’ I told him as he approach- ed our booth and drew up a chair, “must have gotten home late again.” It was a standing joke with him and us that when he got home a few minutes late for meals he couldn’t get anything to eat. But since he and Ernie were old pals, it didn’t matter anyhow. The waitress must have seen him come in the door, in fact, since she brought him spaghetti and meat-balls without even asking what he wanted. “You eaten?” he asked after he’d more or less greeted us. “All but dessert,” George told him, as we all ordered pie and coffee. “Dutch treat?” Father Robin ask- ed as he twisted spaghetti expertly around his fork. — 4 — “Certainly not," I told him. “George and I feed these girls every payday. I am afraid, however,” I con- tinued, “that they do not eat much in between times. No one could afford to pay for it, for one thing.” Maggie wrinkled her nose at me, then grinned. “We’re going to have dinner at my house tonight,” she told the priest. “I’m going to cook it. Do you want to come?” I should explain that we ask Fa- ther Robin to all our parties and so- called “social events.” We just like to have him around, that’s all, and he usually tries to get there, at least for a couple of minutes. “How many will be there,” he asked. DINNER FOR FOUR “Just the four of us,” Maggie told him. “Oh and then Mom and Dad, and Jim and Mary and Jill and Hank and Gus and Dot and Bob — I’m not sure about Bob — and . . .” “Just the four of us,” the priest echoed as he buried his top lip in a glass of milk. “I can’t be there for dinner,” he told her, “but I’ll try to get there for a couple minutes later. Think you’ll be at the house the whole evening?” - 5 - I could see George starting to say “Of course,” which would have been perfectly true, but I saw an oppor- tunity for a little argument. Be- sides, there were a couple of things I wanted to ask Father Robin about, and this seemed as good a time as any. “Not at all,” I interrupted George. “We are all going out to a drive-in.” OUT TO A DRIVE-IN “We are not,” Maggie told the group at large before swallowing a piece of pie, “going to any drive-in. We are going to have a quiet evening at home”. “I don’t know,” George put in, winking at me, “— I’d sooner take in a drive-in”. “What’s the show?” Janie asked him. “So who cares about the show?” George answered with what could have been a diabolical grin. Father Robin mumbled something unintelligible as he buttered a piece of roll. “What did you say?” George ask- ed him. “Bunch of morons,” he answered. “That was the exact phrase.” “He must be speaking of someone else,” George said in surprise, “Some other group not as intelligent as we.” — 6 — “I am speaking,” the priest said as he downed another gulp of milk, “of anyone so stupid as not to be able to figure out any better way of passing the time than by going to a show, not to see the show at all, but to act like a silly animal. I do not like,” he went on, “to even hear anybody kidding about it. It's an insult to anyone with a mind.” I have mentioned that we call this priest Father Robin. He was looking at George and me now in a way that wouldn’t have kept us very comfort- able if he’d been packing the old bow and arrow. “Ah,” he said finally, “a couple jokers. You are trying to get a rise out of me. Very funny,” he concluded, going back to his spaghet- ti. HE SAID IT'S ALRIGHT “What,” I persisted, “is so wrong with a drive-in anyhow?” “Nothing,” he answered promptly. “Nothing at all. Nothing wrong with a liquor store either.” “Huh?” George asked intelligent- ly. “Of course,” Janie put in as she daintily wolfed a piece of apple-pie. “Naturally,” Maggie agreed, “Both,” she enlightened us further, “are good in themselves but can be occasions of sin. Or,” she went on 7 — hesitantly, “of scandal too ... I think. Isn’t that right, Father?” “Of course,” the priest nodded. “It’s good somebody in this crowd has some sense.” “Hah!” I retorted brilliantly. It was about all there was to do because if there is anyone with sense, it is Maggie and Janie. Which is really why old George and I enjoy their company so much — they are as good as they look which is almost unbeliev- able sometimes. But I still had things I wanted to learn. “I do not see,” I told him, “how a drive-in theater can be any occasion of sin. For anyone. Oh, a little in- nocent necking, yes, but . . .” “There is no such a thing,” the priest muttered, spearing the last meat-ball, “as a little innnocent neck- ing.” “I have heard,” I told him loftily “that there is.” “Yeh,” George agreed. “I heard that from a priest. He said necking wasn’t wrong.” NOT A SIN IN ITSELF “Me too,” Janie put in. “I heard a priest say it was all right to neck and pet.” Father Robin looked at us disgust- edly. “How about you, Maggie?” he — 8 — asked finally. “You want to make it unanimous?” She was looking puzzled, and I wasn’t sure whether she couldn’t de- cide whether she wanted another piece of pie or whether she was thinking of what we were talking about. “I ... I don’t know, Father,” she said finally. “I think I remem- ber a priest in a retreat saying some- thing about a difference between necking and petting. But I don’t re- member him saying either one was all right”. I saw her face get a little red as it did when she was getting mad about something. “How could he say it was all right,” she exploded, “when it’s just childish and disgusting? Like, like. . . well, I don’t know what it’s like but I don’t want anybody pawing me, t hat’s all. I want to fall in love some day with a person, some- one with a real mind and a heart and not just a body with two hands and a mind that can’t think of anything but sex and pleasure. I want somebody who’ll look at me like a real woman and not just the frame of one. I want sex, someday, to be a part of my marriage and not all of it. I want. . .” Suddenly she caught her- self, looked around at us briefly and blushed. I’ve mentioned I like Mag- gie. It’s impossible not to, especially when she has the courage to say — 9 things I’m afraid to say even though I believe them. “You people,” Father Robin sigh- ed, “— I mean you three people — ought to listen more to somebody who knows what she’s talking about. Nice going, Maggie,” he said as he looked around for the waitress. “But, Father,” Janie persisted, “I’m sure I heard a priest say neck- ing was all right.” “Did he say it was all right, or that it wasn’t a sin in itself?” the priest asked her. DEFINE YOUR TERMS “That’s it !” Maggie yelped. “Re- member, Janie — it was at the re- treat last year and he said you could- n’t say it was sin in itself to neck. But he said too, that didn’t make it all right. Isn’t that right, Father?” “Check,” the priest said. “Coffee, please,” he asked the waitress. “It might not be bad idea, before you dis- cuss something,” he went on “to make sure you know and agree on just what you’re talking about.” “We always do that,” George told him. “It’s only common sense.” “Naturally,” I added. “Why, who could be so foolish as to talk without defining his terms?” — 10 — “You, for one,” the priest answer- ed readily, as his coffee arrived. “You, for two more,” he nodded at George and Janie. “Just a minute ago, Otto, you said that a priest said it was all right to neck and pet. Now you’ve decided he said it wasn’t a sin in itself to neck. But he didn’t say anything about petting. That right?” Janie nodded, but you could see she was still puzzled. “You mean there’s a difference?” George asked him. “Isn’t there?” Father asked him. I was really happy the way the dis- cussion was going without me, right along the lines I’d wanted, but I thought I’d better add a little fuel. “No,” I answered briefly. PETTING! WHAT’S THAT? Father looked at me pityingly. “You can, of course,” he told us as he poured cream into his coffee, “define terms any way you want. But it is good to make sure that you define these two odious words you people have so that there is a pretty clear difference between them. What would you say ‘necking’ is?” Boy, talk about knowing what something is and not being able to de- fine it! “It is,” I began, “a sort of protracted period where kisses are exchanged rather often.” — ii “And embraces,” George added. “They seem,” Janie said in a loud aside to Maggie, “to know a lot about it.” “I,” George told her, “have read books.” “Be that as it may,” the priest went on, “that is not too bad a defini- tion to start with. We will say neck- ing consists of kissing and embrac- ing, with, however, one qualification, — that there is no single act includ- ed, no kiss and no embrace and no touch of a kind which would be con- sidered sinful in itself. So that if none of these things is included, then, in itself, the whole process must be sinless.” “You keep stressing that ‘in itself,’ Father’” Janie put in. “How come?” He put a hand to stop her. “We’ll get back to that if you don’t mind, Janie. Let’s define that other term first — petting. What’s that?” WRONG IN ITSELF “I imagine,” George told him “that petting would include some of the things you ruled out in necking. It might include kisses which were of the wrong kind or it might include touches or embraces which would be sinful. Is that right?” — 12 — “Pretty good,” the priest admitted. “There are of course, certain touches which a boy and a girl cannot indulge in without sinning. The very pur- pose of such touches on certain por- tions of the body is to arouse passion, and so they’re sinful in themselves. So that, since their very purpose is to arouse passion, they are naturally sinful outside of marriage — because they are intended for married people and no others. So,” he concluded as he sipped his coffee, “while necking is not wrong in itself the way we de- fined it, petting is wrong in itself as we just defined it. Clear?” “Perfectly,” I assured him. “Necking is not only all right but commendable. Boy, I’ve been wasting a lot of time. I. . .” “You could not,” he interrupted, “be farther from the truth. I said that petting is wrong in itself and that necking is not wrong in itself. It is still not to be indulged in.” “How come?” George asked him. AFRAID ... NO DATES? “You can see, I think,” Father Robin answered him, “that there are some things which are wrong in themselves, so that they could never be indulged in, such as cheating somebody out of his just wages?” — 13 — We sat around thinking for awhile. He had a point there. But there was a flaw, too. “You said, did you not,” I asked him “that petting is wrong in itself?” “I should have known,” he sighed, “that you would split hairs if you could. There is, of course,” he went on, “one condition to be added to that statement. Petting is wrong in itself outside of marriage. I thought that since I was talking to unmarried peo- ple that might be clear.” “Let us,” I told him with great dig- nity, “be very careful to define our terms clearly. Let’s not confuse the issue by. . .” “Come • off it,” he interrupted. “Now, to get back to this necking. Just because it is not wrong in itself does not mean it is not wrong at all. It would be very, very wrong if the intention of one or the other party were to arouse passion. Or it could be wrong because of scandal or be- cause it was likely to lead to sin — to petting, for instance. Also you have to keep in mind that even necking the way we’re using the term here can very easily tend to arouse passion in many individuals whether they intend it or not, so that then there would have to be some good reason to justi- fy doing it. And you could hardly say that necking ‘just for the fun of it’ is — 14 — a good reason. Besides,” he went on, “there is another great danger here. As you perhaps know, necking can easily become a habit. And once the habit is established, it is only a short step to sin because, for one thing, necking alone will be pretty tame af- ter a while. It is very hard, too, to believe that people indulge in necking just to show affection. You might use this reason for an innocent good- night kiss, but you could hardly keep calling it mere affection when indulg- ing in necking. There is undoubtedly the seeking of a thrill of some sort usually sexual. Any other questions?” he asked as he took a deep breath and finished off his first cup of coffee. F-E-A-R RULE “Father,” Maggie began, “there’s more than sin involved here, isn’t there? I mean lots of the girls neck just because they’re afraid they won’t get any more dates if they don’t and stuff like that.” “Unfortunately, yes,” he answered shaking his head. “And if they could only reason enough they’d know how cheap they make themselves — even in the eyes of the demanding boy l — by so thinking. They’ll get much better dates if they never even con- sider the idea of necking. As you know perfectly well, all of you.” — 15 — We did. Just then Maggie looked at me with something that seemed like appreciation, which made me feel about eight feet tall. And I breathed a prayer of thanks that God had somehow made me use my head on this thing, just as He had Maggie. “You mentioned a minute ago, Fa- ther,” Janie put in, “an ‘innocent good-night kiss.’ And then just be- fore that you said something about there being kisses which are wrong. Well, ... is a good-night kiss wrong?” INTENTIONS “If it’s an innocent kiss, it’s not sinful,” Father Robin answered. “You’ve undoubtedly been over this in your religion class sometimes, so you might remember that old F—E—A—R rule?” Maggie looked up from her pie for a minute to recite: ‘“If kisses are Frequent, Enduring, and Ardent, there can hardly be any just Reason for them.’ How’s that?” she asked as she returned eagerly to her pie. “Perfect,” the priest commended her. “And it states the moral part of the thing very well. However, there’s more to it than this. Natur- ally,” he said to me, “you wouldn’t know what that ‘more’ is ?” — 16 — “Naturally,” I told him, “I would. I for one consider the kiss the sign of love. And I do not intend to squander it. I will use it when I am certain I mean it and not before.” “Occasionally,” he admitted gener- ously, “you show glimmers of intelli- gence. You are perfectly right — this time. A thing as nice and as val- uable as a kiss should not be wasted nor distributed lightly. It ought to mean plenty. It’s too good, for in- stance, to be a sort of ‘reward’ for money spent by a boy on a date. The mere fact that he enjoys the girl’s company should be reward enough, and she should feel insulted if the boy does not consider himself rewarded without a kiss. Do you follow me?” “I,” I told him, “am ’way ahead of you. The kiss given by way of ‘re- ward’ would mean — ‘You did not have a good time in my company. So the money you spent on this date was wasted. Therefore, I will kiss you good-night to sort of make up for it. You bought this kiss!’ You see, these things are in perfect order in my mind.” “If they are in such good order,” he said, with what I thought was a touch of sarcasm, “you will be able to tell when even an apparently inno- cent kiss can be all wrong?” — 17 — I couldn’t I looked at George who cleared his throat and stared at the the table. Maggie and Janie looked at each other and shrugged. OLD FASHIONED “Obviously,” he answered his own question, “if the intention is wrong, then the whole thing is wrong. If a boy kisses a girl in an apparently in- nocent way, but he hopes and intends to kiss her passionately in a few min- utes, using this kiss only to get her or himself ‘in the mood,’ as a stepping- stone to arousing passion, then that kiss must be wrong. To kiss some- one out of real affection is, of course, a different matter. I imagine that is fairly clear to most of you?” he ask- ed, looking rather pointedly, I thought at me. “This,” I told him, “has always been perfectly clear to me. But you are forgetting something, — the fact that today purity — complete purity — is practically impossible. In your day, when everything was covered up including women, there was little dif- ficulty, but now. . PARENTS AND TEACHERS “Stop!” he interrupted. “It is quite obvious,” he went on, “that you do not know too much about what you so quaintly call ‘my day.’ “First of all,” he continued, “it was not — 18 — quite as long ago as you seem to im- agine, and secondly, it was not exact- ly the way you seem to imagine it.” He seemed to think back for a min- ute, as he smiled momentarily to him- self and then shrugged. “It is possi- ble that the temptations today are a little more clearly before you, but for that very reason, namely that they can easily be recognized as such, they put at least good people on their guard. Secondly, you are somewhat conditioned these days for the temp- tations you have to face. And third- ly, God gives grace in proportion to today’s temptations, not yesterday’s. Don’t ever,” he concluded, “say that any virtue — especially purity — is impossible.” “It is certainly very hard some- times,” George put in thoughtfully, “simply because everyone around us seems to think it is not only impossi- ble but really not worth the effort anyhow.” “So many girls seem to think they’re just doing what they’re sup- posed to,” Maggie added, “when they are ‘fast and free’ with the boys. They think anything else is old-fash- ioned and hurts their popularity. But, gosh, Father,” she went on, “lots of times we’re just not taught any better.” — 19 — IMPOSSIBLE? The priest nodded. “That brings up two or three difficulties,” he agreed. “Number one, the responsi- bility of parents and teachers to set kids straight. A girl needs advice es- pecially, sometimes because her pas- sions are ordinarily far less easily aroused than a boy’s so that she can be a danger to him without even knowing it unless somebody tips her off. Secondly,” he went on, after finishing off his second cup of coffee, “if they only know what an ordinari- ly good boy thinks of them and calls them when they are, as you say, ‘fast and free,’ they would get over the idea that being good and pure is old- fashioned and an obstacle to popular- ity.” He looked at George and me and we would have blushed if we knew how. “Thirdly,” he went on, “young people today are just being suckers for propaganda when they come up with something like ‘Purity is impossible.’ This the sort of thing men like to advance as theories to ex- plain away their own sins. We’re just animals, they say, so it’s perfect- ly all right to act like animals. Be- lieve me, these characters have done us a lot more harm than the atom bomb ever will.” — 20 — ONE'S OWN WORST ENEMY “You sort of get the idea, Father,” Janie said, “that when you don’t go for the necking and other stuff that you’re sort of an odd-ball, different from everyone else.” “That’s why it isn’t a bad thing to talk about your principles some- times,” the priest answered. “You never hear much about the positive side of the thing, simply because the people who have no principles usually make up for it by having an extra- large and agile tongue. An empty head makes for the loudest mouth. Resonance, you know. And then the character who doesn’t do much think- ing often gets the idea he has to have something to boast about like the rest of the boys do. Actually, the only reason they boast is that misery loves company. They figure if enough people are doing it God will some day have to excuse it. They come by this attitude honestly, too —the devil has been trying to get others to share his misery since the very first sin. Yes sir,” he went on, sipping his coffee and making a face, “it takes courage to be pure all right. Courage to do what you know is right and make no bones about it no matter what filthy minded little loud-mouth tries to hold you up to ridicule so that he can pull you down to his level. Weak coffee,” he added pointlessly. — 21 — There didn’t seem to be much to say and there was a lot to think about as we sat there silently. I’d started this thing and I was glad. And I had a few new and better ideas, too. HOW AVOID DANGER? “One more thing,” Father Robin added. “Sometimes an individual boy and an individual girl can be their own worst enemies. They will ruin a date for each other by each thinking to himself or herself: ‘Now he’s going to think I’m slow and old- fashioned and no fun unless I show him I want to do a little necking,’ or ‘She’ll sure think I’ve never been around if I don’t at least make a few passes.’ Whereas really they can have a lot more fun if they concen- trate on making the date a success and forget about any possibilities of kissing, necking, and all the things weak minds have to resort to for a good time.” We still sat there silent. There was even more to think about now than there had been a minute ago. Just then something else occurred to me, though. “How?” I asked. “How!” he answered, holding his right arm straight out, Indian fash- ion. — 22 — “That,” I told him, “was not a greeting. It was a question. How can a guy be what he knows he should be? How can he stay out of danger?” “Now,” he said, “You are showing some practical sense. “Here,” he said, handing me a dime and pointing to the juke-box, “get some music on that thing. The first way, of course,” he went on, “is extremely simple, — a way that even you must recognize. You have to want to be good and pure. Without that, there’s no use talking. Just as you can talk to an alcoholic all day and it won’t do any good until he wants to drop the stuff. Clear?” “Clear,” I told him as the others nodded sagely, “but too obvious. Give us more.” A BIG MIND He sighed patiently. “I have found,” he said unnecessarily, “that it is never too simple. However”, he went on, “there are other things of which you must also be aware. First of all — and this has no reference to you, except indirectly — parents and teachers ought to have the good sense and courage to shed some light on this subject, without either prudish- ness or over-bluntness. All too often, I’m afraid, they cause harm by neg- — 23 — lecting the subject. This does not mean they have to talk of nothing else nor that they have to be crude on the subject. It just means that the subject of sex must be treated as pro- fessionally as other subjects are. And parents and teachers alike ought to stop passing the buck.” “Wow,” George exclaimed, “you’re so right.” “You certainly are,” Maggie and Janie said, almost in unison. “Perhaps,” I conceded loftily. “Continue.” IT IS MUTUAL “To get to things more practical for you people,” he went on, “I’d say, first of all, that you must have a mind big enough to include things other than thoughts of the other sex. The boy whose thoughts are always absorbed in girls isn’t really a man at all, and the girl who can think of nothing but boys is a flighty-minded little moron. Then don’t underesti- mate the power of real will-power. We can control anything in us we really want to control. And in this matter if we’re eaten up with self- pity — ‘It’s too hard,’ or ‘It’s impos- sible,’ or ‘I’m just too weak,’ or ‘It’s just too much fun to pass up,’ or ‘I don’t want to be thought a square’ — if, as I say, self-pity rules us, natur- — 24 — ally we’ll be too spineless to have any control. We’re whipped before we start. We won’t have the courage, for instance, to look ahead and avoid real dangers, occasions of sin, cir- cumstances where we almost know we’ll sin.” “This would all be well and good,” I put in, “if the girls would only do their part.” “How silly can you get?” Maggie asked, rhetorically I presume. “Ev- erybody knows that the girls only act wrongly because boys want them to.” “You are both,” the priest inter- rupted, “right. And,” he went on, “you are both wrong. It is a mutual thing and not the fault of any one girl or boy, alone. It is the fault of both when they fall, to the credit of both when they act as they should. But to go on a little further — if you think of the future a little bit, this will also be a help. You boys want either a happy marriage for your- selves, or perhaps, a religious or priestly vocation. The same with you girls. And the foundation of that future is being laid right now. You will never have a secure future if you have no character now. You boys, if you marry, will expect to get a pure, good girl for your wife. You girls will want a clean husband. Both of you will want to give your- 25 — selves to your marriage partner as a shiny, unused gift, not as a second- hand article. Do I make myself rea- sonably clear?” “You make yourself,” I muttered before I could stop the compliment, “astoundingly clear. But go on.” RESPECT SAFEGUARDS “It comes down doesn’t it,” Maggie asked quietly, “to respect?” “It comes down,” Father Robin re- peated, “to respect. You people know that God made many nice, at- tractive things, but you girls think secretly that he made nothing more remarkable than a man, and you boys think that he made nothing in His creation lovelier than a woman, body and soul. You characters know, fur- ther, that these lovely handsome things God made are even better than they seem because they are the temples of the Holy Ghost — God dwells within them. There is every reason for respect, all right, and dis- respect for each other’s bodies and souls is an insult, not just to each other, but to God. You don’t compli- ment a girl when you ask her to neck — you insult her. You don’t do a boy any favor when you give in to his de- mands. You just tell him you know — 26 — he’s incapable of being anything but an animal anyhow. . . Does that make some sense?” “It certainly does,” George whis- pered. “100%.” SLAVISH IMITATION “It is very disappointing” Father Robin went on, “to find young people slavishly admiring and imitating the junk that comes out of Hollywood. It is only logical that if they get too steady a diet of the sort of bilge they can see on the screen most of the time, their lives may come to be like those they see. There are, of course, many fine actors and actresses but look at some of the neurotics, at- tempted suicides, marriage-hoppers, almost sheer animals that are held up for our admiration. Check your standards : we make much of the ‘tal- ent’ side of Miss America contests, and the only publicity you see about them in the papers is the size of cer- tain significant parts of their bodies. This,” he caught himself, “is one side of it. The other side is up to you. You have to realize that you can have a big time together, lots of fun with- out sentimentality and with the im- plicit realization that not all is sex. Boys and girls can be such great good friends, keeping everything in its proper balance. In the movies, the only real fun is eventually sexual. In — 27 — real life, this is a very small portion of life and there are many other sources of pleasure and fun for you together.” “Name one,” I told him rather ab- sent mindedly. “I suppose,” he answered patient- ly, “I will have to comment on the ob- vious some more. I keep forgetting who my audience is. There are plen- ty of ways you can have fun together and on dates if you only think a lit- tle. . ” NO FUN ON DATES “Really, Father,” Maggie put in seriously, “there are some things we can do on dates that are interesting and fun, but there never seems to be anything new. There are dances and parties and that’s about it.” “That’s because,” Father Robin told her, “you have been going a- round too much with unimaginative individuals. A little imagination is called for. Ingenuity. Some have it,” he shrugged. “Others do not.” “So let’s hear some of it then,” I challenged him. “Produce. . .” “Let us not have poor losers around here,” the priest interrupted. “Well let’s see now,” he said as he put cream in another cup of coffee. “There are, as you say, Maggie, al- — 28 — ways dances and parties. Those par- ties can be varied a lot, you know. Different games, things like that. . .” “Ah, kissing games,” I exclaimed. “Yes,” he nodded, “kissing games. If,” he continued, “you wish to re- main an infant the rest of your life and if,” he added soberly, “you care to treat such a nice manifestation of real love that lightly.” The trouble with kidding him was that he could kid you back and still kick your teeth in. I believed every word he was saying and, if I hadn’t Maggie would long ago have taught me. Which is another reason I think so much of Maggie. MANY THINGS TO DO “There are,” he continued, “dances, parties, movies, hobbies to work out together, games — tennis, golf, swimming — stage-shows, operas, concerts, good music to listen to, good conversations and discussions, learn- ing things — interesting things to- gether, guessing games along intel- lectual lines, charades and plays of your own, picnics, eating out and at home, special shows like ice-shows and baseball games to go to, lots of things like that. And then if you’re really hard up,” he went on, some- what sarcastically I thought, “you can even go to Mass and Holy Com- - 29 - munion and Benediction together. Of course,” he emphasized, “you’d have to be pretty much at your wit’s end before resorting to things like that. Does that give you anything to think about?” “I wish,” I told him “that you would just go back to some of those things for awhile. This discussion stuff, for instance, that. . “Some other time”, he interrupted, looking at his watch and gulping his coffee. “I have an appointment.” “You are probably afraid,” I told him, “ that there is no more coffee here, and well there might not be. They only. . PARTNERS WITH GOD “See you”, he said abruptly, get- ting to his feet. “Oh”, he remarked casually, turning back to us before leaving, “there’s just one more thing to think about. Keep it in your little pointed heads. God created two sex- es as a means of continuing His cre- ation. He could have figured out some form of spontaneous generation to continue the race, but He didn’t. He dreamed up this lovely thing call- ed ‘sex.’ So that married people co- operate in the very act of creation it- self, and they are actually partners with God as He creates a human soul. — 30 — You figure maybe that fact gives this thing called ‘sex’ a certain dignity, and that maybe it’s not to be treated very lightly or used as a plaything?” “I. . I started to say something, but he was gone. He always seemed to vanish as abruptly as he came. 1 wasn’t very sure of what I’d been go- ing to say anyhow. Neither were the others. We were quiet there in that booth at Ernie’s for quite a little while after he’d gone. — 31 — TQW PAMPHLETS ON MORALS e Don't Be a Liar “Don’t Swear Like That!" Fashionable Sin I Can Take It or Leave It Alone Of Dirty Stories Problems of Decency Pure of Heart Tips on Temptation What Is Decent Literature? Why Be Decent? $1.00 per set REGULAR QUANTITY PRICES AVAILABLE (Please Include remittance with all orders of less than $2.00) THE QUEEN'S WORK 3115 South Grand Boulevard St. Louis 18, Missouri THE QUEEN'S WORK 3115 South Grand Boulevard St. Louis 18, Mo. Printed in U. S. A.