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Page Eighteen
THE MICHIGAN DAILY
Sunday, December 6, 1970
Sunday, December 6, 1970
THE MICHIGAN DAILY
THE NEW 'GOOD OLD DAYS'
Death, taxes and Christmas
By ROB BIER
In these days of modern times,
when change is perhaps more
certain even than death and
taxes (what with transplants
and tax dodges for those with
the cash) Christmas seems to be
an encouraging island of solidar-
ity in a sea of chaos. However,
even the Yuletide's time-honor-
ed traditions are taking on new
forms while old ones disappear.
And not the least of these is
that seasonal bit of nostalgic
journalism-The Old-Fashioned
Christmas Story.
Springing primarily from such
bulwarks of American folklore
as Good Housekeeping, Family
Circle and The Reader's Digest,
these tales of kindling wood and
peculiar relatives (such as Aunt
Prissy who always slept in a
north-south orientation to take
advantage of the Artic current)
are rapidly losing their original
appeal.
The reason for the decline of
The Old-Fashioned Christmas
Story can be detectd in the sub-
titles. Whereas it used to be
"Christmas When Mom and
Dad Were Kids," it has now
become "Christmas When
Grandma and Grandpa Were
Kids." Barring a sudden and
dramatic change intheaver-
age life expectancy, much of the
personal psychic appeal will
soon be lost.
What that means is that in
10 or 15 years no one, aside from
a few devotees of back copies
of Family Circle, wilremember
the God Old Days at all. Stor-
ies about hitching the horse to
the sleigh and going out to
chop down a tree or making
fruitcakewfromtscratch will be
nearly as anachonistic as de-
tachable collars.
But the editors of our nation's
glossy magazines must h a v e
something to wrap around their
ads (or vice versa, if that's of-
fensive). And being conditioned
by all those previous Old-Fash-
ioned Christmas Stories, t h e
genre is bound to survive - in
some form.
In the multi-colored mas of
the not-awfully-distant future,
the reader may find tender re-
miniscences of sitting around
the television watching (for the
Some more
goodies from
Maynard St.
Continued from page 17
enough. Chill dough in refriger-
ator until filling is made.
Turn your oven up to 550F orI
very hot. Mix cream cheese, sug-
ar, flour, grated orange and le-
mon rind, vanilla extract inI
large bowl. Beat until mixture is
smooth and well blended - use
your electric mixed if you have
one. Now drop in the eggs and
extra egg yolks one at a time
and stir lightly after each addi-
tion. Mix in cream last of all.
Assemble spring-form pan with
baked crust on the bottom (still
in the pan of course) and the
unbaked pastry around the sides.
Pour in cheese filling and bake
10 minutes at this high temper-
ature. Then reduce heat to 200F
or very, very low and continue
baking 1 hour longer. Cool on
cake rack until completely cold,
Release sides of pan, remove
and serve without removing bot-
tom of pan.
'If you really want to be snaz-
zy you can add a strawberry or
cherry or blueberry or almost
any kind of berry glaze you
want simply by purchasing they
appropriate package, following
its directions for making t h e
glaze, and then applying the
finished product to the top of
the cheesecake. The frozen pro-
ducts seem to work the Ibest.
umpteenth time) "Miracle on
34th Street," "Amhal and t h e
Night Visitors," and some three
or four different versions of
"The Christmas Carol" by Dick-
ens.
Then there could be glowing
descriptions of one of our really
solid traditions, Christmas shop-
ping. Talles of moth-eaten San-
tas and K - Mart specials would
evoke times gone by. And should
someone recall how he always
drew the name of the class par-
iah to exchange presents with
in grade school; and how the 25
cent budget limit was even in-
sufficient to honor that unfor-
tunate soul -- hardly a reader
would be left with dry eyes.
The miasma from the p a s t
could go on and on. Driving over
salted roads in the station wag-
on to Grandma's, where a turk-
ey, thawed out the night before,
is already in the self-cleaning
over. Finally finding batteries
for toys which proceed to break
in two hours or less. Calling long
distance to relatives spread
over fives states around t h e
country.
Obviously, such recollections
lack something which the cur-
rent crop possesses. Although
some may call it the "true spirit
of Christmas," a better phrase
is "psychic distance." The Good
F POTTER'S
GUILD
SALE
December 6, 1970
9 A.M. to 3 P.M
in the tent
201 HILL ST.
Old Days were not all T H A T
good. In fact, a recollection then
of Christmas Present probably
seemed as bland and evoked as
many painful memories as a de-
scription of Christmas in the
'70s does now.
No doubt 40 or 50 years from
now, magazine readers (and
writers) will view our Christ-
mases with the same warm glow
which we accord Yuletide at the
turn of the century. That leads
one to wonder whether nostal-
gia is a permanent part of the
human condition, or whether
Christmases deteriorate progres-,
sively, making earlier ones look
better and better. Since t h e
.latter augers ill for f u t u r e
holidays, and it is Christmas-
time, the first is easier to take,
and, in truth, more likely.
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after Cocktails
while enjoying
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By JONATHAN MILLER
The lights of Regents Street,
garish red reindeer and fat Fa-
ther Christmas, mistletoe and
bells, all in neon, splash light
on the late-night shoppers in
the West End.
The pavements are crowded
with hordes of shoppers, small
children gaze up at the lights
on the institutional Christmas
trees and zillions of tourists,
speaking every imaginable lan-
guage and comprising the entire
population of the sidewalks, are
doing their last minute shop-
ping before embarking on their
planes at Heatliro wand Gat-
wick to return home to Newark
or New York, Chicago or De-
troit.
Every now and again a
strange voice, a cockney, can be
heard, probably a bus driver
coming off shift at Marble Arch
or a shop assistant waiting for
the tube back home The plat-
forms of Bond Street and Pica-
dilly Circus are crowded as the
red and silver trains shoot into
the stations past the Christmas
time multi-lingual ads for Lon-
don.
Over the crowded platforms
of Oxford Circus (Bakerloo and
Central line trains to all parts
of London) the lights of Car-
naby Street, modish and garish,
cast a sheen over the crowds of
Xmas in London: A foreign i
young and middle aged Ameri-
cans, buying up all the cheap
rubbish they can lay their hands
on.
There are no Britons here,
beyond the reporter doing his
story on Americanization of
Christmas -and the runaways
from iverpool working the
counters at John Stephen and
Male, Kleptomaniac and Gear.
Rock music blasts out, its
Taste, the super new group on
CBS and Tree's., They were on
Radio One the other night. The
signs read easy: American Dol-
lars Accepted Here. The cash
registers are bilingual and multi-
national.
Out on the "dilly," Picadilly
Circus, the junkies laze around
waiting for midnight when they
can fill their scripts at the all-
night chemist.
Girls lie in waiting for unsus-
pecting tourists and givesthem
small cards promising free en-
trance to one of London's fab-
led, and notorious, discoteques.
They don't tell that the free en-
trance is only free after the pur-
chase of a membership-for two
quid ($4.80).
But the tourist will go home,
and Londoners will be able to
relax, for about three days be-
fore Christmas. The planeloads
of tourists begin again after
Boxing Day, the day after
Christmas.
For a glorious few days we are
wick to return home to Newark cast a sheen over the t~rowds of Circus, the junkies laze around
II I
NEED A GIFT IDEA S
Vonl AN AUDIOPHILE?
Come in and choose from
a wide selection including:
* Stereo Headphones * Digital Clock Radios
J Carridge Carriers * Portable Cassette Recorders
" Gift Ta pePackages 9 Pre-recorded Tapes
* Cassette Storage Cabinets * Tape Cleaning Kits
FOR A MORE COMPLETE LISTING OF OUR GIFT IDEAS CALL BABS AT
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618 S. MAIN 769-4700
"Qua lity Sound Thru Quality Equipment"
A broad selection of classical music
on records, open reel tapes, and
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in town.
MiIJSI C
qofh 0
NdOPl
717 North University
ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN
i
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TAy{
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122 E. Washington
,y >
TOO TIRED
TO COOK?
Pick up your
pizza for the
holidays from
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also lunches, dinners,
snacks, Greek pastry
Santa Cla
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Here
a Old He!
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at the
with Red Cabbage
A Neweg
Bold G rman D nner 2.75
9 BriledFilet Mignon 3.95
Grilled Pork Chops 2.50
Apesuce
ihWiener Schnitzel 2.75
Smoked Center Cut 1.8 5
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London Br il d 250
Tendestrips with
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211 N. Main
serving dinne
COTTAGE INN
512 E. WILLIAM ST.
10 a.m.-2 a.m. (Fri. & Sat. until 3)
663-3379 or 663-5902
Subscribe to The Michigan Daily
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WHEN YOU CARE
(and you don't have much money) -
Come toa3
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FOR YOUR
CHRISTMAS GIFTS
514 E. William NO 2-0035
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