"COLUMN ONE"
By Mary Mayo, Editor

Once upon a time there was a man who could have posed with ease for any illustrator of any glossy magazine advertisement at "Mr. Average American Guy."

He was in his 30's, the sunny side of his 30's, as you would have quickly concluded watching him at the business of making a living for his family in a large, airy, up-to-date oil company office. That he had passed the worrisome insecurities of the family man in his twenties you could plainly tell by the sure, off-hand flourish that went with his signature when he signed the numerous papers brought over to his desk.

And there was no doubt the shadow of the forties with their dread of coming upon a general letter that dealt with "our young men of vision" and automatically nudged the middle-aged a little farther into the corner had not yet touched his life.

He was quite a wit, a "regular card", too, in the way of the young, optimisticaly-inclined businessman of today. As he fanned expertly through the stack of mail placed before him, he slithered a half dozen pieces unceremoniously into the waste basket beside his desk.

"What this country needs," he told the teen-aged page facetiously, "is a drive to end all of these drives!"

The girl smiled appreciatively and, since it was five o'clock and the elevators in the hall were creating a din of imperious, clacking noises as employees raced the minute-hand, he stashed the letters in a side drawer of the desk and prepared to end his own working day.

"Mr. Average American Guy" could not know that when he entered the front door of his home the broad, easy-fitting description he had earned would begin to slip from him as inexorably as youth itself.

Tomorrow would start his journey toward a new category where he would find the boundaries narrowed, though well-defined, and the implications hanging above it would send him cringing in fear and dread.

Unfortunately, this isn't a modern fairy-tale in spite of the beginning; there's no real chance of my manipulating the facts and events and characters so that the drama carries the story's plot to a tearing crescendo and then things fall into place in rhythmic fashion so that everyone lives happily ever after.

My husband knew the young man on a casual nod-and-smile basis but if he had paused to know anything in particular about him, it would have been to class him with all the other budding young executive-types that flower without too much effort in the rich atmosphere of prosperous oil company offices.

When he did meet the man away from his job it took place in the corridor of a hospital where he and his wife paced up and down, around and back while we conducted a close study of the pale pink tiles on the opposite wall.

Already the man, and his wife as well, had abandoned the "average" category; there was no mistaking the tracks of worry and fear that marked their faces and dragged at their shoulders.

While we were novices at this new turn of events and a little of the carefree, indifferent, outside world persisted in our outlook and manner, they were old hands at the game of harassment and hopelessness had become a necessary habit.

We waited for our little girl to come back up from the lab located heaven only knew where down in the crazy maze of rooms and wings and endless corridors but they awaited the return of their little boy from surgery.

Rheumatic fever is a vice-like, merciless kind of scourge with no design or reason and it skips prankishly from a child at play to an adult at work with the same lack of pattern a tornado employs in its deadly business.

We were among the very lucky because long weeks of bed rest and treatment erased all but the faint specter of dread, but the other couple had long since passed this last milepost of trust in the future.

That was years ago and we keep in touch with the couple and the little boy . . . not as we should, of course, because it is so easy to become a part of the busy world about us until there's very little time left for those whose description is no longer "average."

But we do know that the little boy is taken care of by experts and that there is hope for his future even though long years of hospital care and treatment lies along that road.

And we know that this is possible because of the Heart Fund and the generosity of people like you and us . . . "average" folks who can't help much to bring about any great change in the fund's totals, but altogether can mean the difference between a little boy's chance at the future and death or a lifetime impaired.

The man is back at his desk, once again at the busines sof making a living for his family even though he will never be "Mr. Average American Guy" again.

And it's a sure bet he'll never sharpen his wit with a remark against "drives" again.