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There are times that are sent to try us. And whoever said that said a mouthful. . Every time a child is born, first , second, 12th or grandâ€" child, we are tried with a combination of fear and joy. When a daughter is married, we are tried with grief, hapâ€" piness, and the bank manager. When we‘re applying for a job, we are tried with sheer terror, a mind that functions like a rusty pump, and sweaty armpits. â€" Every time an oldster dies, we are tried with regret, sorâ€" row and nostalgia. m o se On the eve of an operation, we are tried with a sudden realization that we‘ve let our communication with God slip rather badly in the last five years, and a simultaneous realiâ€" zation that surgeons are not God, and one little slip means you‘ve lost your spleen instead of your left ovary. Wives and husbands are sent to try us. The former with what Mary said to Edith before Gwen butted in. The latter with why they doubleâ€"bogied the 17th hole. Politicians try us. And try us, and try us, and\tfry us. And we always wind up with a gaggle of geese nobody in his right mind would vote for. f Preachers try us, either by reminding us we have sinned and there is no health in us, or going off into a tedious halfâ€" hour dialogue with God, who must be as bored as the congreâ€" gation. wit ie & wA oo M fam t o tss Waitresses try us. They don‘t wipe the table. They bring the twoâ€"eggsâ€"over lightly tough enough to sole your boots, and the mediumâ€"rare steak so raw no self respecting, wolf would eat it. Or so well done you could use it as charcoal on the barbecue. BILL SMILEY Old friends try us, sometimes thoroughly. After 15 minuâ€" tes of eager conversation during which they:tell you how successful they are at Acme Screw and Gear, they ask: ‘*And how‘s Jack?** Since you‘ve never had a brother called Jack, John, Johann, IJan, sean or Jan, and your two sisters are Mabel and Myrtle, this can be quite trying. Best answer is: * Fine. How‘s Archie?" You then find yourself talking about two people neither of you ever knew. Some of my craftier readers will long since have realized that this is merely an inordinately lengthy introduction to a personal experience. that is trying. In other words, a long spiel to aâ€"pain in the arm. Right on; crafty readers. The most trying time for the head of the English department is the end of June. Alone on your howed shoulders and greying head is the chore of deâ€" ciding what 1,500 sensitive teenagers are going to read next fall. Actually, they‘re about as sensitive as an old rubber boot, but their parents think they are. Here‘s the situation. You have 20,000 books. One third of them are falling apart. Another oneâ€"fifth is so scribbled with obscenities by those sensitive youngsters that you couldn‘t peddle them at a burlesque show. i Of course, you get great support from your English teachers. Their tastes range from Dickens, who turns the kids off like a tie in summer; to the Texas Chain Saw Your budget for new books is the same as it was eight years ago. Books have doubled and trebled in cost. Well, no problem there. You simply sprinkle :fle gasoline around the pook storage center and drop a match, hoping you don‘t burn the" whole shoe factory. But there is a problem. The booksâ€"aren‘t insured. Those trying things of life We‘ll hang in there with Huckleberry Finn, a homosexual novel about a black man and a white redneck ; Who Has Seen The Wind, a filthy novel about the sex life of pigeons; Henry IV, Part One, about an old drunk and a young libertine: Hamlet, a play about an incestuous hippie; Lord Of The Flies, a novel about kids murdering each other; True Grit with 17 violent deaths; The Great Gatsby, concerning a weird bootlegger; Dracula, which the kids love; and The Pearl, in which a guy kills four people and his baby has its head shot off. Then there are: Of Mice and Men, in which a chap shoots his buddy, a moron, in the back of the head. and Julius Caesar, in which the lead character is stabtk~4 !, times by his buddies. And lurking in the wings, of course, are the selfâ€"appointed censors, most of whom have never read a book from cover to cover in their lives. They know less about sex and profanâ€" ity than the veriest Grade Sixers. Hovering behind the censors is the great body of adminisâ€" trators, educators and politicians, huddled in terror that their sponsorship of a book might cost them a job, a vote, or a censure from some other nit who has ascended to the height of his/her competence. Ah, what the heck. It happens every year. I‘m too old to go back to The Mill on The Floss, the most boring book I‘ve ever read. A Tale of Two Cities is liable to stir up the Pequistes in Quebec. Uncle Tom‘s Cabin will infuriate the black militants. . * Murdérs, which would probably turn them right on. After these suggestions, they â€" the English teachers â€" go off to sail their boats or stride the golf course. : 0