Dealing with 'tracked-in mud month' By Joanne j. falls Home Economic Extension Agent With the entrance of summer the best of back entries take on the look of a disaster area. As May showers awaken flowers, the family is busy clean ing up the* yard and preparing planting areas. Children take to out door play again. To the homemaker, it is "tracked-in mud month/' and something has to be done about it! The first step to limiting the amount of outdoor debris brought indoors is to make sure everyone uses the same entry after "dirty" work or play. To keep mud and grit Falls from being tracked through the house, resign yourself to the fact that this area will have to be cleaned at least once a day ? maybe more on busy weekends when children are home from school. Next figure out the best ways to keep the clutter confined to that one part of the house. It is ideal if a half-bath is located near the entry. Then children can interrupt play to use the toilet, wash up and be out again with no problems. However, if this isn't possible, have them take off their shoes or boots before walk ing through the house. They may *groan, but it takes longer to erase the trail of tracks than for them to get out of and into shoes. Even if children are young and need help with their footgear, you will still save time having just one really muddy area with which to contend. Another saver is to locate all the things children are likely to come in for near the "mudway*" If possible, arrange a series of hooks and holders on a wall. This can be done quite attractively and is conve nient year round for changes of sweaters and coats as well as a vari ety of toys. Or try a narrow free standing bathroom towel rack. A suitably-sized carton will hold bats, balls, mitts and what-have-you. If it is in view to other areas of the home, cover the box with a gaily patterned self-adhesive vinyl. A rimmed cookie tray is a handy tem porary home for muddy boots and wet sneakers and can be carried with contents to the sink for suds sponging. Machine washable scat ter rugs soak up a lot of foreign material. Have at least two on hand, one in use and one in the wash. Shake rugs out as often as necessary and launder frequently. & Finally, organize your cleanup equipment. Keep a small caddy or box of cleaning supplies nearby to deal with fingerprints and dirt on and around the doorknob and adja cent walls. A quick back and forth with a sponge mop keeps most flooring tolerable, with a little thor ough scrubbing <5f the small area two or three times a week, depend ing on the ratio of people, activities and outdoor conditions. A lightweight vacuum is helpful to pick up loose dirt from floors and especially carpeted areas. With a through-the-garage, util ity or rec room arrangement, it may be possible to screen off a section as a dressing area. Keep a change of clothes or clean tubbable robes ready for young people as well as for yourself and husband when working in the yard. Also, have a laundry basket for fast deposit of muddified work and play togs. For treating those mud stains that children get on their clothing dyeing play activities and sports, let tTfc mud dry first. Then brush well to loosen and remove soil. Soak 30 minutes or longer in warm water with enzyme pre-soak. Launder the garment. If stain remains, bleach if safe for fabric. Enzymes are often present in pre-soak detergents. SETI... where do we begin? Communication The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), to be sure can't be a report, as there really isn't much to report just yet. Efforts have been limited and often times low key. To date, there is no proof of any life beyond this planet. Our civilization has acquired a certain momentum over six thousand years of technical development. Given this context, what then is a mean ingful definition of intelligence? As a race, we may be to young to appreciate another form of intel ligence unless we can relate to it in familiar ways. Comparisons and analogies are boundless. Ants have a precise social structure while bee tles are free for more independent action. Which is smarter? Ted is a born survivor, leading a street gang at 12, becoming head of his labor union at 27, and endearing high public office at 34. < Ned was a sickly child who, to break the monotony of many bedridden dAys, taught himself cal culus while other kids his age were still grasping at the rudiments of algebra. Which is fittest? In cosmic terms, the kinds of difficulties we have defining intelligence here on earth are probably hair-splitting. In t>rder to communicate with other beings, there mu$t be a common language. We expect it to be the language of physical understanding derived from dispassionate and, we hope, objective observation. And that understanding must lead to a technology capable of making contact across the vastness of space. The definition of intelli gence then, for practical, is a func tional one. Carl Sagan's first science fiction novel, Contact , con templates the circumstances of the first human* contact with extrater restrials. Sagan has done more to advocate SETI than any other per son. But the nature of Sagan's ETI is less than definite and the story I :rxx::v:- .? sort of weirds out at the end. tiveness. What is it we seek? Extrater- The porpoise challenges our restrial intelligence! The term car- notions of intelligence and culture, ries a lot of implicit baggage. If we and our ability to truly relate to are to make sense of, appreciate, them outside of the species context. t^y STARWATCH By EDWARD A. ALLEN and contribute to the history of SETI, it would behoove us to be mindful of this baggage- a powerful set of tacit notions and biases about what we're looking for. Why, 'Extraterrestrial Intelli gence'? Are there creatures right here on this planet which hold a claim to an intelligence nearly as foreign to our own? And what is meant by 'intelligence' anyway? To what degree are we correct in mod eling intelligence by extension from our own behavior and culture? How important is technology; and in what forms? What are the con notations of the answer, cither way, to that last question? Whenever terrestrial intelli gence is discussed, it's almost guar anteed that the cetaceans, whales and porpoises (particularly the por poises) are mentioned. In past times it could be believed that humans alone had the power of rational thought and understanding. Today, the facts require of rational and understanding people that they be willing to yield exclusivity. The brain-to-body mass ratio of the porpoise is similar to that of humans. Among all mammals this ratio has been found to correlate well with intelligence, as does neo cortical convolution (the folds at the surface of the brain) which is more intricate in a porpoise brain than in a human brain. Porpoises at play display a high degree of inven To use myself as an example, on the one hand I realize lhal cetacean intelligence is as legitimate as our own. But, on the other hand, I don't understand it, it's alien. People would never behave like that. And the 'experience' of porpoiseness is beyond my comprehension. Yet here is a fellow earthling, a fellow - mammal, with roughly the same physiology, sharing much of the same biochemistry and genes. >4 We seek communication, with messages which are relevant to our own development as a species and? reflect natural law as we know it. If the ETIs speak over our heads, nothing will be gained in the search. So, really, intelligence is not the issue at all. The issue is 'sympathetic interest,' which trans lates into communication. IF \w,-.w- . . , ..... Welcome Home Sergeant Marvin Foster (rtflht), a member of the Lawrence Hilt American Legion Post 453, returned from the Persian ^l#sliiMnafnbaf?f