Dec 13, 2018 2 min read

Let’s face it, girls: we’ve been drawing a curtain across the subject of windows for so long now that it has become almost impossible for us to get a clear view even on a clear day.

The country has become so crowded that the only ones who dare to open up are those whose homes overlook a 50-foot drop to the ocean or who look out on the world from a 55th-floor penthouse in the city.

The rest of us have created a fiberglass fortress to hide ourselves and our families behind. But, look, already. It’s getting ridiculous.

The average suburbanite these days buys a glass-enclosed dream house and then proceeds to hibernate behind a minimum of half a dozen layers of metal and gauze to shut out the view so expensively purchased.

First come the storm sashes to hold back the wind. Well, no loving parent would want to expose her family to drafts, would she?

The trouble is that those triple-track windows set up a sound and sight barrier that breaks up the very things you moved into the country to find: The sounds of birds in the morning, the gentle chatter of children at play, the soft film of moonlight at night.

And that’s only the beginning.

Everyone knows that the sight of an unadorned window is a jarring note on the decor of the average home. Don’t worry. The escalation of beautification will change all that.

In rapid succession we have added a window shade to allow for privacy, a glass curtain to soften the strict lines of the shade, a drapery to harmonize with the room colors, a valance for contrast, and a border for trim.

If that isn’t enough we can always add to the outside of the house a set of shutters that really close, a window box and a jungle of vines that will eventually close out the view from outside and inside completely.

In the end we have more layers between us at the windows than we do at the walls!

It says something about a supposedly “open society” that our windows on the world are so successfully sealed from view.

(Copyright, 1968, by United Feature Syndicate Inc.)