
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, January 10, 1994                   TAG: 9401200297
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Ben Beagle
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

I'M NOT GONNA GET SENTIMENTAL OVER DIAPERS

I am, as we practically never said in Radford, haunted by a dark vision of what America has become or may become.

You think I'm an old codger who worries too much. That's what everybody thinks, pal.

Regardless of what you think of me, there is good reason to talk of dark visions when we examine this Pampers commercial that appears too often to be good for the spirit and fiber of our land.

It is about this angelic child who awakens drier than usual, which sends her mother, a Bryn Mawr type if there ever was one, into a state approaching the final rapture.

This glorious morning has, according to the commercial, established one of several ``special memories with Pampers.''

Give me a break. Fond memories caused by a disposable diaper?

So what happens 20 years later? I will tell you what happens in the cases of young mothers who went along with this arrant bit of claptrap.

The kid will be in his or her 20s, and the mother, no doubt wearing tweeds and those glasses with the cords on them, goes around telling everybody about the wonderful memory of the morning the baby was drier than usual.

This eventually ruins the minds of former babies who woke up drier than usual, and these former babies are now parents themselves.

These unfortunate parents harangue their children because they have no memories of their offspring waking up drier than usual:

``I've worked my fingers to the bone for you, Candice, and gone without for your sake. But did you ever wake up drier than usual and once, just once, give me a Pampers special memory. No. I wasn't able to share this memory with my friends like my own mother used to do.

``How sharp as to the serpent's tooth is the ingratitude of a child. Or whatever.''

I knew something like this was going to happen the first time I heard about disposable diapers.

Cloth diapers gave my generation a challenge, which we faced with courage. You want to learn to live with blinding, searing panic? Let it snow 12 inches on the day the Dainty Diaper Service truck can't make it up the hill and the diaper pail is full.

Special memories, your Aunt Zelda's tea frock.

We got enough trouble without feeling sentimental about a disposable diaper that is probably bad for the environment.

by CNB