DEAR ABBY: I was amused by your column that dealt with the infantry in World War II using condoms to keep their socks dry. I have a story that was told to me by my first husband, who served in the 82nd Airborne during the war.
He told me that they were each issued a gross of condoms periodically that they tied together in a rubber-band type apparatus, and that is how they kept their trousers so neatly in their boots.
How the other services managed, I don't know, but the paratroopers kept that great look in this manner. Yankee ingenuity strikes again! -- EX-WIFE OF "GERONIMO" W., TORRINGTON, CONN.
DEAR EX-WIFE: This is news to me. I once heard an anthropologist say that two things distinguish men from apes: our opposable thumbs and the ability to invent tools.