Americana

MANNERS & MORALS

Notes on U.S. customs, habits, manners & morals:

P:Spring came to Boston. Strollers on the Charles River Esplanade noticed a childish scrawl which read: "Orpheus loves Eurydice."

P:In Columbus, Ohio, Frank Lane, president of baseball's American Association, ruled that a baseball player can swear at an umpire if the profanity 1) is used in a casual manner, 2) is not heard in the stands, and 3) does not cause the ump to lose his self respect.

P:Spectators at the Washington Post's celebrities' golf tournament were fascinated by the spectacle of Admiral Chester W. Nimitz teeing a golf ball off Actor Edward Arnold's eye while General Dwight D. Eisenhower beamed from the sidelines (see cut). The Admiral didn't swing.

P:In Washington, police had to break up a duel between two crotchety Spanish-American war veterans named Emilio Capeto and John Cook. They got into an argument over a woman, began fencing creakily with their canes, ended up by banging each other over the head.

P:A Gallup poll disclosed that 45% of U.S. citizens believe that Hitler is still alive.

P:A 26-year-old war veteran named Charles J. F. Porter went to New York's National City Bank, asked for a $312 loan, got it, and was then startled half to death. Bank officials discovered he had borrowed the billionth dollar granted by the institution's personal loan department and celebrated by airily telling him he wouldn't have to pay the money back.

P:A joint congressional report on lobbying revealed that 625 men & women were engaged in attempting to influence national legislation, were paid approximately $4,000,000 a year for their efforts.

P:In Tallahassee, paunchy, gag-loving Legislator P. Guy Crews introduced a bill to prohibit airplanes from flying over Florida--if they had flush toilets.* &3182;The American Automobile Association, perturbed by the regularity with which pedestrians were colliding with their member cars, hopefully set out to popularize tail lights for the man in the street. The lights, two-inch plastic reflectors, come in red, orange or yellow, can be worn on the wrist, on a handbag or pinned to clothing--preferably just above the rear bumper.

P:In New York, a clam digger named Cornelius J. Broere conceived a novel legal theory: that towing a floating corpse to shore is as much a salvage operation as towing an abandoned ship to safety. He filed a libel action under the provisions of Admiralty Law for $2,133 discovered in the pockets of a dead man he fished out of Great South Bay.

-None do.

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