Americana

Notes on U.S. customs, manners & morals as reported in the U.S. press:

P: In Portland, Ore., matronly Mrs. Vern C. Edwards, knocked down by a young holdup man, questioned him sympathetically about his motives as she sat on the pavement, rubbing her bruises. Result: the thug courteously helped her to rise, hunted and found her lost earring, kissed her on the cheek and ran off, clutching 50-c- Mrs. Edwards had given him.

P: In St. Paul, Frank Meyers, who as a successful horse trader has banked more than $250,000, gave his reason for becoming a cab driver at 62: "I like to meet people and hear their troubles."

P: Near Henderson, Colo., a truck driver named Margorito Gomez ran into a pole that carried a 13,000-volt power line. Within seconds, five nearby farm houses caught fire, the local telephone exchange was knocked out, a bull was electrocuted, and all the electric water pumps in the area stopped pumping. At home, Gomez explained: "I'm subject to fainting spells."

P: In an effort to induce his long-frigid bull alligators to mate, Curator of Reptiles Robert Snedigar, of Chicago's Brookfield Zoo, stooped to trickery. He invited four French horn players to play a few B-flat notes which, he said, sound just like the male alligator's mating burp. Results: none.

P: After indignantly denying that she had fired Town Marshal James Rigas for confiscating tavern punchboards, 270-lb. Mayor Maggie Waltho of Soap Lake, Washington took the job herself, silenced carping critics with a crisp, "In a fourth-class town, what the mayor says goes."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.