Summertime

It rained frogs, thousands of little green frogs, in Massachusetts--or so said J. P. Valliere of New Bedford, who said he saw them. A Spokane butcher displayed a sign: "Choice Meats: The Management Will Accept Cash, First Mortgages, Bonds and Good Jewelry." Walter W. Brown of Onawa, Iowa lopped off five toes in his lawn mower, found four, had a doctor sew them on again. Lifeguards at Chicago's Oak Street Beach put on shocking-pink trunks to distinguish them from ordinary bathers.

In Kansas City, the temperature climbed to 90 degrees, in Boston to 96.2, in Dallas to 98, in El Paso to 103. With the end of the Democratic Convention, and a clear choice of candidates before them, most citizens felt surfeited with politics and the vehement sound of political oratory.

To millions of parents, July's polio scares in North Carolina, California and Texas (see MEDICINE) seemed more real and frightening than the Russian blockade of Berlin. Shade, cold beer, watermelon and air conditioning assumed a great seasonal significance. California fruitgrowers and shippers noted an increase in the demand for lemons.

The Wrong Bucket. Crops--after a slow start in many states--were wonderfully good again. U.S. farmers, pleased at the prospect, were buying grey-market Cadillacs and planning trips to Europe. Farmer John Sternberg of Fulton, Ill. sent a load of Aberdeen Angus heifers to Chicago, got $39.25 a hundred pounds, the highest price per hundred pounds ever paid for heifers on the open market. Ohioans told a story about a farmer who took a bucketful of money to the bank to pay off an $8,000 mortgage.The teller emptied it, said: "There's $10,000 here." Said the farmer: "I must have brought the wrong bucket."

The nation's youth were necking in drive-in movies instead of in shady lanes; teen-agers in Indianapolis referred to them as "passion pits." Iowa's 4-H girls got new uniforms--blue-green zipper dresses with short balloon sleeves--to replace their antiquated, long-sleeved, blue middy outfits. Los Angeles mothers complained that their offspring not only stayed awake until all hours because of daylight-saving time, but howled for refreshments. They asked the city council to draft an ordinance putting a 9 o'clock curfew on the tinkling bells of Good Humor wagons.

In Kansas City, Shirley Osborne, 16, of Danville, Kans., was elected president of the Future Homemakers of America. What kind of home did Shirley want? "I want a big house with tall white pillars, a wide balcony in front and a narrow balcony all around. I want four bedrooms and I expect to have four children, two girls and two boys."

The Yellow Market. Cleveland hotels were taking reservations for the World Series. Denverites could talk of nothing except the Denver Bears, who had won 23 of their last 29 games. Fresh-water fishermen were experimenting with a new casting rod, a 22-inch contrivance of spring steel called a "stubcaster." Beaches were jammed everywhere--even near New York, where health authorities made grave tests for dangerous germs from open sewers. Oklahoma Citians tried something new in outdoor entertainment --square dances held on the concrete apron outside the municipal auditorium.

A "yellow market" in gold was causing a stir in old Rocky Mountain mining camps. Miners hoped to evade the $35-an-ounce U.S. ceiling by selling dust and nuggets for $70 an ounce in Europe. But a new breed of prospector roamed the mountains of Colorado and Wyoming. They were neat men with Geiger counters who traveled in jeeps hunting uranium. In Shenandoah, Iowa, the wife of an unemployed gardener won a $30,000 radio contest with a 33-word essay on juvenile delinquency. Said her husband: "Yesterday I was unemployed; today I'm retired."

The White Serpent. Across the land, parks blossomed with picnickers, and floodlights beat down on the night softball games. Tourists streamed into California, many carrying an extra bag of water over their radiators. In the Middle West a man packed his wife and children in his car and set out for Colorado. "This is the first real vacation we've had in eight years," he said. "I can't afford this car and I can't afford this vacation, but we're going anyway. There's no use stewing any more. If they start fighting in Berlin there's not a damned thing I can do about it."

In Winthrop, Mass., twelve-year-old Richard Phillips reported that he had seen a white sea serpent off the Winthrop Breakers.

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