It was a bang-up day in tiny (pop. 1,827) Brandon, Miss. Back from her triumphs in Yankeeland, back for the flashbulbs, the high-school bands, the parades and the sorghum-sweet welcome, came the local girl who had made good: willowy, winsome Mary Ann Mobley, 21, Miss America of 1958. Throughout the weekend celebrations in Jackson, Vicksburg and Brandon, Mary Ann smiled graciously, accepted tokens of esteem (including TV sets and a dozen hams), broke down when she saw that Brandon had renamed Main Street as Mary Ann Brive.

There was one point when Dr. Norman Vincent Peale nearly quit the ministry in a fit of despondency. Described in a new biography,* the crisis took place in 1955. While on his way to Harrison Valley, N.Y., from Manhattan, to visit his dying father, Br. Peale read a highly critical article in Redbook quoting Theologians Liston Pope and Franklin Clark Fry, among others, as calling Peale's type of religion "very nearly blasphemous" and "a parody." As he read, Peale "felt something wince and shrivel inside of him." That night on the train, Peale wrote out his resignation as pastor of Manhattan's Marble Collegiate Church. After Peale's minister father died at 85, his stepmother Mary said, "Your father left a message for you ... He said, 'Tell Norman his message is right . . . just put his trust in Jesus Christ and never quit.' " Peale handed his wife his letter of resignation, unsent. "Here," he said. "Tear it up."

Trailed by a maid, a miniature poodle named New and 30 pieces of luggage, prim, vocally prodigious Soprano Renata Tebaldi, 36, arrived in Manhattan from

Italy to greet her new secretary and companion, United Nations Guide Linda Barone, then plunged on to Chicago, where she opens the Lyric Opera's season in Verdi's Falstaff. Two and a half weeks later she will open the 74th season of Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera in Tosca.

"I never read for pleasure," said captious, craft-minded Novelist John P. (Women and Thomas Harrow) Marquond to the New York Herald Tribune. "I don't have time. If spare moments do occur, I read Dumas, Tolstoy and Trollope, in that order, with occasionally a little Conrad. Sometimes I read Fielding, but that's only when I'm alone in the evening and have three drinks inside me. Richardson? He requires more drinks."

In Washington, scrappy James K. Vardaman Jr., 64, St. Louis banker who fought with the Navy at Sicily and Okinawa in World War II and ended his active service as Naval Aide (with the rank of commodore) to Crony Harry Truman, submitted his resignation as one of the seven members of the Federal Reserve Board, after more than twelve years' service. One reason: poor health.

Obligingly had Florida's Bade County Metro Commission voted to legalize gambling in the Miami area after ex-Heavyweight Champ Jack Dempsey, 63. now a heavy 250 or so, stepped up to say that he and some Manhattan backers had $1,000.-ooo to open a casino. But both Bade and Bempsey went down for the count when word of the project reached Governor

LeRoy Collins, who noted that state law was agin it, asked: "What in the world have they been smoking down there?"

The asking price ($500,000 before repairs) was too steep even for a Texas millionaire who made inquiries. Even less appealing was the condition of the 40-room, 16th century Chateau de Vauvenargues in sunny Provence. Fortnight ago, the pleased master of Vauvenargues showed up for a housewarming. At first Homeowner Pablo Picasso thought that the dank castle, which has no central heating and little plumbing, would make a fine warehouse, later decided to move in himself. Proletarian Pablo would undoubtedly forgo the title (marquis) that goes with the moldy heap, but the price of restoration--an estimated $500,000--would give him an even better one: France's most richly housed Communist.

The Hurlingham Polo Association revised its ratings, upped the handicap of the Duke of Edinburgh from three goals to four (of a possible ten). Significance: only two other British players now outrank the sports-loving prince.

Novelist James (Some Came Running) Jones settled down with Wife Gloria (a onetime stand-in for Marilyn Monroe) in a three-room Paris walk-up overlooking the Seine, worked mornings on his latest novel about Jazz Guitarist Bjango Reinhardt, kept afternoons free to match wits with electric pinball machines in neighborhood bistros. Gloria, who has been sampling haute couture, said of the pinballs: "This is a new thing, and I suppose it will pass. He just gets so wound up."

Peripatetic Bemocrat Adlai Stevenson, arriving in San Francisco to do some political hustling for fellow Bemocrats, did his spent best to hush up any 1960 talk about himself for, say, the presidency. After a girl handed him a broom "to sweep them all out in 1960." photographers gleefully demanded a flurry of retakes. Clutching the broom, an embarrassed Stevenson advanced grimly on a squad of girls bearing "Don't say no, Adlai" placards, mumbled helplessly: "I'm sorry to disappoint you--I'll try to find another candidate."

Goaded by protests from abroad and a telegram from Secretary of State Dulles, Alabama's Governor James E. Folsom called to his office Negro Yardman Jimmie Wilson, 55, condemned to die by an all-white jury for robbing a white widow of $1.95 (TIME, Sept. 1), commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment.

Winding up an impressively ceremonial week, Princess Margaret headed for a rest at Balmoral Castle after a visit to

Belgium. Highlights of the four-day trip: a narrow escape from being clobbered by a Fiat on the slippery cobblestones of Bruges, a state dinner with scholarly young (28) King Baudouin at the Royal Hunting Lodge, a fast-paced peek at the Brussels Fair, where she peered gingerly through fixed wall binoculars at the stage of the British Pavilion's theater.

In the friendly confines of a Y.M.C.A. meeting, TV Actor Ben Alexander, Dragnet's heavy-footed Sergeant Frank Smith, in real life a solid businessman and parent (three children), rapped out his private A.P.B. on a teen idol, the late Cinemactor James Dean: "This ruthless, selfish, egotistical young fool was nobody's idol until our children were told that he was. He was an All-American rebel against all manners, morals, family decency and Christian society."

* Norman Vincent Peale, Minister to Millions (Prentice-Hall; $4.95), by Arthur Gordon.

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