When a scruffy, red-haired kid of 15 left town 35 years ago, no one took much note, but last week 35,000 lined the streets of Vincennes, Ind. (pop. 18,000), to honor the return of "Comedian, Philanthropist, Hoosier" Red Skelton, 50. There was an honorary degree from Vincennes University, a distinguished citizenship award and, best of all, a $1,800,000 bridge over the Wabash named for him. "All right, everybody off my bridge," cried a delighted Red at the dedication. He had learned to swim in the Wabash, he said, "and boy, it was stuffy in that bag with them kittens."

When he was released from a Washington mental institution in 1958, Ezra Pound, 77, hightailed it to Italy, muttering that he "didn't know how it would be possible to live in America outside a madhouse." But last week, after he was named this year's winner of the prestigious Academy of American Poets Award for "distinguished poetic achievement," the Faustian-bearded poet had mellowed somewhat on his stand: "I was and still am very surprised and moved. This changes a lot of things. If I feel well, if the weather is good and the circumstances are favorable, I think I will make a trip to the U.S. some time after October."

Kinship was the theme. "Since I belong to a large, close family myself, I can see how horrible it must be for the many Berliners separated from their relatives behind the Wall," said Mrs. Rose Kennedy. The trip to West Berlin held a bit of nostalgia, for as a schoolgirl she had visited the city. Besides, she said, she wanted to see again the city that had given her son such a tumultuous welcome. But the visit was short. By week's end she was back in Hyannis Port to join her three sons for the quiet family celebration of Joseph Kennedy's 75th birthday (see THE NATION).

At least she had something on. Granted, it was not much; a bit of fluff here and there. But compared to the buff that Carroll Baker, 32, wore for the first days of screening The Carpetbaggers, her two-piece boa was a positive shroud. By the script, Carroll--as Screen Queen Rita Marlowe--was supposed to cavort on the chandelier until it collapsed from extra weight. All those feathers, no doubt.

"I can arrange for its proper preservation better now than after I'm gone." So saying, Philanthropist Edgar Kaufmann Jr., 53, deeded Frank Lloyd Wright's incomparable "Falling-water," the famous tiered and cantilevered "house over the waterfall" in Bear Run, Pa., to a Pennsylvania conservation agency, along with 500 surrounding acres and a $500,000 endowment fund.

Through it all, the gals decided that the Miss America contestant who was nicest was Jeanne Flinn Swanner, 19, Miss North Carolina. So they elected her Miss Congeniality. She was also the tallest (6 ft. 2 in.); the contest's shortest contestants, Melissa Stafford Hetzel, 21, Miss Vermont, and Flora Jo Chandonnet, 20, Miss Florida (both 5 ft. 3 in.) came barely to her shoulder. But friendliness and size don't win contests. So when the judges brought in their verdict, medium-sized (5 ft. 61 in.), well-deployed (35-23-35), not-quite-so-congenial Donna Axum, 21, of Arkansas, became Miss America 1964.

Relax all over, put on a deadpan face, then you swing your hips and start twitching. Sounds like the twist? Wrong, man. That's the blues, a new British dance craze that comes complete with an added fillip. In one step, hands are clasped behind the back, and the dancer bends slightly forward. The brief lean is called the Philip, since it springs from the Duke of Edinburgh's inevitable hands -clasped -to -the - rear, trunk -inclined stance two steps behind the Queen. Says one London blues-Philip adept: "You just stand there and act as if you are slightly sick."

Ill lay: Selman Waksman, 75, Nobel-prizewinning antibiotics pioneer, in Montevideo's American Hospital after removal of a perforated appendix (despite fears of allergy caused by prolonged contact, doctors successfully used streptomycin, which he helped discover); General Lemuel Shepherd, 67, retired U.S. Marine Corps commandant, in Bethesda Naval Hospital, Md., with a broken arm and possible concussion after being thrown by his horse; Presidential Scientific Adviser Jerome Wiesner, 48, in Otis Air Force Base Hospital with pneumonia after his 10-ft. sailboat capsized off Martha's Vineyard. A poor swimmer, Wiesner clung to the boat while his son Joshua, 10, swam for help, worried frantically after 45 minutes that the boy had drowned. Rescued by a passing boat, Wiesner had the Coast Guard dredging the bay when word came that Joshua too had been picked up, was safe at home.

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