1934

Could be there is something to parapsychology and ESP, after all. Just a matter of days after I prepared last month's scanty notes, with its naked threat of filling this space with plot-lines for "Another World" and "The Edge of Night" in lieu of news from my one-time buddies at The College on the Hill, the mailman began lurching down 55th Street with missives from far and near—including a number for me. Goes to show, huh?

Bud Yallalee, who's been carrying on passionately with a Brownie (camera) for years, led all the rest with a report from Portland, Me. "Plan to remain in most of winter," Bud asserted tersely on 10/21. "Too many stories here to get out." Enclosed was one such, "Maine Is Most Fetching in the Fall," featured in the September Camper Coachman. Bud's superb photos included one of his camper/photolab parked at the foot of the Cape Porpoise lighthouse.

Next came news concerning Dave Bradley of Palos Verdes Estates, Calif., relayed by Cap Palmer '23, via a tear-sheet from the Los Angeles Times of 10/17 headed "Family Fun for Part-Time Fathers." Seems that Dave's the owner of a one-acre kiddies' amusement facility in Hollywood, Beverly Park. Says writer Betty Liddick: On weekends, Sundays especially, a Southern California phenomenon unfolds as dozens of divorced men play daddy for a day at Beverly Park. (Many came here themselves as children.) Even the unlikely setting for the park reflects funky California culture. At 8506 Beverly Blvd., it's tucked between Smokey Joe's barbecue restaurant on La Cienega, with art galleries lining the way to the Strip and the Hollywood Hills to the north, and massive Mt. Sinai Hospital to the west with 50 Standard Oil wells in between and a towering, splashy billboard hyping an "All New Show at the Lido" in Las Vegas. Still, once you're inside the park, its charm drowns out the city and draws the same customers again and again.

Owner David Bradley, a friendly, graying middle-ager, is proud of the family feeling ("It's a neighborhood thing") but he admits, "This is very much a daddy park."

Bradley is on the move all day, switching on the minibike ride, taking pictures, talking through the remote mike wired to the mouth of the blue hippo by the Haunted Castle. But the 26-year-old park is more than Bradley's toy. He's a savvy enough businessman to make a go of a minipark (12 rides) that's open only on weekends and school holidays. On a busy day, 5,000 people cram that scant acre.

Then from Hanover, whence cometh all good things, a whole raft of clips floated in about sundry movers and shakers. Take EdCowie of Bangor, Me., of whom I've heard naught since undergraduate days. Seems that Ed put in the ensuing 25 years with Atlas Plywood Corp. as production control manager, manufacturing plant manager, and controller of the Container Division. Since 1959, says the Bangor News, he's been "associated with Viner Bros., Inc. as controller and vice-president, production." On October 4, Ed addressed the Bangor- Brewer Area Management Club on, logically enough, "Production Planning."

And take the man right next to Cowie in the 1934 Aegis, Al Cotton. At this writing, your Secretary doesn't know the outcome, but on Election Day Al ran for his third consecutive term on the Worcester (Mass.) City Council, and one of his sons, Al Jr., ran for his second term on the School Committee. For 28 years a supervisor in engineering at U. S. Steel's Worcester Works, Al is now an engineering consultant, and also a director of the Worcester Community Action Council, Inc., the Massachusetts State Hospitals Trustees Association, the English Social Club, and the Ancient Order of Hibernians. Funny, he don't look Hibernian!

Fred Rath of Cooperstown (N. Y.)— "one of New York State's most respected historians" in the opinion of the Oswego News—addressed the Oswego County Historical Society on September 28 on the 175th anniversary of the permanent settlement of that community. The meeting launched planning in Central and Northern New York for the forthcoming observance in 1976 of the nation's 200th anniversary Deputy to the Director of the New York State Historical Association, and a specialist in historic preservation, Fred is an adjunct professor of history at the State University at Oneonta (N. Y.).

And by dint of much hard work, RayHulsart's New York Times managed at last to scoop Laurie Herman's St. Petersburg (Fla.) Gazette about Perry Gilbert, director of the Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, and unquestionably the worst enemy sharks have ever had. Said The Times on November 3, finally getting around to printing a dispatch datelined Washington, October 22:

Experiments at a marine laboratory in Florida suggest that dolphins can be trained to attack sharks that are threatening naval personnel engaged in salvage and rescue work at sea, according to the Office of Naval Research. The laboratory director, Dr. Perry Gilbert, said in a telephone interview that the project had demonstrated that dolphins could be trained as companions for frogmen and underwater demolition teams.

From clear down in Washington (D. C.), Tom Beers passes on an October 4 letter from Frank Lepreau, M.D., Medical Director of Hopital Albert Schweitzer in Haiti—"90 miles out of Port-au-Prince in a completely rural area." Says Frank further: "My wife and I are fine. After seven years here our latest project is putting a new ceiling in the house, as the rats make it sound like the Roosevelt Raceway and they are wearing it out. My present job is superchallenging, with something new almost daily in the aspect of General Surgery—and in addition I am supposed to be the administrator."

But there goes the bugle for lunch, so will "sign off" now—dewy-eyed with gratitude to all you newsmakers and writers. With a special thank-you to Jackand Franny Feth of Los Altos, Calif., for sending along something I'd like to share with you (and will excerpt in my next): "An early greeting for a Merry 1971 Christmas and our very warmest hopes that you all enjoy a happy and prosperous 1972."

Secretary, Apt. 1-B, 333 East 55th St. New York, N. Y. 10022

Treasurer, Box 867, Hanover, N. H. 03755