Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 25 February 1947 — Page 11

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USUALLY 1'shy away from the run-of-the-mill birthday party. My ears do perk up, however, when I hear “surprise birthday party.” In fact, add’ surprise to anything, invite me and I'll be. there. With my ears scrubbed special, my hair combed special and my ghoes shined special, I went to Sally lexander's “surprise birthday party,” ". And surprise t was. Planned and arranged by Bally's parents, Mr, and Mrs. C. D, Alexander, 7200 Dean rd, and Frank V. Martin,’ general agent for the Monon railroad, the party went off without a hitch even though there was plenty of Opporiimity for something to gO wrong. After all, the surprise included a tour of the Industrial exhibit at the Union station, an inspection tour of “The Hoosier,” a “little” snack in the diner and the real surprise—a birthday cake and a ride to Carmel. All this with 14 fifth and sixth grade girls who only knew that “Sally's daddy had something cookin'.” Although I had seen the exhibit before, I trailed along listening to the “Ooohs” and the “Aaahs” of the youngsters. When they looked at the transparent telephone, there were many expressions of doubt that it contained so many parts, I hope their curiosity and amazement doesn't carry over to the telephones. in their homes, “0. K. kids—let's go up to the train now,” Mr. Alexander called to his charges, “First we'll play like we're buying tickets and checking baggage.”

BIRTHDAY BLOWOUT—Patsy Atkins (left) and Sally Alexander get set to make their wish,

. on fast.

Tickets for Everyone . WITH SCREAMS ‘of delight at the “Srovn-ip® experience, the childten “botight” their ‘tickets and checked their imaginary baggage. No one attempted to check the cloth “treasure” bags presented them earlier for carrying their gloves and sundry articles. The group was led through the last coach, through the diner Kitchen and finally into the diner itself. The roof creaked when the girls let out an unrestrained shriek of approval at the table settings. They “knew” it was for them, Sally and Patsy Atkins, who also was celebrating her 11th birthday, took seats side by side. The others filled the remain« ing tables and began to examine the “goodies.” There were tiny printed menus, pineapple “Zip” cocktails, little cups of nuts and candy, and cardboard suitcases with hankies inside. “Yawoooeee—this one matches my dress.” “Oh, isn't this fun?” “Bettie, look at my <hankie, lookee—~BETTIE.” Bettie looked. Everytime ‘1 thought the party had passed iis crescendo, someone discovered something’ new and appropriately announced the finding, Fun and exe citement was rampant, Celery was still being crunched when the chicken sandwiches arrived. Before the sandwiches, were gone the ice cream and cookies arrived. Then the wajter appeared with the birthday cake. The candles flickered, close to going out, when the 14 youngsters let go with another vocal ovation.

A Wish—Make a Wish

Lookee—Bettie—

THE INSTANT it was placed before Sally and]:

Patsy there was a cry, “Make a wish-—make a wish.” The two girls inhaled mightily and with one pug the ‘candles were out. Just about that time the train ‘nudged out of the station. There were hasty glances in the direction of Mr. and Mrs. Alexander. The children caught The elders tried to give the impression that they were worried but they couldn't fool the youngsters, “If Mr. Alexander isn't worried—I'm fot either,” one girl shouted. “Maybe we'll get to go to Chicago.”

A few minutes before the train reached Carmel, |-

the merrymakers were informed that the party was just about over and they were to get ready to get off the train. “Wouldn't it be loads of fun to go to Chicago?” “Gee whiz, and we were having so much fun.” At Carmel three automobiles were waiting to take the girls home. Split into three groups, the party toned down considerably.

“Yes—do you?” “Goodby—see you tomorrow—goodby.”

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Capitol Confusion

“Sue, do you have your hankie?” By Frederick C. Othman

HI WASHINGTON, Feb. 25 (U. P.). — Too much hoopla about budgets, Russians, taxes, atoms and economy here lately has obscured some other important developments in the capital. I mean have you heard about senators measuring slabs of apple ple with calipers? Or congressmen refusing to eat in their private dining room de luxe because of lonesomeness? Or the bird slaughtering mystery? OF the big writing-paper. scandal? I thought not.

Private and Creepy LET'S CONSIDER first the congressmen who believed they needed a handsome restaurant ' where they could stoke the inner man without contacting constituents, or lobbyists. David Lynn, the capitol architect, gave it to em. He had to move the public lunchroom into the cellar to make room, but he produced the works for the lawmakers: Soft lights, church-like silence, tables with black marble tops. He staffed same with waiters, who have been waiting in vain for customers ever since. My favorite congressman explains. Says the place gives a fellow the creeps. As for the bird mystery, I wish I knew the facts. All I do know is that it’s against the law to shoot wild-life, including eagles and moose, within the city limits. So we've got two million (more or less) starlings infesting the Grecian porticos of ‘Pennsylvania ave. A starling is a small brown bird with a tenor voice and a determined expression. Multiply him by a couple of million and you've got a nuisance. The district commissioners, who must brave the birds each time they leave their offices, have asked congress to pess a law allowing them to murder

starlings. Congress, which has more problems fio you might think, now is pondering this one. The mystery concerns the method. The commissioners won't say whether they intend to try a small atom bomb, or massed shotguns. The" writing . paper scandals also involve congress. “It is iffvestigating. In the basement of the old house office building is a store Where congressmen and their helpers may buy on tick, or otherwise, their office supplies. Each representative gets $750 a session for, his stationery. This can include paper with his name on it in blue, fountain pens at wholesale prices, automatic pencils, and paper weights handsome enough for Christmas gifts. The rumors have it that some congressmen in the past were such bum correspondents they needed. no stationery; they merely neglected to: answer their mail. They made deals, according to the reports, whereby they got cash instead of writing paper. So the auditors are auditing, the store is closed, names probably will be named later, and any congressman who wears his pencil to a nubbin has got to go down the street to buy a new one,

How Much Pie?

THE SENATORIAL pie crisis involves charges by | government: clerks that they must pay 156 cents for or slice of apple pie in the non-profit government cafe- | terias, when they can buy the same chunk of pie in an ordinary, capitalistic restaurant for a dime. Not so, retorted Government Services, Inc. the’ federal restaurant operator. Its pieces of pie are bigger. Show us, said the senate civil service committee. The government piemen brought to the capitol some 15-cent slices and some 10-cent slices. These | have grown soggy under investigation, but the senatorial pie measurers expect shortly to rinse their calipers and announce their decision.

‘No Stars at All

By Erskine Johnson

HOLLYWOOD, Feb. 25.—Now that “Lady in the Lake” is a boxoffice hit, Bob Montgomery laughingly Eid” he could, tell me the story. As director and star, Bob introduces a new screen technique in “Lady.” The camera's eyes are his eyes. You don’t see Bob as he tracks down a killer. You see what he sees, . . One scene—you may remember it—calls for Bob to enter a deserted house, look around downstairs, open a couple of closet doors, go upstairs, and look tip and down a hallway. Then he sees a lady's handkerchief on the’ floor, stoops down, and picks it up. For the scene, the camera was mounted on an 11-ton boom on wheels. You can't get an 1l-ton boom through a standard doorway. S6 as Bob (and the camera) reached the doorway, they were whisked out of camera range by an intricate arrangement of ropes -and pulleys and wires. Just before Bob started the scene, a group of M-G-M’s eastern bankers arrived for a ‘look-see.” Naturally, they were rather startled as Bob yelled “action” anfl the camera started a grand tour in a “deserted house without Lana Turner or Clark «Gable or Lassie or someone in sight,

What Did You Do? THEN THE set started falling apart as Bob cued workmen to: jerk away whole walls and doorways as the 11-ton. boom crunched on like one of Patton's tanks, Finally, Bob yelled “cut,” and the bankers now practically swooning, rushed over to him .and said: ! “WHAT did you just do, Mr. Montgomery?”

“Gentlemen,” Montgomery smiled sweetly, “I just photographed a lady's handkerchief.” Family . ties usually are. severed professionally in Hollywood. When Joan Fontaine, for example, started out on the screen, she had it in her contract that she couldn't be billed as the sister of Olivia de Havilland. There have been many other cases of husbands and wives and brothers and sisters avolding ° “family” publicity. Now comes “Abie’s Irish Rose,” with the advertisements saying that the film introduces Joanne Dru. Then, in.ssmall type, -appear the .words: “Confidentially, she's Mrs, Dick Haymes.” Confidenitlly, Mrs. Dick Haymes isn't too happy about it:

Steak for $4.85 INFLATION NOTE: You can get a nice steak in a newly opened. Hollywood cafe for $4.85. Mitout potatoes, yet! Deflation note:. George Brent is selling his stable of 26 horses. Eddie Bracken's first independent movie — he's leaving Paramount — will be “750 Smith,” a story he bought frem Harold Lloyd. It's a baseball yarn about a fortune-teller' who predicts Eddie will bat 150. He does. i Famed artists John LaGatta and Armand Seguso will paint Linda Darnell’s portrait for the advance “Forever Amber” ballyhoo. } No, Fox won't change the title of “Scudda Hoo, geudda Hay,” because the novel was a ‘best seller. The first part of the title means “gee-up” to the two mules in the film, the second means (to a mule, that is) “whoa.”

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We, the Women

WHAT ARE we trying to do to teen-agers, anyhow? The whole trend toddy seems to be toward shoving them into a private little world of their own. It started with the teen-age canteens that sprang up all over the country. Somehow or other the adults decided ' that teen-agers ought to spend their leisure hours” in eozy little nooks, in the exclusive company of other teen-agers. Then we ballyhooed the sloppy dress of a minority of teen-agers, until the girls began to think they had to wear Dad's old shirts over blue jeans or be clear out’ of the picture, Every time a teen-ager thought up a new slang word or phrase we played it up. Finally they felt they had to keep on inventing an ugly or silly word for everything—so ‘they could have a language exclusively” their own.

The Publicity - Buildup

. THEN EDUCATORS Sp to tell us that it we

want to understand our kids we must learn to 9; Speak “their language.” if

:By Ruth Millet

Wherever a few kids discover a “new idol” the publicity” starts, and pretty soon the teen-agers begin to feel they have to join the idiot fringe of idol worshipers. We've given the adblescents their own magazines, their own newspaper columns, played them up on the stage and screen, Ang the net result is that we've made them feel they belong to an exclusive world of their own, Aren't we making it tough for them to grow up and fit into the adult world?

It Can't Last Forever AFTER ALL, they can't. wear blue jeans when they

clock began striking twelve , . .

little Cinderella about to lose

SECOND SECTION

PURDUE DISASTER VICTIM — Jim Ruby of Centerville, in a wheelchair in hall of crowded St. Elizabeth's hospital in Lafayette, could still smile despite broken leg he suffered in the collapse of a huge blader: at half-time of the Purdue-Wisconsin basketball game last night. With him are an unidentified nurse, and Ken Wittenberg of Gary lcensey and Dave Hochima of Lafayette, Purdue students. Most of injured were students,

a» i

TABLES TURNED—Nrs Bonita Hasan. St. Elizabeth's nurse, was a patient there this morning. She suffered leg injuries and a dislocated and fractured shoulder when bleachers crashed. Miss Mary Barce, nurse, is beside bed.

PERSONAL EFFECTS —

pile of purses, hats, coats,

through the n history of An

tion the wind and we'll know somebody’s “straightenin’ up a bit” before oats sowing time; wood smoke scent of cared-for fields, with as little in common with the black belchings and yellow vapors of tall stacks as a Johnny-jump-up with an orchid. Main st., too, is sensitive to the change. Gallons of paint, neon

much to the liking of Mrs. Farmer who knows her “chicken money” is hers for extras in good times and life-saver in bad. There are no crop failures on black prairie lands. All years are not “bumpers” but there are no dust bowl or river bottom tragedies. The local merchant has doubled his orders for - bib-overalls, good old signs. and lights announce frantic |sturdy work waists and blue chamattempts of implement dealers to bray shirtd like father sold before We'll never know whether Cin-|appease that pent-up hunger for him. derella breathed a sigh of relief as new farm machinery. Windows are| Of course the Wabash Works is she slipped into her old clothes and [ready for freezing units, refrigera-|a going concern. The lights still took up her tasks. But out here on |!OrS, stoves, » washing machines— brighten the eastern skyline, but the ‘western edge of Indiana the|Whatever Mrs. Farmer desires— for the acres released from the 20-odd little neighborhood of Dana is/rural electrification has at long last [thousand once held were those closgrateful that the hour of midnight found its way to Vermillion county. est a, Danja Tortijiset is a and that one era of its 88" . |friendlier sort of product than poly ro THERE'S a chicken hatchery in|explosives. And Dana wishes there were time the old state bank (Dana's meto celebrate the release of thou-|mento of depression days). Special sands of acres of land by the na-|priced eggs going In, well started tional government as well as the|chicks coming out, an arrangement

Ernie Pyle Is Not Forgotten by Town By FLORENCE RHOADES

Times State Service

DANA, Ind.,, Feb. 25—"“And the

the her beautiful gown; her glass slippers, her golden coach and her prince.

Children often grieve for

” ” » OFFICIALS still occupy the neat grey and white “staff houses” at the edge of town. They take part in our

a TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 2 2%, 0

Purdue Victims Smile

Elizabeth's. This is one of two Lafayette hospitals where nurses and doctors ight. Two lost their lives in the third worst athletic disaster

Dana, Ind., Returns To Farming Wartime Cinderella Role Ende

SR 3

FEMININE VICTIM — Mrs. 1. B. Drake

Albany was one of 250 hurt by colla oe under 3400 spectators at half-time of os gr basketball game. She suffered a compound leg fracture: In a bed at St. Elizabeth's hospital, she’ is: comforted

by Mrs. E. Cline, one of the nurses. +

‘Mute ‘evidence of the school catastrophe wi was it m books and personal effects of spectators treated

at St;

wrod. - hy

mn.

local diversions—some rubbers ‘of bridge, “family nights” in the church basements, suppers with the Lions or Conservation ¢ldb, Pay roll checks still are cashed by several “home-folks” but the plant is no longer the overwhelming, allimportant factor it was in ‘42, The little apartments Dana managed to achieve in those strenuous days, in the “up-stairs,” and the “back-ell,” the garage, even the abandoned iceplant, are filled, But the newest of tenants are no longer transients, They pay their dollar fee at the library. They are listed on our poll

" clerk asks 18 concerning & single’ or a Q0UMID “Nor TAS ta Se lanche of Pyle’s home town. pop. near 800," talking off halo “Ernie” wove are scrapbooks made on the see (Lee

; egf]

i 5 i

altars, its

books. They are now a real part|it can live by the sun. instead and parcel of Dana. | shifts, hate dinner in the middle yn the day as the good Lord intended, TODAY Dana faces another|and earn an *E" flag with wide

change. The spotlight of a decade has faded if the address test is a true straw in the wind. Today one gives the address “Dana” and the only question the

homecomings and the lighting of

new fires on old hearths, 21 accidents last night. Five per-

sons were injured, with only one

” 8 n ing, even this BUT. NO larm Spring taken to a hospital.

S. A. R. Elects

very special one of 1947, holds time for any celebraton, save possibly a silent thanks, This “Spring of the Return,” Dana's men will again farm acres of their own. They have the neglect of five years to repair, cloggedsup ditches, rain-washed fields, broken trees, matted briars

to war, Five years ago piles of new lumber in familiar farmyards marked the beginning of the Wabash River Ordnance works which was to reach from Newpert's hill to Dana's doorsteps. Today there are rolls of fencing, dumped handy at the edge of farms, . Orice again to the north and to the east of Dana there will be fields for clover and corn, for cows and pigs—farmers’ fields, not a

go job hunting. They can’t swoon over the boss. They | wide sweepiof solitude dedicated to

can't forever confine their social life to canteens. “Sooner or later they have to start entertaining in living rdoms and gesting along with persons of all Ages. And sooner or ate they must start’ writing and

the needs of war,

and ‘uncut weeds—Dana’s sacrifice temperatures and light snow flur-

Forecast Mercury To Rise Here

Hoosier weather promised to take a turn for the better today, as the U. 8. weather bureau forecast rising

ries. The forecast for Indianapolis is slightly warmer, with continued overcast skies. The low for last night was 24 degress. A drop to 15 degrees had been forecast, but moderating temperatures ‘eased the normal early morning mercury plunge.

Helen Thurston, of 1316 Bellefontaine st. is in fair condition at City hospital. She was struck by a truck driven by Joe Cohen, 53, 3233 Ruckle st., as she and Elmer Thurston, 11, and William Thurston, 9, crossed Delaware st. at 11th st. last night. Cohen was arrested on charges of reckless driving and failure to give a pedestrian the right of way. Katherine Eden, 18, of 117 E. 50th st., suffered leg injuries when she walked in front of a car driven by tJohn W. Earnest, 550 Eastern ave.

Police said the girl walked against |s urer;

traffic signals.

Mollie Wilder, 1626 Bellefontaine |Ha

State police warned that high- | ways throughout the . north and | central portions of the state are | snowy with slippery spots. Dangerous. road conditions pre-| vail las far south as Johnson county. Roads in the lower part of the

st, a pedestrian, was hit when a |éar driven by Joseph C. Charpie, 3144 N. Keystone ave, skidded over the curb at 16th st. and College ave.

|Mr. Charpie lost control psfter his{garl D

|car was in collision with one driven by Harold E. Sheldon, 25 E. 11th st.

State Officers

New executives of the state soclety of Sons of the American Revolution elected Saturday at the Columbia club were announced today. New officers, managers and counselors elected are: DR:

Wallace Waalbirhold, uy oly, iy d x bid late yr pr) r an Indianapolis, ny Smisl, Castle, vice presidents; Ho

Ty Moore, national trustee, all of Indianap« Members of the board of.

a IR Son £ ; er, Herber 8 Roush. Jerome H. Trunkey, a 3 op

Rucker, Dwight B. Passtin, James rl . Antonides, |’ of and Herbert C. serion. cra

Fr i$,

state are generally clear and open,| James E. Hinds, Flora, IL, truck state police said. © driver, escaped serious injury when

Meanwhile, police blamed Indian-|his: truck was struck by a train at

a ” . THIS SPRING, pottering round in our backyards to see if the tulips are still covered and pie-plant

speaking a langusge grownups don’t need a teen-age dictionary to undersiand, is .

sam wil Ga gt LRT GE Ce dy

now

apolis’ slippery streets and of [the Pennsylvania railroad am

awakening, we'll sniff wood smoke motorist and. -Pesttian of cau dor, Southeastern ave. >a.

once again. no matter what direc-

. by g