Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 24 May 1951 — Page 23

24, 1951 | J / 1

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Outside Indianapolis By Ed Sovola

WASHINGTON, May 24—Spelling Bee champions here for the final round starting tomorrow are having the time of their young lives. You can include Gretchen Grosdidier, Marion County champion from St. Patrick’s School. The 8th grader, chaperoned by Mrs. Norma Koster, dirmctor of special events for the Indianapolis Park Board, has “wonderful” on the tip of her tongue. “Are you having fun, Gretchen?” “Wonderful.” “How was the airplane ride to Washington?” “Wonderful.” Gretchen said she was frightened only during the takeoff. Once the plane was in the air, she was all right. The flight was Gretchen's first. Almost in a whisper, Gretchen said she won't be afraid on the trip home. GS 0 & I MET GRETCHEN and Mrs. Koster in the lobby of the Willard Hotel. On the seventh floor are the National Spelling Bee headquarters. Champion spellers were milling around waiting for one of the special parties to start on the first floor.” -Gretchen was licking stamps for some postcards she was sending home. Mrs. Koster stopped Gretetten as sHe prapuced to lick a penny stamp for a package of Washington scenes. oe oo o

“GRETCHEN, what kind of a stamp do the directions say to put on ths package? asked Mrs. Koster, “I guess a penny stamp,” answered Gretchen. “See, it just says ‘put stamp here,’ ” she smiled. Mrs. Koster gave her a 3-cent stamp. The party for the youngsters began in low gear. Boys huddled together on one side of the room. The girls were careful of their dresses and manners. Chaperons urged the children to mingle and meet the “other nice boys and girls.” Later they were to look wistfully at their charges and hope they'd quit mingling and go to bed.

It Happened Last Night

By Earl Wilson

NEW YORK, May 24—Those umpires are picking on Leo Durocher again. . . . What a great actor Lippy is! Oscar. I feel he must be acting out his terrible temper a little. For off the ball field, he's as gentle and smiling as a preacher auditioning for a new congregation. At home, when anybody yells, it's not Leo — it's his wife, Laraine Day. Yet, if it is an act, what an act! To be able to take our minds off of . meat prices and Korea and serious problems like Rita's. I talked it over with Laraine. I couldn't have been more undiplomatic. I phoned her during the Giants-St. Louis game which her Giants lost, 5to 2. “Wait a minute. I'm listening to the game. Oh, dear, Nippy Jones got a hit!” she said. “I'd better call back,” I apologized. “No, go ahead. He's already hit.” You could tell she was pretty annoyed at Mr. Jones for being so brash.

Give him an

oo oe oe “WHAT ABOUT Leo always fights?” I said. “He doesn't WANT to. They make him! Anyway, that wasn't a fight Sunday. He told me over ‘the phone they just had a little argument

getting in

: Just then, Leo was being fined $100 for the argument. oo ote oe “EVERYBODY knows they dust off good batters so they can’t get too good a toehold.” she said. “If Jackie Robinson doesn't want to be dusted off, he shouldn't be such a good batter.” Give Laraine an Oscar, too, for loyalty. They've been married four years now. I asked whether Leo ever comes screaming about the coffee being cold. “I know what he wants to eat and I give him that,” she said. “Shredded wheat and prunes for breakfast. No lunch. For dinner, steak and potatoes. Chocolate pie or jello. And milk.” “He ever yell at you?” A “Not yet! If anybody ever yells at waiters or cab drivers, I'm the one. Leo never raises his voice.” a “HOW D'YOU think the Giants'll finish?” “We'll win. The hard way, though, like we do everything.” Branch Rickey told me once that Durocher had the urge to win more than anybody he’d ever known,

Americana By Robert C. Ruark

NEW YORK, May 24—In the conduct of our criminal courts there always has been a tendency to make a horse trade with a culprit, in order to save time, lose a nagging political nuisance, and ring up another score on the D.A.s record of runs-batted-in. This sometimes amounts almost to collusion, and certainly may be called eager cooperation. The man in the dock pleads a non vult, tantamount to a guilty plea, after his attorneys have been assured that he'll draw down a minimum rap with a chance for parole—or, in some instances, a fine: Then the crook is slapped on the wrist, marches off to the clink, and is out and doing oo business again before you know it. In the days of Johnny Spanish and Gyp the Blood, a sentence of this sort was called “standing on the head.” That's about what this airy reprimand of Joe Adonis and his four bowers amounts to. Adonis is referred to as “murder boss” and racket chieftain, but for. his sins he can be sentenced to as little as 18 months, with a third off for

good behavior. This he can wear on his ear, oe Ll ©

AS A RESULT of Joey A.'s deal with the Bergen County Superior Court, any possible opportunity to trap him into more seriously implicating testimony is lost. They have just shot an clephant with a rabbit gun, and with the elephant's written permission. A couple of years in the good, warm jail is no gerious deterrent to a well-organized hood. He can run his business from the inside. You do not reform his morals or teach him piety. All you do is pay for his meals and relieve the current court structure and the local politicos of his painful public presence,

Just Ask Us

Q—What was the language spoken by Christ? A—According to Biblical scholars, it was the Aramaic language that Jesus spoke. ® &

Q—Why has the Army abolished the title “resruit”?

governmental

Spelling Bee Champs Enjoying the Sights

A LITTLE Texas buckaroo, Louis “Bell of Houston, showed the kids from other parts of the country how to make the most of a.party. Louis, dressed in a 5-gallon hat, cowboy boots and fancy shirt and pants, took special pains to find out where people were from. Ice melted and continued to melt wherever, Louis went, His schoolmates presented Louis with the hat and shoes. His daddy bought him his suit. Students of McGregor Elementary School wanted “everyone to know I was from Texas,” Louis explained.

EY

UNDER the guiding hand of Charlie Schneider, in charge of the Spelling Bee, the kids played games, sang songs, took pictures and forgot that it was getting past bedtime. I suppose teen-agers’ g0 to bed around 9, don’t they? Gretchen, shy and quiet to begin with, wound up in the middle of a singing group which needed some coaxing to break up. I saw Mrs. Koster and Gretchen to their room.

Gretchen said she wouldn't have any trouble fall- «|

ing asleep. She was excited] yes, excited to sleep.

but not too

. ”, 0 oe oe oe

«=» OF ALL THE SIGHTS she saw in Washington, Gretchen liked the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials the best. Mrs. Kpster said she read all the inscriptions on the walls of the memorials. Gretchen didn't know whether she would practice spelling and study new words or not. There was so much to do and see, you know. If she had any qualms about the rugged competition that lay ahead, Gretchen didn’t show it. She was going to do her best to win, of course. While we talked, Gretchen looked at the event sheet provided each competitor. Every paper, ribbon, pin, map was carefully placed on the dresser. Indianapolis when the Spelling Bee was over. Wonderful, to use Gretchen's favorite expression, what a boy or girl can get because of spelling ability. Why didn't I ever learn to spell?

Lippy Durocher Deserves An Oscar

Still I always remember once when John |

Golden told the late Mayor Jimmy Walker, should have been an actor.” Jimmy answered: “What the hell do you think I was doing down at City Hall all those Vears?” Maybe Leo's doing a Barrymore, too, in his not so quiet way.

oe "ne oo

THE MIDNIGHT EARL . .. Isn't Maj. Gen. Courtney Whitney, Gen. MacArthur's aide, going to work soon for Remington-Rand, paving the way for the General there” . .. Rodgers & Hammerstein’s next for Mary Martin may be a musical version of “Tgilby,” the famous DuMaurier story of an artist's model and Svengali.

*, ? oe oe oe

GOOD RUMOR MAN: The Humphrey Bogarts were given a party in Rome by the Bill Tubbs, who brought over Ingrid Bergman and said to her, “You know Bogey, don't you?” She said, “I've kissed him several times but I hardly know him.” . .. The Geo. Abbots split again? -. JOAN Flynn, the writer, made her 2d hole-in-one. . Lucky Luciano said in Naples, “In America they blame me for everything but Korea.” Sandra Scott won a steak-eating contest at Mc€arthy’s Steak House. A press agent who adores Winchell almost as much as we do, chided us for teasing him. ‘Have you no respect?” said the publicist. matter with you—you an atheist?”

. . a Nn

B'WAY BULIETINS: Xavier Cugat growls that his wife, Loraine, who's started her own band, left him because she hated musicfans!—One of Aly Khan's gals is an American playgal named Nancy Walker (not, of course, the comedienne). . . Paul Hartman took debutante Frances Sleigh to the Freddy Martin Astor Roof opening. . . .

Sah

TODAY'S BEST LAUGH: “Lots of girls have more talent in their little finger than Lana Turner has in her whole body, but who wants to look at a little finger?”’—Buddy Satz. Oo SN EARL’'S PEARLS . A boring guy saw Groucho Marx on the street, stopped and said, “Groucho, what is going on?” Groucho said, “I am.” eb» “WHAT DO YOU WANT for your birthday?” they asked Tallulah Bankheadish gal at Major's Cabin. “Only one thing,” she said. “Not to be reminded of it.” , , . That's Earl, brother.

Courts Horse Trade With Gang Bigwigs

In a way, deal or no deal, the indictment of high-shot hoodlums on a gambling conspiracy does the hood a favor. The penalty is low. The heat is taken off. Larger and more serious accusations are pigeon-holed. Business goes on as usual. And the law’s paltry pound of flesh still leaves plenty meat on the criminal carcass. SOS I DON'T SEE anything wrong with sending over an elusive crook on a secondary rap if you make it tough enough, or bust up an empire, or even strike fear into the hearts of his fellows. But it's a pitifully difficult feat. They jugged Al Capone on an incomeé-tax charge and his mob continued profitable operation. Luciano was knocked off on a prostitution rig, but was able to operate and even to push his fingers into pies. True punishment is tough enough to inflict even when a dedicated prosecutor and a tough judge work out on the boys. This is why I dislike these mealy ‘‘deals,” where the bum in question sits down to settle his own fate as if he were a misguided businessman instead of a. murderous thug. It reflects on the honor of thé legal system itself when the powers are willing to talk turkey with the object of their wrath. It is beneath the dignity of established law to barter with a bum. » bh B IN PAST I have seen police hang a whole flock of murders on one likely suspect, just to clear the unsolved crime list. Get 'em off the books is the motto—get ’em out of the hair. One fries, and six guilties go free, with the insoluble corpses legally attached to the dead fall guy. There is a smidge of that sort of thing in trying big-shot criminals on small charges and then making a business deal with them to save the state trouble and keep the D. A.'s conviction record high. Joey Adonis and his boy friends come up for sentence next Monday, and I imagine they are chuckling today. Even if they get hit with the book {t's not apt to bruise 'em much.

Q—How many Islands comprise the Bahama chain?

A—About 3000 islands, . islets and rocks of which about 22 are inhabited.

> »

At?of it was going home with her to |

“You |

“What's the |

~The Indianapolis

Times

THURSDAY, MAY 24, 1951

PAGE 23

CHAPTER

TWELVE

HEN the sea was not too rough, we were often out in

tthe little rubber dinghy

taking photggraphs.

I shall not forget, the first time the sea was so calm

that two men felt like putting the balloon-like little thing into the water and going for a row. They had hardly got

roaring with laughter. And, | as the swell lifted them | away they disappeared and reappeared among the seas, they laughed so loud every time | they caught a glimpse of us that their voices rang out over the | desolate Pacific. We looked around us with mixed feelings and saw nothing | comic but our own hirsute faces; but as the two in the dinghy should be accustomed to those by now, we began to have a lurking suspicion that they had suddenly gone mad. Sunstroke, perhaps. The two fellows could hardly scramble back on board the Kon-Tiki for sheer laughter and, gasping, with tears in their eyes, they begged us just to go and see for ourselves.

|

n ” TWO OF US jumped down | into the dancing rubber dinghy and were caught by a sea which

lifted us clear. Immediately we ~

sat down with a bump and roared with laughter. We had to scramble back on the raft as quickly as possible and calm the last two who had not been out yet, for they thought we had all gone stark, staring mad. It was ourselves and our | proud vessel which made such a completely hopeless, lunatic impression on us the first time we saw the whole thing at a distance. We had never hefore had an outside view of ourselves in the open sea. The logs of timber disappeared behind the smallest waves, and, when we saw anything at all, it was the low cabin with the wide doorway and the bristly roof of leaves that bobbed up from among the seas. The raft looked exactly like an old Norwegian hayloft ly- | ing helpless, drifting about in | the open sea—a warped hayloft full of sunburned, bearded ruffians. If anyone had come pad-{-dling-after us-at-sea ina bathtub, we should have felt the same spohtaneous urge to laughter. Even an ordinary swell rolled | halfway up the cabin wall and looked as if it would pour in unhindered through the wide open door in which the bearded fellows lay gaping. But then the crazy craft came up to the surface again, and the vagabonds lay there as dry, shaggy, and intact as before. If a higher sea came racing by, cabin and sail and the whole mast might disappear behind the mountain of water, but just as certainly the cabin with its vagabonds would be there again next moment. The situation looked bad, and we could not realize that things had gone so well on board the zany craft.

” ” o NEXT TIME we rowed out | to have a good laugh at ourselves we nearly had a disaster. The wind and sea were higher | than we supposed, and the KonTiki was cleaving a path for | herself over the swell much more quickly than we realized. We in the dinghy had to row for | our lives out in the open sea | in an attempt to regain the unmanageable raft, which could not stop and wait and could not | possibly turn around and come | back. Even when the boys on board the Kon-Tiki got the sail down, the wind got such a grip on the bamboo cabin that the raft

Eyewitness

By JASON ZIGLER as Told to ANDY OLOFSON Times Staff Writer (Jason Zigler, 20, a farmer,

was the first person to reach the wreckage of the giant Air Force plane which crashed yesterday in flames on a farm next | to his. This is his story.) I was working in the field and

| clear of the raft when they dropped the little oars and sat

drifted away to westward as fast as we could splash after her in the dancing rubber dinghy with its tiny toy oars. There was only one thought in the head of every man--we must not be separated. Those were horrible minutes we spent out on the sea before we got hold of the runaway raft and crawled on board to the others, home again. From that day it was strictly forbidden to go out in the

. rubber dinghy without having a

long line made fast to the bow, so that those who remained on board could haul the dinghy in if necessary. We never went far away from the raft, thereafter, except when the wind was light and the Pacific curving itself in a gentle swell. But we had these conditions when the raft was halfway to Polynesia and the ocean, all dominating, arched itself round the globe toward every point of the compass. Then we could safely leave the Kon-Tiki and row away into the blue space Dbetween sky and space. When we saw the silhouette of our craft grow smaller and smaller in the distance, and the big sail at last shrunken to a vague black square. on the horizon, a sensation of 'loneliness sometimes crept over us. The sea curved away under us as blue as the sky above, and

where: they met all the blue flowed together and became one.

u n ” ° IT ALMOST seemed as if we were suspended in space. All our world was empty and blue; there was no fixed point in it but the tropical sun, golden and warm, which burned our necks. Then the distant sail of the lonely raft drew us to it like a magnetic point on the horizon. We rowed back and crept on board with a feeling that we had come home again to our own world —on board and yet on firm, safe ground. And inside the bamboo cabin we found shade and the scent of bamboos and withered palm ledves. The sunny blue purity outside was now served to us in a suitably large dose through the ‘open cabin wall. So we were accustom to it and so it was good for a time, till the great clear blue tempted us out again. Sometimes, too, we went out in the rubber boat to look at ourselves by night. Coal-black seas towered up on all sides, and a glittering myriad of tropical stars drew a faint reflection from plankton in the water. The world was simple—stars in the darkness. Whether it was 1947 B. C. or A. D. suddenly became of no significance. We lived, and that we felt with alert intensity. We realized that life had been full for men before the technical age also—in fact, fuller and richer in many ways than the life of modern man. Time and evolution somehow ceased to exist; all that was real and that mattered were the same today as they had always been and would always be. We were swallowed up in the absolute common measure of history — endless unbroken darkness under a swarm of stars.

Before us in the night the

Erik Hesselberg and his guitar

Windless weather and tropical heat bothered the crew of the Kon.Tiki very little. When the | sea was. calm they made long trips in their little rubber boat.

Kon-Tiki rose out of the seas to sink down again behind black masses of water that towered between her and us. o o ” IN THE moonlight there was a fantastic atmosphere about the raft. Stout, shining wooden logs fringed with seaweed, the square pitch-black outline of a Viking sail, a bristly bamboo but with the yellow light of a paraffin lamp aft—the whole suggested a picture from a fairy tale rather than an actual reality. Now and then the raft disappeared. completely behind the black seas; then she rose again and stood out sharp in silhouette against the stars, while glittering water poured from the logs. When we saw the atmosphere about the solitary raft, we could well see in our mind's eye ‘the whole flotilla of such vessels, spread in fan formation beyond the horizon to increase the chances of finding land, when the first men made their way across this sea.

The Inca Tupak Yupanqui, who had brought under his rule both Peru and Ecuador, sailed across the sea with an armada of many thousand men on balsa rafts, just before the Spaniards came, ‘to. search for islands which rumor had told of out in the Pacific. He found two islands, which some think were the Galapagos, and after eight months’ absence he and his numerous paddlers succeeded in toiling their way back to Ecuador.

Kon-Tiki and his followers had certainly sailed in a similar formation several hundred years before but, having discovered the Polynesian islands, they had no reason for trying to struggle back. When we jumped on board the raft again, we often sat down in a circle round the paraffin lamp on the bamboo deck and talked of the seafarers from Peru who had had all these same experiences 1500 years before us.

As we passed 110. degrees

west, we were within the Polye nesian ocean area. We no longer had the same respect for waves and sea. We knew them and their relationship to us on the raft. Even the shark had bee come a part of the everyday picture; we knew it and its use ! ual reactions. thought of the hand harpoon, and we did not even move away from the side of the raft, if a shark came up alongside.

We no longer

On the contrary, we were

more likely to try and grasp is back fin as it glided unperturbed along the logs. This fie nally developed new form of sport—tug of wap with shark without a line.

into a quite

i

TOMORROW—How to cateh '

a shark without hook and lne —just grab its tail as it swims | past! Then the excitement really | starts, found out!

as the Kon-Tiki crew

Prom the book...

'Konthe Paci on & Ra Rn McNally 3 5 Co. Sie

Tells Vivid Story Of AF Globemaster Crash

saw the plane make one big circle. | A

It started to lose altitude and | then went into a 45-degree dive. | The pilot appeared to be jazzing his motors. He leveled out directly over the John Disbro home next to the George Ball farm. I thought he was going to hit it. Then the plane clipped off the tops of pine trees in front of the Disbro home. There were no flames, but there lappeared. to be smoke coming |from the wing tips. The plane | continued in level flight, clipping

off the tops of small trees. It

looked like he would make a safe

landing until he rammed a big

beech tree. The tree had a yardrwide trunk.

the broken tree fell off. Then a propeller fell off, fol-

It ripped the beech out by its {roots and it was bent back over the wing of the plane. The plane carried it about 200 feet before

[lowed by one of the four engines.

Q—How much did Julla Ward Howe realize for | The plane continued along in “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”? level flight for another 400 yards v A—Four dollars. The Atlantic Monthly in its before it finally hit the ground | issue of February, 1862, first published the verses. and skidded along. de » | I rushed towards the scene and

Q—Can aluminum posts be used for street plane as it burst into flames.

A—The change was made’ for morale and administrative purposes. The title “recruit” has applied to a soldier undergoing the first four months of basic training. Such soldiers will now be known as ‘‘private.” : : “» bo Q—What breed of dogs has black tongues?

—Times Photo by Henry E. Gleding » END OF EXPERIMENT—Seven men died yesterday i in the fiery crash of the Douglas Globemaster, Air Force's largest transport,

saw four men climb out of the : fs

COAST

from the burning plane. He sald - We tried to see if we could do, Black clouds of smoke rose five men walk, but they ref lights? When I reached the fence, I he was the pilot. anything for the others in the/high in the air. (They were seen assistance. All five were A—The only dogs with wholly blue or black A-—-Yes; they have the necessary strength, are |met one of them hanging over the “Get help and call Patterson] plane but the heat was too in- 25 miles away.) Weaning duels ety ] | A tongues and lips are the Chinese Chows, light to handle and present no corrosion problem. edge of the fence—about 75 feet Air Base,” the pilot sald. tense. ‘I offered to help. some of the were badly bur:

VE. } Silt is ; ih es | | be