Americana

MANNERS & MORALS

P: William ("Noah") Greenwood completed his second ark (his first was burned by city authorities) on a prairie near Olympia, Wash., equipped the 60-foot craft with 27 swords, a suit of armor, several tomahawks, a cat and a hat which once belonged to Annie Oakley, and waited for the "world tidal wave" he expects in 1952.

P: Southern California got relief from its worst drought in 70 years. After 47 clear, dry days, heavy rain swept the state from Santa Barbara to the Imperial Valley.

P: Florida airfields heard a terse, frightening radio report from a Miami-bound Eastern Airlines Constellation with 69 people aboard. One of its engines had exploded, a piece of flying metal had killed a steward, and preparations were being made to ditch it, if necessary, 130 miles out at sea. Coast Guard planes began a frantic search. After two hoars of tomblike silence, the missing plane, its radio and one engine dead, landed on an abandoned naval airstrip at Bunnell, Fla., blew two tires and came to a safe stop.

P: Two U.S. women--Mrs. James H. Elkus, vice president of the Pittsburgh Planned Parenthood clinic, and Mrs. Michael Walker of Syracuse, N.Y., mother of five-year-old triplets--gave birth to triplets.

P: Minnesota anglers held what they called the World's Original Ice Fishing Contest. At a given signal, 2,196 fishermen rushed out on frozen White Bear Lake near St. Paul, chopped holes in 28-inch ice and dropped in their bait. While 8,000 spectators watched (see cut), they fished for two hours. The winner, John Einum, got an outboard motor for catching a 5 1/4-lb. walleyed pike.

P: While his wife and a motion-picture cameraman watched, Hollywood Stunt Man Alfred ("Dusty") Rhodes jumped off San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge with three small parachutes attached to his back. He plummeted down 256 feet, disappeared in a burst of foam, surfaced, and bobbed quietly off on the tide--dead.

P: Mrs. Harriet Hawk of Tulsa won the Sooner State Business and Professional Women's Club purse-cramming championship by pulling 218 separate articles out of her handbag. Her prize: a flashlight to facilitate future purse-mining.

P: A New Jersey jury awarded one Richard Kiener $2,500 for injuries incurred when someone gave him a hotfoot and inadvertently set his pants afire while he was dozing in a Paterson saloon.

P: Edward Mehren, president of Los Angeles' Squirt Co. (manufacturers of carbonated beverages), predicted the end of nickel soft drinks, urged the Government to start minting 7 1/2-c- and 12 1/2 coins for the nation's pop drinkers.

P: James ("Toothpick Charlie") Kilpatrick, 84, once one of the nation's most finished second-story men, was arrested (for the 32nd time) in Los Angeles. His crime: milking pay telephones. He had been extracting $10 a day from 100 telephones by plugging their coin-return slots with paper, letting nickels, dimes and quarters clog up inside until he came to collect them.

P: In Chicago, startled policemen discovered how one Roger Anderson had managed to steal antiques from the Historical Society's well-guarded museum: he hid under Abraham Lincoln's bed until attendants went home for the night.

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