Americana

P: In the New York Times Sunday classified automobile advertisements, sandwiched between a '47 Kaiser and a '42 Lincoln, appeared the following: "KNOX, ancient 1900, air-cooled, one cylinder, good running condition, good tires."

P: Verl Langford of Buena Vista, Colo., named No. 1 truck driver of 1947 by the American Trucking Association, was invited to the White House and congratulated by the President for having driven a truck since 1928 without an accident.

P: Louisiana State University banned a student magazine named Pell Mell for devoting and dedicating its current issue to "Stormy," a New Orleans stripteaser.

P: The Department of Commerce announced that there would be more than 100 special "weeks" in 1948, among them National Laugh Week (to help put a smile on the map of America), Save Your Vision Week, Large Size Week (drug products).

P: New York Daily News Drama Critic John Chapman, after viewing the chichi opening of Tonight at 8:30 (see THEATER), let go a loaded paragraph at first-night audiences: "They lit matches and smoked in the aisles . . . haughtily ignoring the feeble bleats of ushers who kept trying to tell these jerks that one doesn't do that sort of thing . . . in a sardine box like the National [Theater], I tried to find the fireman assigned to the house to suggest [that he] haul some well-dressed slob ... up to night court. But he wasn't around. Maybe he was backstage getting an autograph."

P: Advertising a Washington fur sale, a gabby disc jockey substituted the word "potatoes" for dollars, cried: "You can get this coat for 497 potatoes." A paper-box factory foreman named Cecil Lineback took him at his word. He hurriedly bought the potatoes, rushed into the furrier's, and, after hours of heated negotiation, walked out with a sheared beaver coat.

P: In Kassel, Germany, Harvardman Henry Martyn Noel Jr., 24, disclosed that he had renounced his U.S. citizenship and become a "citizen of the world." He was living over a pigsty, working as a bricklayer for a German construction company. Said he: "Now that I am no longer allied with [national interests] ... I feel I can come closer to the true spirit of man."

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