Classified "Classic"

Craggy, weather-beaten Claude L. (for Lafayette) Fallwell had lived a full life, and he wanted a full epitaph. Now past 70, he had crossed the country in a covered wagon, been cowboy, cook, farmer, fruitgrower, preacher and proprietor of a farmers' market. Fallwell ambled down to the La Grande (Ore.) Evening Observer (circ. 3,700) and asked how much it would cost to buy enough space to tell his whole story. He finally settled for a two-column want-ad a week, at $15 for each ad.

Last week Fallwell's "epitaph" was the publishing sensation of northeastern Oregon. Reader response to the first installments of Boyhood Experiences of the Old Man from the Country overwhelmed the Observer: total strangers were clipping out the columns and business at Fallwell's Half-Way Market was at an alltime high.

Fallwell's classified "classic" stretched from Texas to Oregon, with bullfights, treacherous river-fordings, antelope hunts and climatic disturbances at every turn in the road--and the grammar was sometimes tired after the strenuous trip. Last week's installment ("The Terrible Rain Storm with Thunder & Lightning") had carried the author only up to the age of eleven. But Publisher Frank Schiro would have no objections if Autobiographer Fallwell outrecalled Thomas Wolfe.

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