Fun for All

THE NATION Fun for All

A white-haired old party named Jack Alonzo Goldie got into a Chinese robe at Rockport, Mass. last week, put a black band around his head and announced that 1) he was The Zoom, and 2) that an H-bomb was going to blow the world up on April 7, 1954. He asked one & all to become Zoomites, and join him in burrowing underground. Father Divine took a different attitude. He claimed that he was responsible for the bomb, through some kind of telepathic influence on President Truman, and that it was a fine thing. His exact words: "Wonderful! Wonderful! Wonderful!"

Technically, spring was almost here, but the weather was sullen about it. Things warmed up a bit in the South, and at week's end the temperature got above freezing as far north as Boston. But New England's snow-buried sugar maples were not yet giving up their sap, and citizens of the Midwest were still recovering from blizzards and roaring winds.

The Long & Short of It. The more fearless molders of U.S. opinion--the advertising agency, the department store and the beauty salon--paid no attention. Bock beer was duly publicized. Women's skirts were raised to what is known as "midcalf" for the new season--a maneuver which would doubtless enable the fiends of fashion to start lowering them again in the fall. Women who had cut off most of their hair in 1949 because they looked so frightful with it long, were urged by Elizabeth Arden to grow it out immediately because they looked so frightful with it short.

Because of New York's water shortage, the Brooklyn baseball club started digging a well near the first-base line at Ebbet's Field, planned to use it in irrigating the infield grass. Ernie's Enterprises, a St. Louis firm, announced that it had orders for 50,000 Eagle Beaks--hornrimmed spectacles with large false noses attached to them. U.S. citizens were also snapping up Miss Gorgeous Blond Fan Dancing Photos (smiles and dances before your eyes), Nature Boy Squirt Ash Trays, Hollywood Floating Cutie Doll Pencils, Goofy Eggs (won't stand still unless you know the secret) and Magic Light Bulbs (mysteriously lights while held in your hand).

Very Sinc. At the annual Dania, Fla. Tomato Festival, squads of barefooted young ladies in T-shirts and shorts threw tomatoes at each other. Nick Gulas, a Nashville promoter, proudly announced a Seven Girl Rassle Royal (every girl battling for herself) at the Hippodrome. A widow who described herself as attrac., vivac., affect. & sinc. advertised for a husband in the Los Angeles Mirror. Her reasons: "Wd. enjoy mat. rt. man bec. I did enjoy marriage & comp. Very sinc. Exchange ref. & rec. snap."

Ulises A. Sanabria, 43, a Chicago television executive, married his son's divorced wife, thereby becoming his granddaughter's stepfather. Bewhiskered, 102-year-old J. Frank Dalton went into court in Union, Mo., swore that he was Jesse James and petitioned to have his rightful name restored. The judge turned him down, in tones of disbelief, and then growled: "[But] if he is Jesse James I suggest he retreat to his rendezvous and ask his good God to forgive him." The Treasury Department announced a resurgence of moonshining in the U.S.

The nation, in a word, was still clinging firmly to the proposition that a man had a right to be a little pixilated if he wanted--even though he might be blown into radioactive scrapple next week.

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