Americana

MANNERS & MORALS

P: A TV set provided an unnerving experience for Ernest Kolesiak of South Bend, Ind. Kolesiak was on the roof tightening guy wires on his antenna when it toppled across a 27,000-volt power line. Immediately, great balls of fire bounced up & down on the roof with thunderous explosions, the plumbing threw off sparks, and pipes melted around the kitchen sink. Mrs. Kolesiak, peeling potatoes, found her spectacles flecked with molten metal, the television set burned out and one of the knobs blew off, the telephone went dead, a glove lying in the yard burst into flames, and the house was scorched in three places. Kolesiak was only slightly burned, but the family dog ran away and refused to return home.

P: The Wisconsin attorney general ruled that anyone who commits statutory rape in a parked automobile shall have his driver's license revoked.

P: A survey by the Commerce Department showed that U.S. citizens spent a staggering $178,832,000,000 last year, about one-third of it on food. The nation also spent about 20 times as much on clothing accessories and jewelry as it did on religion and welfare, about 2 1/2 times as much on drink as it did on medical care, and three times as much on tobacco as it did on private education and research.

P: In the first week of the south Texas deer season, Hunter Granville Wiedner was cutting the throat of a buck he had wounded when the dying animal kicked him in the head and killed him.

P:Complaining that he cannot live openly with a death sentence over his head, a 90-year-old Texan, who claims to be Billy the Kid,* had his attorneys apply to the governor of New Mexico for a pardon. Officials wanted to look over his credentials, but he stubbornly refused to meet with them unless granted immunity.

P:For discriminating shoppers, Manhattan's bustling Gimbel Bros, department store this week offered something new, and a new low, in Christmas suggestions. In a seven-column newspaper ad boasting, "No bossy but no bossy has finer manure than Gimbels," the store said: "We think it's a bright-eyed idea to give someone manure for Christmas. Tickle the earth, say we, and she'll laugh a harvest . . . We'll ship a magnificent one-ton batch of Daisy's finest to your door (or to the rear door or the barn) for $19 . . ." The store coyly cautioned that it was not prepared to gift-wrap the purchase.

* New York City-born Billy the Kid (William Bonney) was shot by Sheriff Pat Garrett of Lincoln County, N. Mex., on July 14, 1881, buried the following day in the old military cemetery at Ft. Sumner.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.