Success has not spoiled James Fahey. Though his gob's-eye view of battle, Pacific War Diary 1942-45 (TIME, Aug. 16) is a smash critical hit, Amateur Author Fahey, 45, is happy in his $93.20-a-week job as a Waltham, Mass., garbage man. "I won't quit my sanitation job until I have been named Garbage Man of the Year," he said lightly in an interview, for there had never been such a title. But at the magazine of the trade, the Refuse Removal Journal, the remark brought action: Fahey was duly informed that the magazine would begin an annual awarding of the honor by naming him the first recipient. The ex-seaman first class was thrilled. "I'm no writer," said he. "Some people call me an author or a writer, but that's only a name. Garbage Man of the Year is one title that really fits me."

Technically, he remains Ambassador to Yugoslavia till the end of the month, but when George Kennan, 59, strolled out of the State Department building last week, his on-again, off-again diplomatic career was off again. After goodbyes to such friends as McGeorge Bundy, Averell Harriman and President Kennedy, the noted Kremlinologist was off to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N. J. Kennan is wavering between doing a book on Soviet foreign policy during the last years of the Stalin era or chucking contemporary punditry to "become a real historian and go way back into the 19th century."

A U.S. President's job can be dreadfully hard, but there are some compensations. Flying out of Washington for a weekend with his convalescing wife at Squaw Island, Mass., John F. Kennedy was such a welcome arrival as far as Caroline, 5, and John Jr., 2, were concerned, that he got a couple of running kisses that would make any daddy glow --and millions of voters feel properly sympathetic.

What ever happened to Veronica Lake? Well, the tresses are a bit shorter, a little less blonde, and during rehearsals they're pulled back in a pony tail.

But when Best Foot Forward's curtain goes up this week, that famous curtain of hair will once again come down over the right eye, as Veronica steps into the lead of the off-Broadway revival. Since her last movie, Stronghold, in 1952, the 43-year-old actress hasn't done much --"some summer stock and a little TV," plus a hostessing stint in a friend's Manhattan restaurant. Fittingly, she's playing a faded movie star, and she's not a bit bashful about it: "It's more or less doing a take-off of myself." "They still admire each other very, very much, and they will always be the best of friends." Such sentiments, expressed as they were by the family lawyer, naturally meant that Gloria Vanderbilt De Cicco Stokowslci Lumet, 39, was off to divorceland once again. After seven years with Movie Director Sidney Lumet, 39, the poor little rich girl was reported headed for Juarez for one of those rapido decrees.

This time Bob Hope, 59, is on location as a Bob-nosed U.N. employee with a stray baby on his hands. Wouldn't it be great, hoped Hope, if U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson, 63, could be persuaded to do a quick walk-on? "I don't know if I'm dressed properly," laughed Stevenson, but soon he was outside mugging through a long double take as he passed Hope in the plaza. After two takes, Stevenson had the bit clown so pat that the camera crew burst into applause. "Hey," called the upstaged comic, "that'll be enough out of you, Governor."

They laughed when unknown LuLu Porter, 23, went off to the International Song Festival in Sopot, Poland. But LuLu belted out a rendition of Everything's Coming Up Roses that had the Poles vaulting for joy. The press gave her unanimous raves, and, lo and behold, the new lulu was voted the festival's most popular popular singer.

When Atheist Madalyn Murray, 43, blew into Stockton, Kans., there was no sign of the Welcome Wagon. Instead, she ran into smothering, if oblique, rejection as it became clear that there was nothing but trouble on her mind. The militant matron, whose suit against required school-prayer reading in Baltimore was upheld by the Supreme Court, had arrived to set up an atheist center. She also planned to enroll her son Garth, 8, in a nearby public school in order to sue for the removal of the Roman Catholic nuns who work there as teachers. The first night in town, her car developed four flat tires. The weekly paper ran a spirited roundup of unflattering comment from unidentified citizens. And the school board was not at all sure they could find a place for Garth.

Oldfashioned, mebbe, but Troy, Ohio, Feed Mill Owner Russell Stacy Altman, 76, just didn't trust banks completely. Now 10-gal. milk cans buried near the mill, that's a different thing. So last month, in delirium on his deathbed at Minnesota's Mayo Clinic, Altman told his son and daughter about the milk cans. They thought it was a little strange, but nevertheless, after a decent interval, they decided to dig around a little. By the end of last week they had unearthed three of them, stuffed with $638,592.

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