Young men don't want to be like their father. One gets tired of Daddy and calls him a stupid old man, said Novelist (The Once and Future King) T. H. White, 57. And that, he added, is just what has happened to T. S. Eliot, 75. Once the great guru of contemporary poets, Eliot has joined the "poets unfashionable" like A. E. Housman and Rupert Brooke who "condescend to rhyme and scan and take care," White told a Library of Congress audience. After a decent interval, he will be rediscovered, but for the nonce, said T.H. of T.S., "he is out--due for the chop. Eliot is no longer cool. He's square."

It started during the 1952 presidential campaign. Dwight Eisenhower, 73, and Harry Truman, 79, had some hard words to say about one another, and ever since, relations between them have been cool. But when the two ex-Presidents met in Washington for John F. Kennedy's funeral, old angers did not seem to matter so much. Eisenhower invited H.S.T. to ride with him to Ar lington, and after the burial Harry had Ike and Mamie in to Blair House for coffee and sandwiches. Quietly the two men talked of the problems and perils of the presidency. After half an hour, they parted and an aide recalled: "You could see the warmth in their eyes. They were two men who had lived in the same time, remembering things they cared about."

Paul Anka records are hard to come by in Poland, but the Poles do not consider this a blessing. In fact, they rock around the clock to all the Anka they can get from Voice of America broadcasts, and the government even invited the opiate of the masses over for a personal-appearance tour. Though offered somewhat less than his usual fee, Paul, 22, jumped at the chance to be the first big-name pop singer in years to tour the country. In eight days, he visited four cities, giving 15 performances, and the S.R.O. audiences, two-thirds of them over 30, applauded wildly, called out hours of requests and gaily sang along. It was such a boff that the government is petitioning Paul to return as soon as possible.

When a blood clot formed behind the retina of his left eye in 1958, Bob Hope, then 55, hardly cut back his activities at all. Doctors feared a partial loss of sight. But Hope sprang eternal, and the danger seemed to pass--until a month ago. Now Bob has checked into San Francisco's Children's Hospital. Though the actual treatment--powerful light beams precisely focused on the eye to dissolve the clot--is only minutes long, Hope will be sidelined for about two weeks. That means he can't do his Dec. 13 TV show, and Bing Crosby, 59, and Jack Benny, 69, volunteered to fill in. "These are two of my oldest friends," beamed Bob. "Very few people have friends that old."

Shortly after President Kennedy's assassination, the Macmillan Co. announced that it would stop shipping and promoting its bestselling J.F.K.: The Man and the Myth. The publishers felt that for the time being they should lay off ballyhooing the severely critical work by Author Victor Lasky, 46. That did not mean that bookstores were forbidden to sell copies on hand, and the book never faltered from its top position on the bestseller lists. So, with local supplies dwindling, Macmillan decided to start shipping again, though the promotion ban continues. Said a Boston bookshop manager: "I can't stand olives, but if I were running a grocery store, I would carry them. Some people like olives."

All that widespread clucking was confirmed when Kensington Palace announced that Princess Margaret, 33, is indeed expecting her second child next year. That means, if everything goes well, that there will be a royal baby a month--starting in February with Princess Alexandra, followed by Queen Elizabeth in early March, Meg in late April and the Duchess of Kent in May.

Hats add something to a woman's appearance--so they say. And Joan Crawford, 55, thinks they add a lot. She has been known to order 30 of them at a crack, and all custom-made. Photographers could hardly be blamed for zeroing in on the frizzy crown and accompanying gewgaws she chose from her vast collection to wear at the annual New York United Service Organization banquet. She was there as co-chairman of the women's division to help present the U.S.O.'s distinguished service award to General of the Army Douglas Mac-Arthur, whose own well-battered crush stirred quite a sensation in hats during World War II.

Anything for a pal, and so George ("Bullets") Durgom hopped on a golf cart to spin around the Paramount lot with Jackie Gleason, 47, last June. Awaaaay they went, recalled Gleason's former manager, in a suit he just filed. The only problem was that Gleason was "intoxicated from excessive use of alcoholic beverages," was thus "an incompetent and unfit driver of golf carts." At last, after careening all over, the cart overturned. Bullets (150 Ibs.) fell on the ground; the Great One (290 Ibs.) and the golf cart (500 Ibs.) fell on Bullets. This resulted in "severe and profound shock to the nervous system" of Bullets and also gave him a broken back. But Bullets is not mad; he is willing to let bygones be gone for only half a million clams.

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