It's rough, being stuck with $50 million worth of tea leaves. "The day I live for," says Huntington Hartford, 53, the A. & P. heir, "is the day somebody mentions my name and doesn't immediately add A. & P. heir." One plot he brewed to this end was to buy 700 acres of a Bahama isle named Paradise for $14 million and turn it into a play ground hardly anyone could afford. He built a 52-room hotel (rates: up to $135 a day), nightclub, golf course (pro: Gary Player), and tennis courts (pro: Pancho Gonzales), but, says his broker, "You just can't pay for Gonzales and Player with 52 guests." So now Paradise is for sale somewhere this side of $32 million.

Like any convocation of veterans, they compared waistlines. But it was not just an American Legion wingding. It was a Manhattan dinner for 103 of the 282 living holders of the Congressional Medal of Honor, and eulogizing them were Dwight Eisenhower and Omar Bradley. The heroes included some famous names, such as Flying Ace Eddie Riclcenbacker, 74. But there were more like Stephen Gregg, 49, who singlehanded cleared a hill of Germans in 1944, then returned to a peacetime job as a New Jersey courtroom supervisor. They seemed delighted to be there -- and reluctant to discuss the reasons why. "Hero?" snorted Herbert Hoover Burr, 44, who drove his flaming tank into a German 88-mm.-gun position and destroyed it. "Hell, if I'd been born early enough to fight in the Revolution, I might have been Aaron Burr, not Herb Burr."

First there was the 44 1/2-carat Hope Diamond that he gave to the Smithsonian in 1958. Now Manhattan Jeweler Harry Winston, 68, has given the Smithsonian another rock: a 253.7-carat uncut stone that is the largest of its kind in any museum. South Africa's Harry Oppenheimer, 55, sold it to him for much less than the $1,000,000 or so Winston might pay for such a stone for commercial use--because both knew its eventual destination. "The Smithsonian thought it would be interesting for the public to see what a diamond in the rough looked like," says Winston, who can deduct the cost as a charitable expense. "After all, America was built by such men."

Thirty is supposed to be getting along for a nymph. But somehow, when la belle bebe ripened into what in others might be called maturity, the greatest concern of gallant Gauls was whether Brigitte Bardot herself would mind. "She declared to me that she no longer wants to appear nude on the screen," reported one clearly concerned correspondent. "What a shame! At 40, she could still show everything and reassure her contemporaries." Courage, amis. B.B. herself has said: "This fame that I love, that frightens me, I will do anything to keep and deserve."

Jimmy Walker's town car was a Duesenberg. And Clark Gable and Gary Cooper both had roadsters. No wonder. The rakish aristocrats from Indianapolis, built between 1921 and 1937, were the truest luxury cars the U.S. has ever produced, sold for between $14,000 and $30,000. Now Fred ("Fritz") Duesenberg, 56, son and nephew of the original builders, plans to razzle-dazzle a new generation. His Duesenberg will be made in Indianapolis some time next year, with coachwork handcrafted in Italy. Price tag, $18,000 and up. "For ten or 15 years," says Fritz, "I've been jolted by everybody. The U.S. needs a prestige car, they say. Why not bring back the Duesenberg?"

"Unemployed," wrote Robert F. Kennedy Jr., 10, for his father's occupation, as he filled out the form for the Sidwell Friends school in Washington. But the teacher didn't think that looked too good, "and I agree," said his father, so he wrote in "Looking for higher political office" instead.

Had he not died of brain tuberculosis in 1938, Novelist Thomas Wolfe might have been 64 last week. And on his birthday, visitors were admitted free to the Asheville, N.C., boardinghouse, now a museum, that he grew up in and later reincarnated in Look Homeward, Angel. Elsewhere, a kind of Angelus was said. In Manhattan, a plaque was placed on the wall of the Chelsea Hotel, where Wolfe spent his last two years. Room 829, where he wrote You Can't Go Home Again, was reserved. Said the manager: "We're always receiving requests from Wolfe enthusiasts who want to stay in it."

His brother selected his own mate. But this time the family did things the traditional way and called in a committee from the Imperial Household to pick a bride for Japan's Prince Yoshi, 28, the Emperor's younger son, a Ph.D. candidate at Tokyo University. Starting with a little list of 2,400 entries, they chose Hanako Tsugaru, 24, daughter of a lord of northern Japan, and in age-old Shinto rites the couple were wed, with TV averting its eye for the most sacred moments. According to custom, the Emperor and Empress could not attend, but posed at the palace afterward, for the official photo.

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