The Week That Is

Despite war, smog and calamity, Americans have a chance this week to find relief from gloom. For one thing, it is National Smile Week, with Actors Raymond Bailey and Irene Ryan of The Beverly Hillbillies as king and queen. It is also National Beauty Queen Week, "to call local and national attention to the promotion of beauty queens and their value to the economy"--though the cause took a small set back last week when 18-year-old Robyn Louise Rawers, monarch of Redwood City, Calif., was arrested for stealing clothes and cash from a sports shop. Best of all, Tuesday is Lizzie Borden Liberation Day. While the jury acquitted the famous lady from Fall River, Mass., popular legend has long since convicted her of parricide in the bloody 1892 ax murders. "Fortunately there are some of us alive who will never accept her guilt," says Bill Rabe of Sault Sainte Marie, Mich., spokesman for the 1,000-member Friends of Lizzie Borden. Each of Lizzie's friends commemorates the 78th anniversary of her parents' deaths in his own way. Rabe walks to the outskirts of Sault Sainte Marie carrying an ax, buries it in an unsuspecting oak tree, strolls back into town and gets drunk.

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