The Woodrow Wilson Award--one of the highest honors that Princeton can bestow on an alumnus--went this year to the youngest recipient in history. Because, said President Robert F. Goheen, from his "determined and persistent efforts we may look forward to more safety in our mines, highways and factories, less explosive accidents in our gas pipelines, cleaner meat and poultry on our tables, and broader public representation in the management of large public corporations," the $1,500 prize was awarded to 38-year-old Ralph Nader.

Oldtime Swing King Benny Goodman, playing a one-night stand with his band at the Palais de Chaillot in Paris, was honored to receive one delighted Goodman fan backstage after the performance. "I was particularly thrilled when you played I'm a Ding Dong Daddy from Dumas," said U.S. Ambassador to France Arthur Watson. Whereupon the ambassador gave out with a vocal:

I'm a ding dong daddy from Dumas

And you oughta see me do my stuff.

I'm a ding dong papa from Harlem

And you oughta see me strut.

Lesser ladies may slide past their 40th birthdays with nothing but a private sob or two to mark the occasion. Not Elizabeth Taylor. In Budapest, where Husband Richard Burton is making a movie called Bluebeard, the beautiful 40-year-old invited some 200 friends in from all over the world for a couple of days of drinking and dancing and laughing and looking at the birthday girl and her jewels. The lat est Elizabethan dazzler was a present from Burton: the flat, heart-shaped diamond given by 17th century Indian Shah Jahan to his wife, Mumtaz Mahal --for whom he built the Taj Mahal. Shah Richard promised to match the cost of the pendant (guesstimate: $100,000) with a donation to charity; he also said he would give UNICEF an amount equal to the bill for the party (perhaps another $70,000). There was no shortage of flowers or balloons or big names, such as Princess Grace of Monaco, Ringo Starr, Michael Caine and Raquel Welch (whose cast on her recently broken wrist was quickly loaded with autographs). And there were plenty of little names, as well--including an impressive Welsh choir made up of five of Burton's brothers and three of his sisters, plus their spouses.

The fact that it was leap-year day probably had nothing to do with it, but while Britain's Prime Minister Edward Heath was suggesting in the House of Commons that 60-year-old Labor M.P. Barbara Castle should take her parliamentary question to one of his ministers, she suddenly broke in: 'I cannot, my dear boy." The 55-year-old Prime Minister paused, then icily informed the House: "I am not the right honorable lady's dear boy." Blushing to the roots of her red hair, Mrs. Castle sat down. It was also gaffe time in Ottawa's Parliament: Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau referred on the floor to the opposition leader's "goddamned question." Two days later he apologized on an open-line radio program. "I agree that one shouldn't use profanity," he told a shocked lady who called in. "I'm sure my grandmother wouldn't like it at all. I'm really sorry."

What Senator William Proxmire is doing the hard way with his hair transplants, Lieutenant Governor Lester Maddox has accomplished in one fell swoop. Returning to the state senate after a longish lunch hour, a new-look Maddox explained: "Sorry I'm late--I had to stop and get my new hair." Later, looking vaguely avuncular in his sandy gray toupee, he proclaimed himself a pacesetter. "You remember when I rode backwards on my bicycle--now everybody is buying bicycles," he observed. "You just watch, pretty soon everybody will be buying hairpieces."

Retiring after no less than 46 years with the New York Philharmonic, the world's top virtuoso on the kettledrums, Saul Goodman, let fall some acerbic sidelights on conductors he has known. Willem Mengelberg: "A very arrogant man. I think he was sure he looked like Beethoven." Artur Rodzinski: "The kind of fellow who made the musicians give him a birthday party at his own house." Seiji Ozawa: "An audience eye-catcher. More than that I can't say about him." Well, one thing more: "He's an egomaniac." Tympanist Goodman's own weakness--or perhaps strength--is a Casey Stengelian war with words. Conductor Lorin Maazel recalls Goodman's indignation over the original acoustics in Lincoln Center's Philharmonic Hall: "What's the point of music played in a concert hall, if the guys who can't hear what they're playing, are heard by people who wished they hadn't?"

Men are just going to have to get used to it, and in the meantime, Conrad Chisholm, 55, is setting them all a good example. As the husband of Presidential Candidate Shirley Chisholm, he has taken leave from his job as a private investigator in New York City to chauffeur the candidate around, research her speeches and "see that she's fed, clothed, eats on time and gets to her appointments. Shirley's the one out there making it, not me." Non-Chauvinist Conrad adds: "If you are a man--and a mature man--you do everything to maintain your wife's stardom."

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