Wheel Wham!

There are some 20 million skateboarders careening about the streets and sidewalks of America these days, and their breakneck antics will lead to no fewer than 375,000 injuries this year. About 150,000 of them will require hospital treatment.

The injury total, projected by Washington's Consumer Product Safety Commission, is double last year's and really moves skateboarding high up there on the list of hazardous leisure activities. For the first time, it is expected to result in more injuries than nonprofessional football (370,000) and will rank second only to bicycling accidents (with 90 million cyclists, 1.2 million injuries are anticipated for 1977). Fatalities are still a skateboarding rarity; the commission has noted only 24 in the past four years, the result of head injuries or collision with automobiles. The major causes of all those accidents are not too surprising: inexperience (37% occur in the first week of skateboard use) and "environmental conditions"--potholes, for instance. As a precaution against major and minor forms of wipeout, the commission is strongly urging the wearing of safety gear, such as helmets, kneepads and athletic shoes. Safe skateboarding, it seems, does not lend itself to hanging ten.

H.M.S. Semaphore

To the tune of When I Was a Lad:

The singing telegram passed away When Western Union said it did

not pay.

But in San Francisco only two

years back Two fellows thought they'd give it

yet another crack.

Soon they were doing just

beautifully And now they have a firm that sings

from sea to sea.

So Western Onion quickly grew To some 70 members from the

founding two.

You can hire a singer to perform

at your door For just $25 (custom lyrics cost

more).

They deliver their messages so

skillfully That now they have a firm that

sings from sea to sea.

And emulators soon came along Who offered attractions in addition

to song.

There's a belly dancer, a

ventriloquist too, And someone who 'II deliver a

newscast to you.

They all deliver messages so

skillfully That the firms are drawing notice

now from sea to sea.

Sorry, Gilbert. Thanks, Sullivan.

Competing for the (Hie!) Highest Score

Electronic breath analyzers have long been standard equipment for highway patrolmen. Now they are also featured in about 150 bars in at least eleven states (and some 400 pubs in Canada as well). A drinker merely drops a quarter in a slot and blows in a straw. The machine then registers the alcohol level in his or her blood. In most states, anyone with a reading of more than .10% alcohol in the blood is considered legally drunk.

One study of users showed that 10% of those who tried the machine and were above the limit decided not to chance driving. But most bar owners and customers consider the machine a gag item, and some even compete for the highest score. In one Des Moines cocktail lounge, a waitress tells of two regulars who tied for the record. "You're supposed to be dead if you get the thing up to .50," says she, "but these guys both scored .49 and they didn't even look bad."

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