HAPPY SPECTATOR
Football conjures up in nostalgia's eye a season of brisk, golden Saturday afternoons and of comfortable visits to the old campus ground, where the trees are burnished, the skies an autumnal blue and all touchdowns made at your end of the field. Unfortunately, very little football is played under such storybook conditions, but a new crop of paraphernalia has been introduced to help make a football game this fall a comfortable and exhilarating experience, no matter how hard the concrete nor how wet the rain. To keep you dry, for instance, there is a poncho of Neoprene-coated nylon ($8.95, Eddie Bauer, 160 Jackson St., Seattle 4) which folds into its own hood, has snaps to form sleeves and grommets to make it into a luggage cover; it also doubles as a before-game-picnic ground cover. For snow-country football (or for duckblinds) there are now electric socks of knitted wool with heating wires which run to a battery case at your belt ($17.95, The Gokey Co., St. Paul). And to keep your midsection just as comfortable, the JON-E hand warmer people have devised a sort of cloth money belt that fits around the waist and holds a larger version of the hand warmer ($5.95 complete). Now that you're warm, one of the best ways to sit comfortably on concrete is on a new padded leather-covered sports cushion which zips into two circles to serve as seat and back rest for one or seat for two—or for a bottle guard in transit ($5.25, Abercrombie & Fitch, N.Y.). There are new developments in the optical field of interest to all spectator sportsmen. First, there is a revolutionary 6x24 prism binocular made by E. Leitz, Inc. which has a new prism arrangement allowing for a 41% greater field of vision—resulting in a view of 636 feet at 1,000 yards, compared to 450 feet for conventional 6-power binoculars. This makes it possible to see passer and receiver simultaneously during a play. And the binocular is only 4¼ inches long and weighs 12¾ ounces ($155, with leather case, Abercrombie & Fitch). Just as handy a new binocular is a Japanese one, the first with interchangeable eyepieces, one 7x for stadium spectating, the other 12x for long distances in the field ($49.95, United Binocular Co., 9043 S. Western Ave., Chicago). And there's yet another binocular development," the German Wohler Sport Specs. They're by far the most powerful (5x) of the spectacle variety available and have plastic frames and coated lenses ($35 plus 10% tax, E. B. Meyrowitz, 520 Fifth Ave., N.Y.). The reflex-camera man now has the means of getting closeup shots of the action with a new binocular, the Bino-Foto, which also serves as a telephoto lens, converting normal lenses to 525 to 560 mm. ($124.50 with leather case, adapter and sunshade-iris diaphragm, D. P. Bushnell & Co.). But the most imaginative bit of "optical" equipment around is called the Bar Nocular. These field glasses are in a pigskin case and have two aluminum-lined 10-ounce flasks in lens cases and eyepieces which are actually one-ounce jiggers ($9.95, Damar, Elizabeth, N.J.).
ILLUSTRATION
PONCHO
ILLUSTRATION
ELECTRIC SOCKS
ILLUSTRATION
TWIN CUSHIONS
ILLUSTRATION
BINO-FOTO FOR REFLEX CAMERA
