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EVENTS & DISCOVERIES
WESTWARD, HO
In case anyone was still in a state of suspense, the New York Giants made itofficial this week. They will move to San Francisco.
LOP, POPPLE &SWELLS
Three times, inearly morning stillnesses last week, Donald Campbell walked out on a metal rampset in the shallows of New York's Lake Canandaigua, eased himself into thecockpit of his jet-powered Bluebird and addressed himself to the shocking taskof breaking his own 225.63 mph world speed record for water. He is a handsome,stocky fellow with thick, disordered brown hair and a stubborn and sensitiveface. He moved and talked casually as he pulled a bright yellow life jacketover his pale blue flying suit, crouched in his narrow metal den, adjusted hisfighter plane harness and pulled on a golden crash helmet and oxygen mask. Buteach time, as one of his crew sealed him under Bluebird's Plexiglas canopy, itwas a little like watching a man being strapped into an electric chair.
For all hisburning fascination with speed, Campbell is no daredevil; indeed, he says:"I'm getting to be a very nervous fellow." Although he was intent ontwo measured kilometer runs of 250 mph, he had long since discovered that LakeCanandaigua is not a proper surface for such speeds. It is a resort lake andmore than a thousand potentially dangerous pleasure craft are moored around itsshores. Worse, it is subject to faint but persistent swells which are virtuallyinvisible to the naked eye but which become iron-hard ruts at 200 mph.
No one in theworld understands the dangers of running on disturbed water better thanCampbell; it is he, in fact, who is responsible for most of today's knowledgeof the so-called "water barrier." Any structure has its own criticalrhythm—a point at which its vibrations begin re-enforcing each other. Tacoma'sNarrows Bridge shook itself to pieces in a wind. John Cobb died when his jetboat disintegrated while vibrating seven times a second at 206 mph. Bluebird,too, of course, is subject to this same deadly effect. A two-inch wave at 200mph causes 6 Gs of vertical stress ("You feel," says Campbell, "asthough you're tied to a trip hammer"), and stress increases fantasticallyas speed goes up—3 Gs at 100 mph would become 27 Gs at 300. And all the whileBluebird must be handled as delicately as "an automobile going 100 mph onice."
For all this,Campbell—who must be a sort of carnival attraction as well as a driver tofinance his adventures—was resolved to make the best of his troubles.Civic-minded citizens of Canandaigua (pop. 9,000) had raised money to bringboat and crew from England in the hopes of attracting tourists to an exhibitionarea and financing a new YMCA building. They went $50,000 in the red instead.Nevertheless they labored mightily in Campbell's cause—a fleet of 29 patrolboats was organized to police the course, and volunteers called at hundreds ofhomes on the lakeshore before each run to warn boat owners. A new record mightbail Canandaigua out—Bluebird will be exhibited in Canada this month and thetown will benefit from the proceeds.
At dawn onThursday morning a windsock at the lakeshore hung motionless. Not a leaf moved.The lake shimmered with infinitesimal ripples which Campbell and his crew call"popple" (slightly bigger ripples are "lop") but under them theever-present swell still moved. Bluebird made four runs—two each way over afour-mile course and past great yellow balloons moored on the surface to markthe critical kilometer. It was a fantastic sight: each time the boat creptslowly away screaming like a floating sawmill, accelerated gradually, rumbledand then suddenly disappeared in a cloud of smoke and steam, as thoughBeelzebub himself were tearing along just below the surface.
Campbell cameback looking wan. He had reached 220 on one run but had averaged only 204.5."That bloody swell," he muttered. "I had 4 Gs on the meter—at 250I'd have had 10—it was just simple mathematics." He had one more day; afterthat the official timers from the American Power Boat Association would depart.That night it rained. But at dawn, miraculously, there was no swell. Campbellwas in the cockpit almost as soon as Bluebird was in the water and was movingonly a minute or so later, unaware that a power boat had just crossed the lake,miles away, and that its waves were rolling up the course.
Bluebird enteredthe measured kilometer at 240 mph, looking less like a boat on the flat waterthan like a racing car raising a long streamer of dust on a desert. Then, witha great squirt of spume, it bounced and was airborne, just over the water, forperhaps 200 feet. It bounced like a skipped stone and sailed again—with a soundlike a laboring locomotive, "choo-choo-choo-choo-chooooo"—and wenttearing off out of sight.
That ended thehope for the record and almost ended Campbell. "I don't know how we gotaway with it," he said afterward. "After we hit that wave we were offthe water so long I could just sit there and contemplate it. The boat went offwith one shoe higher than the other—I just don't know why the lower one didn'tdig and roll us when we came down. I could only ease the throttle off a little.We came out of it at 210. The engine felt sick coming back [he did 198 on thereturn for an average of 209.75], and we're through." He walked to a parkedcar and leaned against it. After a bit he said: "I could cry."
TENNISLESSONS
Australia's LewHoad, who was a problem boy in amateur tennis, due to a tendency toward nottrying hard enough if displeased, has now become the problem boy ofprofessional tennis due—or at least this is Promoter Jack Kramer's hopefultheory—to a sudden tendency toward trying too hard all the time. Since winningat Wimbledon and signing a $125,000 contract for one year, he has been beatenby virtually everyone in the pro game. In the Los Angeles Masters Tournament,he did not even win a set while losing eight times in a row—a performancedramatized by the fact that the North American Newspaper Alliance wassimultaneously publishing a series of daily tennis lessons by Lew Hoad.
Last week,however, he was hustled off to Europe to take lessons himself and regain hisconfidence in matches in France, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, England, Italyand Africa. At any rate Promoter Kramer hoped so. Kramer is bedeviled by 1) thefact that Pancho Gonzales is so good that it is almost impossible for fans toget excited during his matches, and 2) by the fact that Pancho is demanding 30%of the gross of next winter's whole pro tennis tour. "I plan to work withHoad a lot," Kramer promised. "He has been forced into a state ofconfusion where he has suffered a loss of confidence. We hope to remake hisgame to fit professional standards." After a moment—perhaps spent incontemplation of his $125,000—he added: "He is as strong as a bull. Ibelieve he will prove too much for Gonzales in the long run."
DIVERSITY,U.S.A.
Who sued anewspaper for a million dollars for calling him an ignoramus, and collected 6¢damages?"
"HenryFord," answered Herb Flam, a onetime business major at UCLA, and he wasright for $8,000.
For answeringthis and similar questions correctly, UCLA's Herb Flam, better known as thenation's second-ranking amateur tennis player, reached another plateau on CBS's$64,000 Question and was thereby entitled to try for $16,000 this week.
"Do you takethis woman to be your lawful wedded wife?"
"I do,"answered Lee Calhoun, Olympic 110-meter hurdles champion, on NBC's Bride andGroom show.
For the rightanswer to this question, Olympian Calhoun and his wife, the former GwendolynBannister, received a honeymoon trip to Paris, about $2,000 worth of gifts andloss of Lee's amateur standing.
ReasonedPresident Renville Mc-Mann of the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association: "He [Flam]is not profiting from tennis. He is helping tennis by showing that players knowmore than how to hit a ball...I was glad to see him get an honest buckaboveboard rather than under the table."
Reasoned theCarolinas' AAU, which promptly invoked Rule VII, Section 4 and canceledCalhoun's amateur registration card: Calhoun was guilty of "participatingin a radio or television broadcast either directly or indirectly connected withan advertisement."
PURPLE MOUNTAINMAJESTIES
After five yearsof trying, the Rev. F. W. McDermott of Springfield, Ill., a Baptist minister,has climbed to the top of the highest peaks in each of the 48 states. A weekago he descended in triumph from his last challenge, 12,850-foot Granite Peakin the Bear-tooth Mountains of Montana. The week before, he climbed 13,785-footGannett Peak, highest in Wyoming, and the week before that he made his way intothe remote Lost River Range of Idaho and climbed Borah Peak, which rises asturdy 12,655 feet.
Now 58, McDermottbegan climbing when he was a young pastor in Hannibal, N.Y., leading his BoyScout troop on Adirondack hikes. He was president of Rio Grande College in Ohioin 1952 when it occurred to him that he had scaled the peaks of 24 states andmight as well conquer the remainder. Now the highest mountain in Ohio is eitherCampbell Hill, 1,550 feet, or Hogue's Hill, approximately ditto, both nearBellefontaine; but since Bellefontaine itself stands 1,215 feet above sea levelthese adjacent slopes can hardly be called towering, and the most gruelingeffort involved locating the markers in the flat land. Where there was adispute as to which point was higher, McDermott climbed both.
He found thehighest point of Delaware, rising a sheer 440 feet above the Brandywine Valley,scarcely higher than the trees that grow on its foothills. The lowest highpoint of any state in the union is to be found in Florida. There a 345-foothill near Walton presents no insuperable obstacle to an experienced mountainclimber—if he can find it. Once started on his task, Parson McDermott scaledthe heights of Mount Driskill in Louisiana (535 feet), Jerimoth Hill in RhodeIsland (812), Mount Sassafras in South Carolina (3,560), Ocheyedan Mound inIowa (1,675) and Greenfork Top in Indiana (1,240). Some of these low-levelpeaks presented problems that would crush an Alpine guide. Trying to mount tothe summit of 1,951-foot Sugarbush Hill in Wisconsin, McDermott found itsurrounded by a strong wire fence. It appeared to be part of some governmentinstallation, and while he eventually conquered it, he did so only afterconsiderable dispute with suspicious officials who were unable to comprehendhis purpose.
His daughterBetty accompanied him on his climbs to the high points of 17 states, includingMount Backbone in Maryland (3,360), Brasstown Bald (4,784) in Georgia, SpruceKnob (4,860) in West Virginia, Wheeler Peak (13,151) in New Mexico and MountWhitney (14,495), highest of the 48, in California. They started up HumphreysPeak in the San Francisco Mountains, the highest peak in Arizona (12,655), andwere near the peak of an adjacent height, which they had mistaken for thesummit, when they were struck by lightning. McDermott was knocked backwardagainst his daughter, who slipped and fell and, as they were on a high point,each thought the other had vanished over the cliff. When they found each otherthey managed to get down, both suffering from shock, and the following weekreached the real peak, this time with a party.
MeanwhileMcDermott made his home in Illinois (highest point, Charles Mound, 1,241 feet),heading a fund-raising drive for Shurtleff College and later serving assecretary of the fund-raising division of the Illinois Baptist Convention. Thesearch for high ground continued—Mount Elbert's 14,495 in Colorado and thehighest spot in Kansas, which looked high on the map (4,135) but which turnedout to be surrounded by a plateau roughly 4,134 feet high. Last summerMcDermott climbed Rainier in Washington and was halfway up Borah Peak in Idahowith his younger daughter Lorena, when she became ill and he had to come down,so last month's ascent of Borah was the second of several climbs he had to maketwice. All told, 273,461 feet of the purple mountain majesties of America thebeautiful lay behind him at the completion of his task, or just over 51½vertical miles, and there was no question but that he is not only the only manever to climb to the highest points of all the states—he is likely the only manwho even knows what they all are.
GAME CALLED
This, ourcorrespondent reports, is the way it happened—on a quiet street in suburbanLong Island one sunny afternoon last week:
The little girlwith the pony tail hairdo was about 8 years old, and she stood on the edge ofthe front lawn watching four boys at hurly-burly horseplay. The boys, from twoto four years older, were tumbling and wrestling over the lawn, yipping andsnorting in four-part harmony. If the little girl betrayed the urge to join thefun, it was only by occasionally raising herself on tiptoes and leaning towardthe action—and each time she lowered herself with resignation.
One of the boysbegan turning cart wheels and instantly all four were at it—clumsy, coltish,turning two in succession, at the most, before they collapsed. Moving a bitcloser, the little girl began turning cart wheels too—gracefully and in aperfect circle. Every other wheel, she flipped herself over with one handinstead of two.
There was amoment of quiet as all four boys watched her and then, with a yip, one of themstarted standing on his hands. Immediately, the other three were trying it. Onepulled out a pocket watch and began timing the others to see who could hold thehandstand longest. None got past three or four seconds, and all the while thelittle girl was jumping up and down, pony tail bobbing furiously, and calling,"Time me too! Time me too!"
Ignoredcompletely, she finally flipped herself onto her hands just as one of the boysgot on his.
"One...two..." the timer sang out, "three.... four...(here the boytumbled in a heap)...five...six...seven...." The timer trailed off. Thelittle girl balanced herself straight and still. The quiet lasted a bit longerthis time.
"Time me onmy head!" one of the boys yelled, and up he went and held it for 18seconds. The little girl watched until all of them tried a headstand. Then, asthe boy who was best at it got up for the second time, she did too.
Wobbling all thewhile, the boy lasted for 27 seconds. From then on, there was dead silence foranother minute and 20 seconds. The boys stared. The little girl held true.
One boy finallybroke the spell. "Let's play ball!" he yelled. "I'm going home andget my mitt!"—and all four turned away and ran off.
The little girlgot down slowly from her headstand. She stood watching the four retreatingfigures. Then she took possession of the lawn with one long burst of cartwheels.
MASSACHUSETTSSIGHTING
Laconic dispatchto this magazine from a correspondent regularly assigned to regionalintelligence for FISHERMAN'S CALENDAR:
"MASSACHUSETTS: Two-headed sea monster sighted by Harwich Port Skipper BudMcKenney off Pollock Rip. 'It was making 100-pound tuna act like sand eelsbeing pursued in the surf,' reports Captain McKenney, whose discovery wascorroborated by Skipper Carl White of the Old Striper."
Sea Serpents havebeen disturbing Massachusetts mariners on and off ever since a 120-footsmoke-belching monster, whipping along at 15 mph, caught the eye of CaptainElkanah Finney off Warrens Cove near Plymouth in 1815. It or various relativesreappeared in Gloucester Harbor, at Rye Point and elsewhere along the coastfrom time to time. One was sufficiently incautious to come within firing rangeof Captain Matthew Gaffney, who harmlessly discharged a rifle at the creature.Captain McKenney's serpent, first to be sighted in many years, may indicate areturn to Massachusetts waters. But as FISHERMAN'S CALENDAR (see page 9) mightsay: OP.
TOP MAN
A dashing fencer,very bald,
Desired to look très gaie;
But when opponents scored a point
They always cried, "Toupee!"
—LINETTE BURTON
CURRENT WEEK AND WHAT'S AHEAD
•Horse of the Week
The gallant little 3-year-old, Gallant Man, moved closer to theHorse-of-the-Year title by winning the 88th running of the Travers at Saratoga,but it was a horse race. With Bold Ruler ailing with an injured shouldermuscle, Trainer Sunny Jim Fitz-simmons saddled Ogden Phipps' Bureaucracy, senthim out (at 11 to 1) to "try to reach out and steal it," missed by halfa length.
•Preview at Houston
The U.S. unveiled its latest generation of girl swimmers at the Women's AAUmeet in Houston, watched nine U.S.-citizen marks fall—all to girls 17 or under.The youngest: 13-year-old Chris Von Salta, who set three.
•Resignation in Detroit
Moody Buddy Parker, coach of Detroit's football Lions, startled a boosterbanquet by resigning ("I've got a situation here I can't handle").Perhaps contributing to Parker's gloom: needling by an earlier speaker, OttoGraham, who jibed, "[Cleveland] had a standard fine of $500 for curfewviolations. If that held on this club, some players would be bankrupt."
•Appointment in Indianapolis
World Champion Juan Manuel Fangio wouldn't race with the Indianapolis driversin the Monza "500" this summer (European cars unsuitable), but expecthim to invade Indy itself next year in an Indy car.
ILLUSTRATION
"This is Monitor in the English Channel returning you to Radio Central."
TWO ILLUSTRATIONS
