MEMO from the publisher

In forthcoming issues are two contrasting examples of how SPORTS ILLUSTRATED fulfills its pleasant obligation to report the contemporary scene. Ten years ago the subjects were only in the distance.

Skin-diving, as a practical exploration for wealth and food, is almost primeval; flying, in a heavier-than-air machine, dates from 1903. But as diversions for individuals and families both are postwar phenomena as up to date as color television, frozen soup and the three-day weekend.

Last year Clare Boothe Luce wrote of her initiation and first steps into the mysterious realm where man pretends to be—and tries to meet—fish (SI, Sept. 9 and 16, 1957). Her goal was a face-to-face encounter with an angelfish. She met a jewelfish—almost good enough.

Next week she writes in the first of two articles of her continuing pursuit of underwater romance and beauty—and of the angelfish.

Last year Mrs. Luce was in Bermuda. This year it is the Bahamas. There, on the southwest reef off New Providence, she dives again, accompanied by Art Pinder, the ace of spear-fishermen. What she tells is the illuminating and humorous story of an intermediate skin-diver, seeking new worlds. And what she found David Goodnow illustrates in color pictures.

Now, private flying. Assuming you buy a plane, how would you learn to fly it; what happens after you do; and how much does it cost you?

With written advice on how they can change your way of living, SPORTS ILLUSTRATED presents pictorially the six planes, ranging in price from $5,500 to $60,000, which are most popular today among the people who fly for fun—and a chart of some 20 other planes suitable for pleasure flying. You will also find leads on where to go in your flying machine, once you know how to get it up and bring it down; for resorts from Mexico to Maine await your happy landing. And finally, Joan Dickinson, a young and pretty mother, describes how it went when she was the first to take the program which combines a vacation with private pilot training. It happened at Martha's Vineyard, and it started this year.

While doing these stories, SPORTS ILLUSTRATED came to know a flying club in Miami. Weekends it takes off for salt water. There the members skin-dive from the planes' pontoons. Then they fly home.

And that sounds about as contemporary as SPORTS ILLUSTRATED itself.

TWO ILLUSTRATIONS