PEOPLE

Seldom had it ever been so important for Father to win the fathers' race at a school sports day. Six-year-old Clive and 4-year-old Thurston Bannister, who had heard that the old man was a pretty good runner in his day, were anxiously waiting the outcome. So were the other chaps at the Wetherby School to whom Clive and Thurston had boasted. All was hushed expectancy as an assortment of fathers in ties, suspenders, belts, vests and cordovan shoes went to their marks. Consternation! A blue-suspendered dark horse was leading the waistcoated doctor. Only in the last few strides did Roger Bannister (below) scramble ahead of the puffing pack to earn his trophy for the 80-yard race, an extra teacake presented by the headmaster. As Bannister once said, in the really big race the great athlete "taps a source of mental power within, enabling him to take more out of himself than he knew he possessed." Or, as he put it more simply this time, "My boys would have been disappointed if I had lost."

Someone made the mistake of asking the optometrist's assistant, still dressed in her nurse's uniform and about to drive home from work, how she liked her new car. Her new car, parenthetically, is a $5,308 dark green—no, not a Thunderbird—Corvette Sting Ray with removable hardtop, special wooden steering wheel, air-conditioning, power windows, four-speed transmission and a souped-up 350 horsepower. Luci Baines Johnson smiled at the question. "How would you like it?" she said as off she flew.

"Never marry an athlete," Mrs. Bruce Hale kept telling pretty 19-year-old daughter Pam, but she had to say it with a smile. Mrs. Hale herself is the wife of the University of Miami basketball coach. Naturally, Pam ignored the advice, not the smile, and the groom at the wedding was Rick Barry, Daddy's All-America forward. There were TV cameras in attendance, the top tier of the wedding cake was shaped like a basketball, and somebody even wanted to have the invitations printed up in the form of game announcements. Pam blew the whistle on the last suggestion. "I wanted a traditional wedding," she sighed mock-forlornly. "I should have gotten an idea what it would be like back in December when my engagement was announced on the sports page."

Marlon Brando keeps himself in condition by running—and by dodging snakes. "I live in the Hollywood hills," the high-living actor explains, "and I've discovered lots of old paths that lead far into the mountains. I've been exploring them lately, running at a trot. The area is alive with rattlesnakes, sidewinders, deer, bobcats, owls and all sorts of things. The rattlesnakes you can hear, but you've really got to watch out for those sidewinders. I wear boots on my running hikes, and I take my Saint Bernard and mastiff along for protection."

Cassius Clay's next fight will be with a more formidable opponent: his wife. Cassius is suing for annulment on the ground that she falsely promised to become a Black Muslim, but pretty Sonji Clay does not intend to succumb in one. "I will fight to keep my husband," she says. "I just want to be his wife, and I won't let them take him away from me just like that. I've tried to accept this religion, but it's very hard to change to the way they want me to be." Giving up tobacco, liquor and pork wasn't so bad, Sonji elaborated, but those floor-length white dresses were too much. "I'm normal like other women," she said. "I don't like to wear that stuff."

You've heard of hunch bettors. Well, Bing Crosby is a hunch buyer. Bing's wife, Kathy, was appearing in summer stock at a theater on a street named Meadows Drive. Running in the Irish Sweeps Derby was a horse by the name of Meadow Court. That was good enough for Crosby. The night before the race, he purchased a one-third share in the animal and, sure enough, the next day Meadow Court came home, earning a $155,820 purse. Said Crosby: "Wait until Hope finds out."

A. J. Foyt, who hasn't finished a race on a cement track since last July 18, isn't taking any chances on his next start; he's following the advice of a friendly astrologer. "A lady astrologer told me to expect some trouble," says Foyt. "She said I'd have hard luck until late July or August and warned me to check all the parts of my race car. Of course I don't believe in astrology or things like that. But I've always believed in checking out the equipment."

Being a small minority is terrible, and nowhere is it more so than in the House of Representatives. The 10 female Representatives know this and were not much surprised when they got a little corner near the underground garage in the new House Office Building as a gymnasium, quite in contrast to the magnificent men's gym. They do wish that what they have would work, though. Their two electric steam baths, for example, while no match for the men's sauna baths and shock sprays, would be nicer if there were outlets to plug them into. The lone ping-pong table doesn't rival the men's three lavish paddle-ball courts, but it might if the paddles and balls weren't locked up in an apparently keyless cabinet. While Leonor Sullivan (D., Mo.) used the first working equipment she could find (below), Martha Griffiths (D., Mich.) related the outcome of the women's long, hard battle to use the Rayburn swimming pool. Congressmen finally gave grudging consent to admission from 7:30 to 9:30 a.m. on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays. And when one early-rising woman appeared at the pool at 8 a.m., the door was locked.

TWO PHOTOS