PEOPLE

Arnold Palmer climaxed a long stretch of bad luck by taking two bizarre two-stroke penalties on home grounds at the PGA in Ligonier, Pa. One private suffering along in Arnie's Army was more dismayed than most. "By golly, Arnie just hasn't been the same since he took my advice," said golfer Dwight Eisenhower, partially blaming himself for Palmer's ill fortune. And what did Ike advise? "I strongly urged him to give up smoking."

Minnesota Twins Manager Sam Mele is getting every kind of help from his womenfolk. The day he got a telegram from the American League notifying him that he had been fined $500 for a set-to with umpire Bill Valentine, Mrs. Mele observed complacently that, with the $500 she had won on a quiz show earlier this season, they had just broken even between the two of them. Then she volunteered to go on television again. About the same time, Mrs. Anthony Mele, 73-year-old mother of Sabath Anthony, was explaining to reporters why she is rooting for the Twins to win the pennant rather than the White Sox, coached by her brother, Tony Cuccinello. "Sam's family needs the money more," she said. But Mele's wife retained the helpfulness title. The Meles are expecting, along with a World Series and a new house, a new baby in the first week of October. Mrs. Mele promised: "I'll be with Sam at Metropolitan Stadium for the World Series if I have to have the baby on the mound."

And then there was Gene Mingo of Oakland, Calif. Shortly before the Raiders' game against San Diego, Mingo learned that his wife Erma had given birth to their fourth child. Gene was, as usual, warming the bench—until a moment in the third quarter when Coach Al Davis was about to put in his punting team. Mingo leapt up and asked for a chance to try a field goal. Davis agreed. Seconds later the Raiders had a 10-3 lead and Mingo had a 49-yard field goal to his—and hours-old son Gene Jr.'s—credit.

Besides writing Wild Animals I Have Known and many other popular nature books, the late Ernest Thompson Seton was an illustrator of some distinction, as well as a portrait and landscape painter. He also was a leader in founding the Boy Scouts of America in 1910 and wrote its first manual. He devoted his later years to lecturing and writing and to a teaching institute at his 45-room "Seton Castle" near Santa Fe, N. Mex. After his death his widow kept the castle, with its many books, drawings and exhibits, open to students and tours. An individualist with a pixie sense of humor, Julia Seton was often accused of placing an unusual number of her husband's sketches of nudes on display whenever a particularly staid group was due. Last week Mrs. Seton announced that she is giving the Scouts 69,000 books, 3,200 paintings, 2,000 animal and bird skins, the Indian Museum at Seton Castle and the use of the castle itself. Under the Scouts, Seton Castle will continue to be used for display of nature study exhibits, albeit with few nudes.

For a player who was drafted by two pro teams, Fred Polser, 240-pound 6-5 defensive end from East Texas State, didn't last long. Released by the San Francisco 49ers after a short try-out, Polser checked into the cross-bay Oakland Raiders' Santa Rosa camp. On his way to pick up his gear, Fred met the man he would have to beat out: 280-pound 6-foot-7 Ben (The Tree) Davidson—a tree with a fierce red mustache. "I don't think I can make this club either," Polser mumbled, pivoting on his heel and leaving for Texas.

James Stillman Rockefeller Jr. (son of First National City Bank Board Chairman James S. Rockefeller and the former Nancy Carnegie, in case you have difficulty keeping them all straight) has long nurtured a mania for the Friendship sloop of Maine fame. He once sailed such a craft to the South Seas. About a year ago James decided he might as well go into the business and make his own. He started Bald Mountain Boat Works, attached to his home on Bald Mountain in Camden, Me., to build Friendships, other traditional Maine boats and gunning dories. And if you think a mountain is a strange place for a boat works, you just don't know James S. Rockefeller Jr. When Old Baldy, his 25-foot pilot-model Friendship, was finished, it was five miles away from the water. He moved it down the mountain in the tried and tested Maine way. Oxen.

Mayor Hugh T. Cropper Jr. of Ocean City, Md. is up in the air about kites. As anybody who has ever napped while sunbathing on the beach can tell you, the worst way to be awakened is to be dashed with a pail of cold water. The second worst, as bathers at Ocean City affirm, is to have one's pelt punctured by a sharp foreign object. Kites, these days, usually are made of thin sheets of plastic stretched over a stick frame, the front of which ends in a sharp point capable of extracting mighty oaths if nosedived onto a snoozing sun bather. So Cropper has banned kites at beaches. But he has fears of coming a cropper politically anyway. "We've banned so much lately," he sighs, "that I'd hate to have it hit the newspapers that we're trying to keep little kids from flying kites."

Russian High Jumper Valeri Brumel, holder of the world altitude record, had a little problem with height at the Moskva Hotel in Kiev before the U.S.-Russia meet. Seized by an attack of dizziness, Brumel had to be moved to a room nine floors lower. Height, it seems, gives Brumel vertigo.

Novelist Edna Ferber, on the occasion of her 78th birthday, was reluctant to offer advice to her juniors, but revealed some of her own rules: "I've never observed a birthday. I walk two miles a day. I've got all my teeth and I eat steak."

Freeman (Amos) Gosden of the old Amos 'n' Andy show back in the golden age of radio shot a respectable 82 recently to win the handicap golf tournament at Laurance Rockefeller's Mauna Kea Beach Hotel on Hawaii. How about that, Kingfish?

A rather thoroughly outfitted King Gustaf of Sweden (below) went fishing for a fortnight in Lapland. Since Gustaf Adolf's catches of trout ran about half a pound each, it was something of a case of expecting sea monsters and catching minnows. The tone of the whole trip was more or less set at the beginning when, after a 435-mile flight from Stockholm, the 82-year-old monarch's helicopter made a forced landing on a mountainside. Day after day of rain followed, the king caught a cold and the catches remained comically poor. Finally Gustaf retreated to his lodge in the village of Tärna and good-naturedly settled for sessions of his favorite card game, canasta.

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