PEOPLE

Wilt Chamberlain, all 7'1" of him, has been swooping about on the Russian River in Healdsburg, Calif. behind his custom-made boat on what have to be custom-made skis. Wilt, starting his second summer of water skiing, is pretty good. He does sink from time to time, but a photographer friend claims he doesn't mind. In fact, he says, "He is very happy about it." He may, of course, be sitting on the bottom.

State Representative Marion (Slugger) Klingensmith, who is a former prizefighter, has had a new law entered on Pennsylvania's books. May 21 of each year is in the future to be Bird Day, a day to be devoted to the study of birds, their beauty and usefulness.

The Reds' Pete Rose had Forward Pass in the clubhouse pool for the Derby. That was O.K. with his teammates—they didn't have to pay off—but Rose also had Forward Pass in the Preakness, Stage Door Johnny in the Belmont, Bob Goalby in the Masters and Bobby Unser in the Indianapolis 500. Fortunately Rose has been leading the National League in hitting for most of the season. Considering what he is doing to his teammates in the pools, it is just as well he is doing a little something for them at the plate.

Over the years Professional Wrestler Turo Tanaka has been stabbed with knives and cut with razors, bitten on the arms and legs, gouged with high heels and hatpins, kicked in the head, ribs and groin with steel-toed boots, burned with cigarettes, hit with bottles, chairs and crutches. He remains, in spite of all this, a gentle man, a PTA-goer fond of children, dogs and, fairly recently, golf. So far he finds the game relaxing, though he adds, "I'm terrible, but I'm determined to beat it." This may spell the beginning of the end of Tanaka's sweet nature. A mere kick in the ribs with a steel-toed boot is never going to tear up the human nervous system like a determination to beat the game of golf.

"I always thought Charlie could eat," says Beverly Krueger of her husband Charlie Krueger, the 49ers' defensive tackle, "but that was before his brothers came to visit." Charlie is 6'4" and weighs 255. His younger brother Rolfen is 6'5" and weighs 245. Baby brother Kent is only 6'3", but he weighs 265. When Kent came to visit, Beverly cooked 20 eggs for breakfast, of which she had two, Charlie had three and Kent had 15. Well, Kent is a growing boy. He is only 13.

St. Clive Hulme, father of New Zealand's World Champion Race Driver Denis Hulme, literally stopped the traffic in the streets of Melbourne recently. While visiting from New Zealand to attend services commemorating the Battle of Crete, where he won the Victoria Cross, Hulme took out his divining rod and began sniffing around the city. "I've never been wrong yet," he announced. "In New Zealand I've been responsible for 1,314 successful bores. Gold, coal and oil can all be found this way." In Melbourne Mr. Hulme was just looking for water. Threading his way among trams, lorries, buses and automobiles he found in no time the underground stream at the Collins Street-Swanson Street intersection and went on to locate water beneath the town hall, the civic square and the treasury gardens. It's an interesting gift Denis' father has there, but not one his boy needed in Indianapolis this year, where he and the other contenders stood around in the rain for 19 out of the 24 days before the race.

The German Olympic Committee has commissioned Spanish Painter Joan Miró to do the official poster for the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. Miró, a small man, spry at 75, says that he does 15 minutes of calisthenics every morning and recalls, "When I was a young man I took up boxing. I became a pretty fair welterweight. One day in Paris my friend Ernest Hemingway suggested teaching me how to box. We began sparring, enormous Hemingway and very little me. I guess he was surprised to see that I had some idea of how to fight. 'You show promise, Joan,' he said to me. 'Keep at it.' " As for the future Olympic Games in Munich, the great painter said, "I have never seen an Olympics, but if I paint a good poster I guess I'll be invited."

Word has recently come from Texas that Dick Campbell, a junior defensive end for the Texas Tech Red Raiders, has auditioned for and won the role of Caesar in a variety show to be performed this summer at a big Texas amusement park, and it is whispered that the costume does full justice to his "26½-inch football-player's thighs."

Ted Williams has been keeping a secret of his marriage (No. 3) to the former Dolores Wettach, pretty, dark-haired outdoors-lover from Vermont. The catch was made some time ago on one of Williams' fishing trips out of the country.

TWO PHOTOS