PEOPLE
For sale. Holstein and Guernsey herd, farm equipment and two bushels of golf balls. 562-5307.
There is a story, as one might suspect, behind the classified ad that appeared in the Lincoln (Ontario) Post-Express. Walter Pulchinski owns a nice little 50-acre farm near Lincoln. He used to own 35 cows, too, but had to give up the dairy business. His cows kept eating golf balls. Walter's farm is bounded on two sides by the Twenty Valley Golf and Country Club, which happens to have a particularly troublesome 10th hole: a 525-yard par-5 with the tee in a valley and a creek 125 yards out. As club Pro George Louth says, "It's uphill and you have to get over that creek, so there's lots of duck hooks." Most of the duck hooks wound up at the feet of Walter's grazing cattle, which took a liking to ruminating on elastic, rubber and glue after spitting out the untasty covers. But even with four stomachs, a cow can't take a steady diet of golf balls. Milk production dropped by half and 17 calves died before Pulchinski figured out what was happening. The story has a happy ending, though. Pulchinski agreed with the club that the 10th is a problem hole; he's shanked many a drive there himself and once nearly zonked one of his own cows. The club agreed to pay $90 per calf, $35 for the vet and $35 for cow medicine. Walter sold his herd—but found no market for the uneaten golf balls.
When snow fell in Akron while Evonne Goolagong was competing in a tennis match there, she just had to touch some of it. And taste it. Born and raised in New South Wales, Australia, Miss Goolagong had never seen anything like it outside a sherbet dish. She wasn't entirely sure she liked it.
On a trip to Alaska to help save the Arctic wolves, Anne Morton, wife of Interior Secretary Rogers Morton, was endangered by—a pack of canines. Her dog team ran off without a driver, dragging Mrs. Morton for two miles before dumping her into 10-foot snowdrifts. None of the wolf savers even noticed she was missing until other sleds carrying Interior Department personnel happened upon her floundering in the snow.
When a collection of racing drivers got a chance to compete in cricket, golf and Frisbee, it was Jackie Stewart who showed the best form at the wicket. But interestingly, a group of British practitioners of other sports stepped into the driver's seat recently and staged an auto race. Chay Blyth—a celebrity in that quietest of all sports, longdistance solo sailing—won by 6/10ths of a second.
Until recently Ed Rooney, basketball coach and math teacher at Grant High School in Portland, Ore., thought his wife was deft with the family budget. The Rooneys have nine children, yet Ed Rooney didn't seem to have to pony up a fortune for groceries. Then a Portland newspaper let out Mrs. Rooney's secret by picturing her at a market buying horsemeat. The nine little Rooneys knew they were growing up on horsemeat, but that fact had been kept secret from Rooney père. "My wife kept evading me when I asked for the front page of the paper," Rooney says. "When I got it, I kept a tight rein on myself. The more I thought about it, the less I thought about it." Since the story came out, some of his students have been riding Rooney. "They call me the Galloping Gourmet and ask if I stamp my foot to count," he reports. "I tell them it's possible to ride a good thing to death." Meanwhile, the Portland Meadows track formally renamed a race. It was called "The Ed Rooney Steaks."
Appelez-Moi Lise, the current hit TV show in Montreal, stars Lise Payette, a sports enthusiast with a lusty sense of humor. For one of her recent shows she replaced Canadien Ken Dryden as goalie in a practice session and made several "saves" against Center Jacques Lemaire. Hockey got even in the person of Defense-man Guy Lapointe, a later guest. When he walked on camera he gave Lise the traditional handshake, and a look of consternation slowly spread over her face. She glanced down at her right hand, then exploded into laughter. Lapointe had smeared goo onto his palm before entering the studio. Low humor but high stick, so to speak.
Normally the Medal for Service to Finnish Sports goes to outstanding athletes, logically enough. This year, however, the Finnish Olympic Committee picked a Japanese taxicab driver, one Saburo (Pekka) Takarada, who was kind to them during the Tokyo Olympics in 1964. Takarada got a free trip to Helsinki to receive the award and to meet Finland's President Dr. Urho Kekkonen. The award in a way is reminiscent of a similar one Boston sportswriters wanted to give to a cabby who ran over Casey Stengel. That was in 1943 when Ol' Case was managing the Boston Braves to another of their usual hopeless low finishes.
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