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Show M 11 bVPSIh Atom Scare in Washington Washington waa frightened out ol Its dreams the other night when the most violent thunder-and-lightnlng storm I've ever witnessed atomlc'd the capitaL It broke about 2:13 a. m. and lasted several hours . . . Next day wherever you went, from the White House to Harvey's restaurant, restau-rant, the people all said the same thing. "I thought Russia dropped an A-bomb on us" . . . The lightning just didn't stop and the boom-boom of a zillion rolling bass-drums made me wonder if that isn't exactly exact-ly what our men go through up front during war ... A devoutly religious woman said: "Nobody can makTrhe believe God didn't arrange It just that way right over Washington, D. C, so all the wicked men at the Pentagon would be reminded of what war sounds like when it gets close." Sounds in the Night: At the Harem a comedian was bragging how he wowed 'em at Miami for two weeks ... "I wowed 'em in Chicago before be-fore that," he added, "and I was a wow in Frisco, tool" . . . "You must h a v e," Interrupted Wally Wanger, "the wowsiest act in show business!" ... At the Encore someone some-one was reading aloud the news that Hollywood publisher Billy Wllkcrson led Lana Turner down the aisle for her fourth marriage ... To which Dot KilgaUen meow'd: "She shoulda been able to do it blindfolded!" Robert Merrill, the Met. star, was telling an opera critic one of his first joba was at Youngs Gap hotel (in the Catskills) serving meals. "Oh," said the critic, "In those days you were a singing waiter." "In those days," sighed Merrill, "I waa a watting singer." Manhattan Murals: The elevator operator at 139 E. 57th who still wears his battered air corps hat up-and-downlng his "plane" . . . The blood bank on 39th street for the Palestine wounded . . . The sign in the window of a 46th street Russian restaurant: "Dishes for Democratic gourmets" . . . The Columbus avenue ave-nue delicatessen which advertises: "The New Lox." Once a heckler caused the death of a great star, to hear vaudevets argue it . . . Literally, not professionally. profes-sionally. It happened at the Palace in 1913 ... His name was Nat Wills, a beloved be-loved tramp comic . . . The head-liner head-liner was Sarah Bernhardt ... It was the opening matinee and Sarah went over big . . . The clapping kept on long after she took her last bow . . . Wills made the boner of coming on stage. The audience broke Into heavier applause and an usher, who waited too long, handed a huge bokay nf posies over the footlights. They were for Sarah, of course . . . Wills motioned mo-tioned to her to come on stage and take them ... He removed his hat In great respect to her. But a heckler yelled: "Give 'em to Wills. He's dying!" Two-a-dayers Insist the cruel crack ruined the sensitive Wills. He was never the same after it A few years later he died of carbon monoxide monox-ide poisoning In his garage . . . Broadway never stopped wondering. wonder-ing. Bernard Barucb, whose advlc Is widely aought, la considered by many to be the smartest man In the country. He wears a hearing aid. A well known politico, often Been with Baruch, waa asked If Barney stlU had trouble with his hearing. "I really don't know," he replied, re-plied, "when I'm with Baruch I lust listen." The Press Box: Simple to savvy the diplomatic scrambling If you remember re-member that the international crisis now has reached the stage where nations na-tions are more concerned with mill-tary mill-tary positions than moral standards . . . Sudden thawt: Appeasement can only give us a peace to end all peace . . . The rcporta about the rooking Russian-dominated nations are taking tak-ing merely indicate that the Kremlin drove out the Nazis In order to Install In-stall communistic slot machines. In a Bronx haberdasher-ahop a patron waa blowing his top about the President "Everything he does makea me mad!" he barked. "Don't get apoplexy," shrugged the storekeeper. "Ho can't help It. It Just doesn't happen to be his line!" , N. Y.-Washlngton Chitchat: One New York paper Is preparing an expose that'll fracture the country. It alleges that the head of a greatly publicized congressional committee was a member of the Klan In 1925. (Under his real name) . . . How come editors haven't tried getting an Interview with Frances Crane, heiress of the plumbing firm fortune? for-tune? She'i Jan Masaryk'a ex-wife, reported "still bitter." . . . British officers say MacArthur "has more military know-how than any man since Napoleon." |