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Show mm csffSo : ISimn)W? E?feia;H vinuoO 4 K ,-.'; r'r ,:. Life is rfaikinl booth Is the dunking booth a metaphor.for , life itself? 1pr,'r,' Think about it. There you are, secure on your perch, safe behind a screen. Then suddenly one ball hits the target beside you and Whomp! you're dropped into the drink . Yours truly, against his better judgment, was persuaded to enter the dunking booth at KPCW's Third Birthday Party in City Park. Actually, I have little to complain about since I set the tank record for the day. Fellow victims Ron Burnett and Jere Calmes were each dunked several times. But I , was only dunked once. It...' I don't know who the dunker was. All ' I know is that these guys with beer-barrel chests and baseball jackets threw their roundhouse pitches and failed. I was feeling cocky when,a little young lady stepped up and tosswij) the ball. The next thing I knew, I w'as looking at the world from under several inches of cold water. f s Three lessons were apparent fronj this experience: I've been in cold water and warm water. And believe me, warm is better.-The better.-The tank was filled that day with hose water, which tends to be chilly. I felta ; bit like a Titanic passenger taking a. swan dive into the water next to the iceberg. It helps to look ludicrous. In my case, I was wearing a Russian hat, and an old Mack Sennett bathing outfit that looked like modified pajamas. Put this on a funny-looking body (guess whose) and you can often disturb the concentration necessary for successful ball-throwing. Avoid galling comments to the' contestants. I know Jere Calmes stood there and yelled, "Let's hear some, chatter!" But it sufficed to sit there taking notes. Why not? No one there could possibly get my notebook wet. I felt that disparaging comments (like oh, "You're mother is muchly hf,fniJiatjirwUh the boots of army k njeijI'U would.be counter-productive.,-! -It also helped that the pitcning distance set for contestants was long. (The dunking booth was at home plate of the City Park baseball field. But no one listened to my suggestion to put the contestants at second base! ) Among the strong arms who missed me were Record Editor David Hampshire, Hamp-shire, Nan Chalat, Jay Meehan (who said he is now practicing for next year), and KPCW's George Ricker (which was really satisfying, since he ,,tich pie., for,, booth, in, the firt.v , pla.ee), , ... . ,;. ..', ,v , , , I had a secret good-Juck,!cbar,mfj which protected me on Sa,turdaiy'1,rNoJt'1-; so for the poor people, who jSty.the,,', booth Monday at the Fouriti.ojyr:1 JWua yiStims as.Jannetfi. ppx.j , $ak. County' H<h Director ..Fjank ,; "s1ngle'(otj went into thedrjnksevera., times. Singleton, wasr especiajiyimr.' k prps$fvt, a? ne,uld disappear uer-.t, f V'esT.-bouriNc'toU,, surface, a bit like a rubbep bajl. h ,', It was a unique experje.nce, and J'lJ, , ,. .be, glad todo,iton KPCW's next Fourth; ; , Anniversary,, ; ft ; -.... '4 V : .11' Let's have just one story about .the - late Sadye Marks, who appeared ori the ,. -r, Japk Benny radio show , as a character named Mary .. Livingstone. (She . be-. came Benny's wife under that mon-. mon-. icker.) , She was, it appears, rather naive about certain matters. She .called a veterinarian to the house once, baffled .(. .jbecause her female -house cat. was pregnant. She couldn't understand how ithappened. She didn't let the cat out in , the neighborhood. 1 , , The vet spotted a torn cat sliding behind the couch. "What about him?" he asked. "Oh," said a shocked Mary, "that's her brother!" A couple of college notes: Our San Francisco correspondent was looking at a Herb Caen column, and found there the credo for the Berkeley Gazette. It's a motto that we in Park City could take to heart. The paper professed "a passionate concern for the quality of our community, a strong social conscience combined with an unwillingness to recognize the outside world... a concern for creative and unfettered expression, and a tradition of thoughtful thought-ful and moderate drug use." , . Also, the old campus custom of Streaking may be coming back but in Richfield, Utah? The Richfield Reaper i paper said that last week a female 7-11 . clerk reported an unidentified man , "wearing nothing but a gold chain and , a smile." ,1 Police said a similar incident , happened in Salina. Perhaps they are , moving north, not unlike the killer , bees. " .'- . rA Jail inmate in Coeur D'Alene, Jdaho faked a medical ailment by crossing his legs until one became , numb. According to the UPI, jail . authorities may now be stuck with a $14,000 medica4 bill after they treated his "loss of feeling." The convict, Robert Freeman of Post Falls, was treated for five months in 1981 and 1982. A doctor, calling his bluff, told Freeman the leg would have ' to be amputated. Freeman then admitted to the ruse. As Maxwell Smart would say, "The old crossing-the-leg trick, eh?" We just want you to know that this old con won't work for you prison inmates. Or you kids who don't want to go to school next fall. Or you reporters who have 13 more stories to write on deadline and don't want to hmmm. . . . Jan! David! My legs! I can't feel my legs! And the fingers! Oh God, my fingers! They're getting stiff! |