Logansport Pharos-Tribune from Logansport, Indiana • Page 16

Page C2 Pharos-Tribune, Logansport, Indiana, Sunday, February 22,1998 Contact Tonya Prouse (219) Ext. 5147 LIFESTYLE WHAT'S HAPPENING (Editor's Note: The deadline for items appearing in the What's Happening column for the Sunday edition of the Lifestyle section is noon Tuesday, To phone in an item, call 722-5000, firf. S147, and leave a message: items that are mailed in should be addressed to What's Happening, P.O. Box210, Logansport, IN 46947.) Logansport Clinton Township EHC will meet at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday at the Clinton Township Firehouse to travel to Burlington for a luncheon at The Dinner Bell.

Dial-A-Rhyme by calling 737-8679. 4- Eagles Auxiliary No. 323 will meet at 8 p.m. Thursday in the club room for initiation. Please plan to attend.

Emmaus Mission Center will have a rummage sale from 12:30 to 4:30 p.m. Monday-Friday at 829 Spencer St. Euchre Players who are senior citizens are welcome to deal in from 1 to 3 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday at Calvary Presbyterian Church. Federal Inc.

Retirees will meet for dinner at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday at Ponderosa. Each person should bring two items for bingo. Spouses are welcome. Golden Agere of Yorktown Road Church of Christ, 406 Yorktown Road, will meet at 10 a.m.

Wednesday at the church. A program of fun, fellowship and Bible study, it is open to any Loganland senior citizen. Richard Robertson will be the facilitator. For more information, call the church at 753-2757. Iron Horsemen Barbershop Chorus lor performers of barbershop harmony meets at 7 p.m.

Tuesday in St. Bridget's, 620 Wilkinson St. Loganland Social Workers will meet at noon Thursday for lunch at the Carousel Restaurant. LHS Class of 1933 will meet at 12:30 p.m. Tuesday at Al's Restaurant for lunch.

Spouses are welcome. LHS Class of 1935 will meet at noon Monday for lunch at the Ambers. LHS Class of 1936 will meet at 12:30 p.m. Thursday at the Holiday Inn. Please note the change of time and place.

LHS Class of 1943 will meet at 11:30 a.m. Thursday at the Veterans of Foreign Wars post. Spouses and friends are welcome, LHS Glass of 1958 will meet at 7 p.m. Wednesday at T.J. Smith Photography to continue plans for the class reunion to be held July 18.

Call 7392185 for more information. Logansport Christian Singles Fellowship will meet at 7 p.m. Saturday at Cross-Wind United Methodist Church, corner of 15th and Market streets. For more information, call the church at 753-4872. Logansport Noon Kiwanis Club will meet at 12:05 p.m.

Tuesday at the Carousel Restaurant. Logansport VFW Ladies Auxiliary No. 3790 will meet at 7 p.m; Tuesday. MavisAtkinson, of.Rortage, 2nd district president, will be there foran inspection. Moms In Touch will meet from 1 to 2 p.m.

Tuesday at the Cass County Family Y. The group of mothers and grandmothers meets to pray for children, their teachers and schools, and is endorsed by "Focus on Family." For more information, call Sherry Spencer, 739-0145, or Mary Bruinsma, 753-9809. Child care is available. Open Bible Study will be held from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Monday at the Senior Citizens Village, 2626 George St.

It will be conducted by Kenny Robertson. Refreshments will be served. For more information, call the church at 753-2757. Rotary will meet at noon Monday at the Carousel Restaurant. Salvation Army Rummage Sale will be held from 8:30 a.m.

to noon Saturday at the Salvation Army, 418 Fourth St. SCORE, Service Corps of Retired Executives, offers 1ree and confidential counseling for new and existing businesses. For more information and to schedule a counseling appointment, call the County Chamber of Commerce at 753-6388. Smiles Unlimited will meet at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Faith United Methodist Church.

Tipton Lodge No. 33 and Orient Lodge No. 272 will meet at 1 p.m. Saturday at the Masonic Temple for the annual "All Degree Day" program. All degrees will be conferred and a supper will follow.

All masons are invited. Toastmasters Club No. 621 will meet at 7 p.m. Monday at the Logansport-Cass County Public Library. TOPS No.

475 will meet at 5 p.m. Tuesday at the Baptist Temple. For more information, call 722-3194 or 753-3525. TOPS No. 191 will meet at 6:30 p.m.

Tuesday at Calvary Presbyterian Church. For more information, call 722-3533 or 735-6037. Triple Bible Study Group will meet at 11 a.m, Tuesday at Cross-V United Methodist Church in the all-purpose room for Bible study, All are welcome. 4 Widow-to-Widow will meet at 9 a.m. Saturday for breakfast at the Waffle House.

Bunker Hill Grissom ARE Kiwanis will meet at noon Monday at the Grissom Club. Burnettsvilfe Good News Boutique will be open from 8:30 a.m. to noon Saturday at the Burnettsville Baptist Church, North Main St. This is a clothing ministry sponsored by the church. Nice clothing new and used and a few household items will be sold for a quarter per item, sometimes less.

Funds will be used for various mission projects. In emergency situations, such as a fire, items will be given for free. For more information, call Bambi Davidson, (219) 826-4492 or Tina Hurd, (219) 826-4465. Monticello Country Termites will be playing dance music for senior citizens from 2 to 5 p.m. Wednesday at the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

FOR BETTER OR WORSE ALMANAC A little house or a mansion or an you'll find the home you're looking for in Classified. 722-5000 ABOUT DYING- QO EASILty- IF SHE. WAS Today's Birthdays: Actor Robert Young is 91 Don Pardo is 80. Actor John Ashton Hills is 50. Basketball Hall-of-Famer Julius Erving is 48.

Actress Julie Walters is 48. Actress Jeri Ryan Trek: is 30. Actor Jose Solano is 27. Tennis player Michael Chang is 26. Actress Drew Barrymore is 23.

Thought for Today: Priests are no more necessary to religion than politicians to patriotism." Haynes Holmes, American clergyman and reformer (1879-1964). Still Cra2y After All These Years, Oh, Still Cra2y "You remember so-and-so, don't you?" a friend recently asked me. "Oh, yeah. She taught such- and-such, didn't she? As I recall, the woman had no sense of humor whatsoever. I never had her, but she tried to bounce me out of a convocation once." That convocation had been held 20 years ago during my senior year at Peru High School.

The teacher's threat came after I started an impromptu game of "Name That Tune" in the middle of a performance by the U.S. Air Force Band. The incident simply proves that E)EB SAINE Saine thoughts my classmates didn't vote me Class Clown for no reason. I'd been stumping the same platform since grade school. When I got home, I made a beeline for the den closet to pull out my 1978 Narcissus.

I wanted to double- check if I had the right face with the name. A black-and-white photograph confirmed the I.D. Yup, she had been a person who definitely lacked in the laughter department. After I found the picture I was looking for, I flipped through the rest of the yearbook, unable to recall the last time I'd scanned its pages. Did we really look like that? Egads! Judging by our attire, if I were so inclined, there would be no reason for me to run out and buy the soundtrack to "Boogie Nights" when I could probably compile my own version, in vinyl, from my personal collection acquired during the first decade of disco dementia.

I caught myself wondering whether or not we'd even be having a 20th class reunion. The year 1993 came and went without a 15th. And as for the 10-year reunion, let's just say I'd planned on going but then forgot all about it later after some serious imbibing. So, I decided to place a call to our class president. Flipping down memory lane had stirred my curiosity, wondering whatever had happened to certain people.

Alan Walker knew why I was calling as soon as I told him it was me. By the time this piece goes to press, a reunion-planning meeting for PHS Class Of 1978 will have commenced. To be honest, I wasn't sure I wanted to attend, let alone help to plan, my 20th reunion. Reading some of the things people had written to me across those glossy pages, I realized none of them needed to worry I'm still craxy after all these years. But then there were some inscriptions made by people whose faces slipped away long ago.

Maybe it's those faces I'm curious about. I bet you, though, that when the reunion finally rolls around during the traditional weekend of Peru's Circus Parade, I'll wind up sitting with the same people I send Christmas cards to every December. The Sky Is Faffing, The Sky Is Faffing Recently, while visiting New York City (Civic Motto: "I Got Yer Civic Motto Right I saw an alarming article in The New York which is a newspaper up that large.chunks of masonry were 1 falling off some of the older buildings. As bad luck would have it in such a crowded city, several of these chunks, tragically, failed to land on George Steinbrenner. The Times article quoted experts as saying that the solution to the falling-chunks problem was to inspect old buildings.

With all due respect, that is the stupidest thing I ever heard. Inspections are not the answer. With falling chunks, as with so many problems afflicting modern urban society, the only lasting solution is to identify, and correct, the "root cause" of the problem. And that cause is: gravity. I have been following this issue for many years, and in my opinion, gravity is getting worse than ever.

For example, last year several hundred alert readers sent me articles from various publications concerning an incident in the Sea of Japan wherein a Japanese fishing boat was allegedly sunk by a falling cow. Yes. According to these articles, which I swear I am not making up, what apparently happened was that the crew of a Russian military cargo jet DAVE BARRY Columnist had stolen some cows in Siberia and was flying them home when the cows became upset, perhaps because there was no in-flight movie. So the cpwq and the crew, fearing that the plane would crash, opened the cargo door and let the cows run out of the plane at an altitude of 30,000 feet, which is somewhat in excess of the Recommended Safe Falling Distance for Cows of 1.3 inches. So you had these cows raining down on the Sea of Japan, and one of them, unfortunately, failed to land on George Steinbrenner.

But it did allegedly strike the Japanese fishing boat, which sank. The fishermen all survived, although I am betting that they had an unpleasant talk with their insurance agent. I don't know about you, but when I read about a tragedy like this, the phrase that comes into my mind is "major motion picture." I'm thinking of something along the lines of "Titanic." You'd have a pair of star-crossed Japanese fisherper- sons, played by Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, and just when you think they're going to overcome the obstacles facing them, they hear, in the distance, the chilling sound that mariners throughout the ages have always feared most of all "moo" and then WHAM, the boat is struck by a hurtling Hereford traveling in excess of 100 miles per hour. For the remaining 125 minutes of the movie, the lovers float romantically around on the wreckage as Leonardo proclaims his undying love for Kate and tenderly brushes chunks of brisket from her hair. But getting back to the worsening gravity problem: I wish I could tell you that it is limited to cows.

But unfortunately I cannot, not in light of an article from the Aug. 27, 1997, issue of The Calvert County (Md.) Recorder, sent in by alert reader Janice Rohme. This article states that on Aug. 25, Gloria Daniels, 68, of Lusby, was working in her garden with a young neighbor boy when she was hit by a falling tomato. Then the boy was hit by a tomato.

Then tomatoes more than 30 of them began raining down all over her yard. Friends, neighbors and the media were called in to investigate, but nobody could figure out where the tomatoes which appeared to be falling straight down out of the sky were coming from. Rob Terry, the reporter who wrote the story for The Recorder, states that, while on the scene, he personally was struck by a tomato, and although he quickly investigated, he could find no evidence that it was hurled by pranksters. I called Gloria Daniels recently and asked her if anybody come up with an explanation for the falling tomatoes, and she said nobody had. "It's a mystery," she said.

I asked her if she had been in touch with anybody at "The X- Files," and she said she'd never heard of it. This is a shame, if you ask me, because this incident could be the basis for a terrific episode. Of course, to make it sufficiently they might have to alter a few They'd some scene in an abandoned warehouse, wherein agents Scully and Mulder, their faces tense, their guns held out in front of them, are going from darkened room to darkened room, stalking and being stalked by a mutant bloodsucking zucchini the size of Shaquille O'Neal, But my central point is that, wherever these tomatoes were coming from, they would never have represented a threat to innocent people, and neither would the cows, and neither would the New York building chunks, if they had not been attracted to the earth by gravity. FACT: Gravity is a contributing factor in nearly 73 percent of all accidents' involving falling objects. And yet the so- called "federal government" does nothing! So I guess it's up to you and me.

Me, I'm going to lie down. Dave Barry is a humor columnist for the Miami Herald. Write to him do Tropic Magazine, The Miami Herald. One Plaza, Miami FL 33132. NC97088 Continued from Page C1 In planning on how he would get the Stinson back to Logansport, Sam had called younger brother Jim Williamson in London, Ohio, to see if he would be interested in flying to Maine with him to pick up the Stinson.

Although Jim was a licensed pilot, he hadn't flown in 23 years, but was eager to "get back in the air." Sam proposed that Jim take his biannual flight check on the way out, then fly one of the planes back solo. Jim got his airman's medical updated in early December and had contemplated taking some dual instruction at a local airport, but the trip came up sooner than he had expected. It wasn't, in fact, until Dec. 31, that Jim was able to get an hour's worth of dual instruction doing take-offs and landings. Sam, flying a Piper Arrow, met his brother at the London Airport at 9 a.m.

on Jan. 1, 1998. With Jim at the controls, and Sam "coaching" the two arrived in Bar Harbor after a five hour, 15 minute nonstop flight. After landing at Bar Harbor, refueling the Arrow, they got back in for another hour of take-offs and landings. "Jim's first landing there hadn't quite convinced me to turn him loose," said Sam.

The pair then checked out the Stinson and, impressed with its "like new" condition, headed out for a lobster dinner and a good night's sleep. Homeward journey The brothers awoke early on Jan. 2 to six inches of new snow and 20 degree temperatures and headed to the Bar Harbor Airport. The weather was not great for flying, but "do-able," the two concluded. Jim took off first in the Arrow on his first solo flight since Jan.

4,1975. Sam followed in the Stinson. Both Jim and Sam had an feeling that the weather, overcast and windy with temperatures just above freezing, could become a significant factor before the day was out, and they were right. Jim, bobbing and weaving and scrapping the clouds through the mountains of Vermont, battling heavy turbulence near the Finger Lakes, made his only gas stop at Dunkirk, N. after five and a half hours.

Another four hours brought him into Logansport, bucking heavy gusts and darkness, where he made a safe landing in the Arrow. Sam's main concern was quickly learning how to operate the GPS (Global Positioning System) on the "brand new" Stinson, his only means of navigation and a new unit to him. After passing through Maine and New Hampshire, Sam's first gas stop was made at Springfield, Vt. The Stinson holds 40 gallons of gas and burns about 10 gallons an hour. His second gas stop was in Penn Yan, N.Y., and his third at Erie, where he briefly considered staying the night as the wind had gotten stronger during the course of the trip and the turbulence was becoming severe, but he decided to press on.

But an hour and a half later, feeling ill, Sam set the Stinson down at Cleveland's Cuyahoga County Airport. Only after landing did he discover that a container of "dope" that Gillissen had sent with him had seeped onto his clothing. He had been smelling the fumes for the last few hours and that, combined with the turbulence, had made him ill. He spent that night in Cleveland. The homestretch The flight home the next day included one last stop, at Tiffin, Ohio, where he learned that the weather in Logansport was deteriorating rapidly, with a forecast of light rain, winds and low visibility.

But before landing in Logansport, there was something Sam had to do. "After breaking out of the clouds over Peru, I thanked Grissom radar for their help and headed for Spring Creek Cemetery. I had this planned all along as my first destination after entering Cass County. "Had you been at the cemetery that particular hour, on that nasty, rainy day, you would have seen a bright light appear from the East. The light would have grown.bigger and closer until the ghost ship, Stinson NC97088, would have roared directly overhead, then circled before wagging its wings and heading to the southwest toward the airport, whether Hooten's or Logansport Municipal.

"If one believes in life after death, as I do, then Dad's spirit just had to witness the return of his first airplane," said Sam. Bringing the Stinson "home" was the "trip of a lifetime, a truly epic adventure," said Sam. "I can go to my grave happy now. It was the culmination of a lifetime." And the rest of the story? Sam intends to keep the Stinson "forever." And being his father's son, was not the type of a man to make a frivolous purchase. He used planes as tools) Sam plans to put it to work, to give flight instruction in the Stinson.

"But I'll be real particular who solos in it.".