The Palm Beach Post from West Palm Beach, Florida • Page 19

I i 3 Bomb Group: Atmosphere Aplenty I Eateries Beaneries 94th Aero Squadron in Fort Lauderdale's Executive Airport, and there are nine others with World War I themes. Headphones at the tables enable anyone interested to tune into the airport's control tower. Glass walls offer views of aircraft coming and going. With all this to attract, does anyone really care about the food? The menu is basically that of a steakhouse with a few attempts at "gourmet" items thrown in, and in our opinion our meals didn't live up to the atmosphere. The structure cost $1.5 million to build; an additional $75,000 was spent for artifacts.

It's a pity more wasn't spent for a good kitchen. The restaurant offers an exhibition kitchen where one can observe the broiler men and expeditors assembling the orders. Saute items and salads are created in a traditional kitchen using standarized recipes. Turn to TUSA, BH By Rosa Tusa Past Food Idilar If you get a bang out of wining and dining among gas masks, sandbags, army boots, machine guns. and other memorabilia of World War II, then don't miss a visit to the 391st Bomb Group restaurant and cabaret entrenched on the south side of Palm Beach International Airport.

The restaurant, named for the 391st Bombardment Group whose flying missions helped prepare for the invasion of Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge, is housed in a re-created French farmhouse that looks as though it has suffered enemy bombs and other wounds of war. The compound offers museum artifacts such as a Red Cross truck and jeeps. Hostesses are costumed in Red Cross uniforms and the waitresses and waiters are dressed as French peasants. Inside the structure, fireplaces glow, cast- ing dark shawdows on the sandbagged walls. The place has been packed since it opened last Friday, with patrons roaming about the rustic rooms viewing mementos pi a past era.

The bar and comfortable lounge has a movie screen which offers old movies. There is freshly made free popcorn to munch with a drink while waiting for the hostess to announce over the public address system: "Attention, attention, will the Cooper party of four report to the mess hall." The 391st Bomb Group is one of about 50 theme restaurants in the country operated by the California-based Specialty Restaurants Corp. World War I is the theme of the Staff PlMt by Man Kautmann iurant is re-created farmhouse, complete wun war wounui FRIDAY, APRIL 2, 1982 SECTION ThePost DQ Add dd Without rodeo professionals like Tom Feller an artist who is also last year's Clown of the Year the cowboys who voluntarily or involuntarily depart from the backs of the bucking bulls are in grave danger of getting gored. or stomped. 1 4 A frilly.

1 hi if I 'It Iff III I 1 I I 1 I iff I vide comic entertainment as a finale. An especially mean bull is released into the arena, and Feller carries his barrel near to the raging bull and curls inside. A bullfighter taunts the bull into either knocking it over or rolling it with his head and front quarters in an effort to get at the bullfighter standing on the other side. "It's all impromptu," said Feller. "You never know what's going to happen with these animals.

It's just like in football you have your basic plays, but you never know if it's going to work out that way." Another function of the rodeo clown is to entertain the audience while the bullrider is boarding the animal in the chute. "The announcer and I will tell a few jokes, or I'll spot people in the crowd who are willing to get involved and we'll have interchanges because it can take a minute or two for the rider to get ready." The job of the clown and bullfighters is every bit as dangerous as the rider's, Feller said, especially since a rider gets on only one bull or horse in a performance whereas the clown and bullfighters deal with an average of 12 of the animals. "I'll work 125 to 135 rodeo performances in'an average year. So we're exposed to a lot of danger. The odds are against you.

These bulls weigh 1,500 to 1,700 pounds. Right there, you're going up against 10 to 1 odds. Getting hit by the horn of a bull is about like standing 18 inches in front of the plate when Reggie Jackson hits a homer." Nevertheless, "I've never been seriously injured; I've never had a broken bone. Most bullfighters will get injured knees. You take the chances you need to in order to save a cowboy from a hooking and to entertain the crowd, but you try to minimize the chances." Despite the clown's heavy exposure to danger, he has traditionally been an unglamorous character in rodeo drama compared to the rider.

But that imbalance is not as great as it used to be. "They get somewhat more of the national coverage," Feller said of the riders. "But in the last few years, clowns have gotten more recognition as athletes. The clown's function is recognized as a skilled athletic competition. The image has changed quite a bit.

The clown used to be a person Turn to RODEO, BU By Bob Brink Past StaH Wrltar Pity the poor rodeo clown. He's always being chased not by women by bulls that are after the cowboys he rescues from the charging animals. But Tom Feller, clown with the World Championship Pro Rodeo, doesn't mind. In fact, he gets his kicks from it. Fortunately, none of the kicks have caused him serious injury.

Feller is showing his audacity in rodeo performances in the West Palm Beach Auditorium which continue through Saturday, belittling the three-quarter ton bulls to the amusement of the audience. But most of his antics have a serious side. Without him, the cowboys who voluntarily or involuntarily depart from the backs of the bucking bulls are in grave danger of getting gored or stomped. Two bullfighters do the initial rescue work, running into the arena to distract the bull from the grounded rider. Jimmy Anderson, Rob Smets and Feller make good company; Anderson and Smets are the top two bullfighters in the nation, and Feller last year was selected both as the U.S.

rodeo clown of the year and the barrel man for the national wrangler bullfighting championships. After the bullfighters get the bull's attention, Feller prepares to intervene. "I'm out there in the arena in an aluminum barrel, custom-made," the quiet-spoken clown said. "It has 4 inches of foam padding on the outside to protect the bulls, and an inch on the inside to protect me." He smiled wry- iy. "It's open on both ends so that I can pick it up and walk inside of it.

If a cowboy is in trouble, and I can get the barrel to him, he can get behind the barrel, and it will give him a few seconds of refuge." If the bull decides to charge the barrel, "you can get knocked cold. It's happened. Fortunately, I've never gotten injured, but they can ring your bells." In that case, with the barrel knocked to the ground horizontally and the clown inside, "you're in the hands of the bullfighter. If the bull comes for one end, you can shuffle your body to the other end. But other than that, you're just out there helpless." Besides helping protect the cowboys, Feller and the bullfighters pro IV --I i if iryt i WJ.

5. a 'I J(F SI I If il I StaH Phata by Karan T. Barchan Feller uses a barrel in his act that has fake legs in front. The cowboy can take refuge behind the barrel if he has to, and it also gives Feller some measure of protection while he's seeking a laugh. His antics aren't only for crowds 6-year-old Michael McClure can verify that.

John Philip Sousa Marches On Courtesy of Keith Brioh Nobody ever gave a concert in the way By Bob Brink Sousa would g've them. It turned out he was a real genius in the way he presented them Keith Brion Patt StaH Wrltar Sure, the country's on a nostalgia kick, but this is ridiculous! A whole concert of John Philip Sousa's music done exactly in his manner? With the conductor looking and acting just like the march master? Unusual. Even unique. But not ridiculous if you consider that the concerts presented by Keith Brion, alias John P. Sousa, have drawn large audiences and favorable reviews across the country.

One of those concerts is scheduled for 6 p.m. Sunday at the polo grounds in Wellington, after the Cartier International Open Polo Tournament game. It is part of the Palm Beach Festival. Until two years ago, Brion was conductor of the Yale University Band. But he had to resign because the -demand for his Sousa concert re-creations required fulltime attention.

He presents an average of one a month, sometimes two or three a month, using bands in the locality of the performance. The Florida Philharmonic Orchestra from Miami originally was scheduled to play the music, but it wentjon strike. Dale Heapps, ftstival executive; director, asked Brion ly played more encores than he played numbers on the program. If you had a stopwatch for this, you'd find it would normally last three or four hours. But he didn't mess around.

He would go right into an encore. The concerts were done at a lightning pace." The one here is set to last about 1V4 hours. "The older guys in the Sousa bands knew the music by heart, and so about half the band would be playing the next number while the younger guys were scrounging for the music," Brion said. "The effect of all this is to have styles of music juxtaposed. I call it layer-cake programming.

He would play classical music, then maybe concertos and solos, and then light music at the end. There is no contemporary programming that corresponds to this at all. When you think about it, if you played all the classical music, and then playedjhe Turn to SOUSA, B16 what he wanted to do. "He said, 'Look, I think we should go with a concert band, because we'll have trouble getting Heapps said. "We've contracted for musicians within traveling distance.

The union is cooperating with us. We have a union in this area that is interested in quality. If-a quality musician doesn't happen to be available within this district, you can go outside." The band will have about 50 members. Speaking by telephone from his home in New Haven, Brion said he expected the band would be top-notch. A poncert band has no strings, except for bass violin.

However, Heapps said, "It's essentially the same program because Sousa had original arrangements for both symphony and concert bands." "I'll probably do nine pieces on the program, and 11 encores," Brion said. That was thiusual program that Sousa did. "He usual a 4 uate, Conductor Brion evenidresses in the 1920s style ofSousa.