The Palm Beach Post from West Palm Beach, Florida • Page 43

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2000 The Palm Beach Post SECTION Do owls really fight? FAU is making noise about its Fighting Owls mascot, but how much do we really know about the wise old birds? Here are some facts: Owls don't fight for fun, but they are predators that kill other animals to live, and adults will defend their territory and young. Owls can't turn their heads completely around. It's three-quarters, tops. But they can do it rapidly enough to give the illusion of a complete turn. Owls see perfectly well during the day, and exceptionally well at night.

Owls have the best hearing of all birds. Their ears are located on the sides of their heads and are hidden by feathers. The "ear-tufts" on the top of their heads have nothing to do with hearing. Source: The Birds of Prey Foundation (www.birds-of-prey.org) Palm Beach County Living ACCENT 77 i -v i imiafalii WHEN Emily J. Minor Real Life pn "U)TW9 I LI In 1953, WIRK-TV went on the air, and we tuned in to TODAY'S WEATHER Cleverly Presented by Bill along with Uncle Miltie, Lucy and The Lone Most shows were grainy, week-late kinescopes, but hey, it was TV! Soothing sounds just a memory at Braille Club CAME TO PALM BEACH COUNTY 3 4 Uncle Miltie: i On Tuesday nights, TV sets across the nation were tuned to Milton Berle, who told jokes, wore dresses and smoked cigars as the hilarious host of The Texaco Star Theater.

The show, which later adopted his name, was rated tops for 1950-51, with 61.6 percent of the audience. Hi Ho Silver! The Lone Ranger featured Clayton Moore as the masked lawman and Jay Silverheels as his faithful companion, Tonto. Heroes to the kiddies, the pair brought 30 minutes of justice to the American West each week. Sfl.i jmM.xt.m m. in mm 1 It happened in the early hours of a hot summer morning when most of the city was still sleeping.

Someone crashed through the back gate of the Braille Club, broke the kitchen window, crawled in, yanked the pay phone out of the wall, then set the place on fire. And in minutes, it was gone. All gone. The baby grand piano in the corner. The refrigerator.

The microwave. The sound system and the talking computer and the tables and chairs. Gone. The holiday decorations and the new $850 Bun-O-Matic coffee maker and the filing cabinets filled with paper memories of people and parties from the past. All gone.

"We've done an inventory, and we've got 512 different categories of things that are ruined," says Walter Dietz, the club's treasurer. This wasn't just a prank. This was vicious." The Braille Club has met in this small, nondescript building on Dixie Highway in West Palm Beach since 1950. They're not a politically important group. They don't have a lot of money or lobbying clout.

Their weekly turnout has never been huge 40 on a good day. They are simply people who cannot see, and they come here for supper and support, music and the melody of each other's voices. Police haven't made any arrests in the Aug. 14 fire, although spokeswoman Dena Peterson says they've got some leads. So, in the meantime, while the suppers and songs have stopped, Dietz and others are working to rebuild.

Dietz says they're still waiting on the dollar figures from the insurance folks, but he said the contents were insured for only $14,000. "We're way above that," he says. In some sad, sobering way, though, the fire has been cathartic. So many people have come forward with gifts, small and large. Neighbors have canvassed surrounding homes for donations.

A cabinet company is donating all the kitchen cupboards. That part is good. But when Dietz, 70, stops to think about what has happened here, he can't help but break down. The tears come every day. Because the Braille Club is more than dollars and cents to him.

This is where his wife practically grew up. Betty Dietz started coming here when she was a young girl, just 12 years old. She came here to sing songs, have a meal, laugh with a friend or two. She came here to feel safe and happy and loved because here, in this building, little Betty Dietz didn't feel different. Sometimes, she didn't even feel blind.

Now, Betty Dietz, 63, stands in the smelly charred shell of what has always been her safe house, her home away from home, and tries not to let it get to her. "When this happened, it really knocked me for a loop," she says. "I couldn't believe it." Betty Dietz, blind since birth, doesn't need her eyesight to see the awful things that have happened in these rooms she so loves. (To contribute to the Braille Club, write Walter Dietz, club treasurer, 417Barnett West Palm Beach, FL 33405. Or call: 5884186.) emilyminorpbpost.com A Groucho: Another cigar aficionado, Groucho Marx, cracked the country up hosting TV's top game show, You Bet Your Life.

Regular folks took turns answering general-information questions, but the answers were usually drowned out by laughter at Groucho's ad libs. What early couch potatoes were watching, Page 4D aa Mir i Early TV fuzzy, gray but memories crisp, colorful By Douglas Kalajian Palm Beach Post Staff Writer Picture this (adjust your rabbit-ear antenna if necessary): It's September 1952. The nation is at war in Korea, and Republicans and Demo ftn 9 crats are at war over the White House. The Brooklyn Dodgers are about to clinch the National League pennant. The smart set is atwitter over Ernest Hemingway's new novel, The Old Man and The Sea.

But you've got something much more important on your mind. You gunned the DeSoto home after work and plowed straight through that healthy plate of rare steak and french fries because you didn't want to miss a Readers remember the events that shaped our lives. moment of the new TV season. You rushed into the living room to warm up the Philco in time for Perry Como at 7:30 and Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts at 8:30. Then, the real knee-slapper at 9.

I Love Lucy (Season Two premiere, CBS): Die boys think BRUCE R. BENNETTStaff Photographer Rome Hartman was an announcer at WIRK, West Palm Beach's first TV station, which began broadcasting on Sept. 13, 1953, on Channel 21. Please see EARLY TV, 50 INSIDE nun Their sales pitch is heavenly Religious groups blanket college campuses, hoping to recruit a few good souls. By Douglas Belkin Palm Beach Post Religion Writer At the heart of Florida Atlantic University's campus, along 200 yards of the concrete breezeway at the school's annual "Clubfest," an evangelical Baptist group handing out Cokes vies for attention with a Boca Raton Kabbalah organization offering Tootsie Rolls.

A few feet away, immersed in techno music from a nearby fraternity trolling for their own members, a ministry for foreign exchange students with pamphlets in Korean, Spanish and Russian is set up across from a gay and lesbian support group. Interspersed between two dozen more sororities, dance clubs and intramural sports groups are representatives from the Fellowship for Christian Athletes, the Catholic Newman House and the Jewish organization Hillel, all making their pitches. At stake? Students like Lenny Marine, a Please see FAITHS, 6D What a TV cost in 1953: A Montgomery Ward's ad from The Palm Beach Post-Times on Sept. 13, 1953, the day WIRK-TV began broadcasting locally. A 21-inch set, black-and-white only, cost more than a similar-sized set does today.

Adjusted for inflation, the price was actually many times higher most workers in the early '50s made only $50 to $60 a week. They were there: A Gulf Stream retiree hung out at Club 21 with Milton Berle, Ed Sullivan, Sid Caesar and other stars, and a Boynton man was on hand for one of TVs earliest experimental broadcasts in 1928! Page 40 New 1953 Airline TV Ready For W. Palm Beach Station SUPREME 21" TV WITH DOOR 37995 DELUXE 21" MAHOGANY TV 31995 AH Channal cujt, prlct ifi odd Up hiqh qu1iff Joftittt parlv mf TV ottptientlgr few pfk far tixh lv, Hm SUPREME 21" MAHOGANY TV Fa4. laa 31995 fatty pri (Kt Ihatl uMf, matt tW y. 0iflnw (l "iyfWm" hifl (WtBly oimtnd, arttt, ThU Ml, liW AWm TVi, ht tttktUt faalufti, kw-lt-bi mIai.

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