The Akron Beacon Journal from Akron, Ohio • Page 8

Friday, August 13. 1976 Back. from wild blue yonder-little late Akron Beacoi Journal AWOL O'DELL complied. "And they didn't know what to do. The statute of limitations on peacetime desertion had run out in 1962." Attired in civvies, O'Dell got his old name back, received a new ID card and hung around the barracks.

"A 25-year-old first sergeant inspected my room and left me a note: This room is not kept in a military AWOL O'Dell er, Airman Hull remained on the base long enough to help the 57th Combat Support Ground Group, Headquarters Squadron Section, put on a fancy luncheon for some townsfolk. "My Chamber expertise," he Docilely, he submitted to fingerprinting for an FBI check. Nothing happened. HE WORKED for the Miami Chamber of Commerce in 1969 and 1970. "Activities director" his title was, and he made pronouncements on the economy and commerce to the news media.

He left Miami in 1974 for New Orleans and went on to Dallas where he managed a classy restaurant for a while. O'Dell, the veteran, is now su-cessfully managing a restaurant in Maryland in a most polished manner. The VFW and American Legion have yet to sign him up. On April 14, 1976, the Air Force issued its repentant runaway a general discharge with honorable conditions. HULL GREW I in Chicago.

He enlisted in the Air Folrce in 1955. He doesn't remember precisely why everything was so terrible, but he remembers he decided to run. He took the name "Patrick because he liked the sound of it and O'Dell for the Baltimore southpaw, Billy O'Dell. (An umpire once threw the real O'Dell out of a game during his warmup because he used dirty words.) AWOL O'Dell's bus fare ran out in Las Vegas in 1959, where he promptly lost his last $85 in the slots. After cafeteria Jobs In Phoenix and San Francisco and the chorus line in "Bye Bye Birdie," O'Dell hitchhiked to Miami in 1964 and got his first job as a cook for a Christ for Youth camp.

"Bless his heart," said the Rev. Ted Place, who remembers him well. Others remember him, too as bright, affable, an immaculate dresser and a real promoter. IN 1968, O'Dell began to suspect the Air Force had quit looking for him. While working for a transportation firm, he was asked to coordinate bus rides for delegates to the Republican National Convention in Miami Beach.

tion out of mind," he said. "I couldn't handle my anxiety." So, 17 years later, he picked up the telephone one night in a Las Vegas hotel room and called his old Air Force base long distance. "I had downed my thli-d martini and I was shaking like a leaf. I asked for the provost marshal and I told him who I was. And you know what he did? He burst out laughing.

"He told me not to come to New Mexico. He told me that if 1 wanted to, to surrender at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. He told me: 'Don't be stupid and turn yourself in to the security police. Go to the provost By GENE MILLER KitfM Ntw Ivvkl MIAMI AWOL O'Dell packed his suitcase and bought a ticket on a Greyhound bus on Aug. 17, 1959.

He deserted from Sandia Air Force Base in Albuquerque, N. M. Now, 17 years later, he has given himself up. And guess what? Nobody cares. AWOL O'EV'U is an impressive man of 40 who looks as if he could be an executive for the Chamber of Commerce which, it turns out, he was.

His name wasn't always O'Dell. In the Air Force, it was Norman Hull, Airman 2nd Class. "I COULD never get that deser- 2 sought in Polaroid kidnap try v. a. ua mmmmmmmmm i sis; 1 I i II t' In i I 1 tU1 ir sCtc xXl-b' Sm'-.

4 IK '''cp3r i) pill 4 Ly-Tk? pill WALTHAM, Mass. (JP) Police are looking for two men indicted in New England bombings after a thwarted kidnap attempt on Polaroid Corp. president William J. McCune 61, in Polaroid's Cambridge, parking lot. A police bulletin alerted East Coast authorities to watch for two men wearing dungarees, denim jackets and caps and driving a 1976 Ford van painted yellow with blue stripes.

The vehicle had Massachusetts license plates. A POLAROID security guard identified bombing suspect Richard J. Picariello, 28, of Portland, Maine, as one of two men who tried to abduct McCune at gunpoint. Edward P. Gullion, 28, of Boston, was believed to be traveling with Picariello.

He may have been involved in the assault, police said. Both were indicted last month in connection with bombings that damaged two trucks at a Boston National Guard armory and destroyed an Eastern Airlines plane at Logan International Airport in Boston. THE EXPLOSIONS came within a three-month period of bombings in three New England states. The blasts hit a power company facility in Maine, a post office in New Hampshire and two courthouses in Massachusetts. They reportedly were transporting huge amounts of explosives into Massachusetts to bomb several targets, including the Polaroid Corp.

headquarters in Cambridge. Bmcok Journal Photos by Mercy Nighswandar Firestone URW committee meets In Sheraton Hotel hall to consider offer URW holdout netted 50 cents an hour Continued from page A-l tenths in the last year of the contract. If inflation runs at six percent throughout the life of the contract, the cost of living clause would yield seven cents an hour the first year, 27 cents the second year and 38 cents the third year. The reason for the small yield in the first year is that it will not be paid until the last month of that year. This compares to a July 6 offer that, at the same inflation rate, would have paid nothing the first year, 20 cents an hour the second year and 27 cents the third year.

HERE IS an example of how the arithmetic works in figuring the yield of a cost of living clause. If the consumer price index, for example, were at 160, an inflation rate of six percent would in one year increase the index by six percent times 160, or 9.6 points. The increase of 9.6 points is applied to whatever formula the cost of living clause contains. If the clause pays one cent an hour in wages for each four tenths of a point increase, then four tenths would be divided into the 9.6 and would yield 24 cents. In the URW clause that has been offered a 10 percent increase only for those who retired before 1973, a proposal which would have paid substantially less.

OTHER ITEMS In dental insurance, the union won the option to obtain coverage for most charges by paying for the insurance out of the union's cost-of-living winnings. The URW wanted, but failed to obtain, comprehensive coverage paid entirely by the companies. A former dental insurance offer adding new surgical procedures still stands. URW President Peter Bommarito, who vowed to have companies pay for hospital and medical insurance premiums and bills that strikers have paid themselves since July 19, also was successful in getting this. Finally, the union won the right to have its medical insurance cover bills from chiropractors as it does for medical doctors.

THE ECONOMIC package, along with other Issues still to be ironed out by negotiators, will have to be approved by rank-and-file URW members before the strike by workers comes to an end. Voting on a contract is still several days away. The strike began April 21. 'mNNv Reporters quiz URW President Peter Bommarito in Cleveland McCUNE TOLD police this story: A man wearing a stocking over his face and carrying a shotgun ordered McCune into a van in the Polaroid plant parking lot. McCune refused.

He was struck on the head with a gun butt and knocked to the ground. The executive grabbed for the gun. The assailant hopped into the van, driven by a second man. The van sped away. THE little finger on McCune's left hand was dislocated stitches were needed to close a wound behind his left ear.

He was expected back at his office today. McCune has been with Polaroid since 1939. Deadly fever, diphtheria in Toronto TORONTO IJP) As health officials here hunt for hundreds of people who may have been exposd to a deadly African fever, another rare disease, diphtheria, has taken the life of a 57-year-old woman. The health officials are looking for 400 persons who flew from Britain 11 days ago on a plane with a woman suspected of having highly contagious Lassa fever. She has been hospitalized here in strict isolation.

A spokesman for Toronto Western Hospital said the diphtheria victim, whom he did not identify, died Thursday at the hospital. He said she had been discharged from the hospital Aug. 2, was readmitted Aug. 5 and complained the next day of a sore throat. A day later she fell acutely ill.

Lassa fever was first diagnosed in 1969 in the Lassa region of Nigeria. It is caused by a virus and damages the circulatory system, killing 30 to 50 percent of those who contract it. companies except Goodyear, where the rate is $8.50. Goodyear has agreed to raise its level to $10 and then immediately add the same increases that the other companies have offered. For persons already retired, the companies have offered an immediate increase of $1- a month times years of service.

They previously offered, the division problem would be performed quarterly, or four times a year, rather than once at the end of the year. PENSIONS The rubber companies have agreed to kill a former limitation on increases to only those years of service after age 45. Now, the raise is to apply to all years of service. The amount of pension raises would be $1 per month times years of service the first year, 75 cents the second and 75 cents the third. The previous offer would have paid 75 cents each year.

The pension increases are on top of a current rate of $10 a month times years of service at all the Hays quits race to quiet Liz Ray Grounds crew OKs 3-year pact He gets busted after cat nips pot ROCHESTER, N.Y. UP) A neighbor's cat caused Russell J. Donaghue a lot of trouble. The 19-year-old man was arrested after a neighbor called police when his cat "appeared high" after nibbling weeds on Donaghue's porch. Monroe County Sheriff's deputies said they found seven flourishing marijuana plants in Donaghue's apratment.

The plants were confiscated, and Donaghue was arraigned before a town justice for sixth-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance. Among the Democrats likely to receive strong consideration is State Sen. Douglas Applegate of Steubenville. Applegate has been in the Ohio legislature since 1961, serving first in the House and then in the Senate. However, the Democratic replacement will face a tough challenge from Steubenville Mayor William Crabbe, who is running as an independent.

A 49-year-old former steelworker, Crabbe is serving his. second term as mayor. Continued from page A-l to disclose Miss Ray's charges that she was kept on the House Administration Committee's clerical staff the committee once chaired by Hays as the congressman's mistress. She said she held the job even though she didn't know how to type. Hays first denied the charges, then admitted his relationship with Miss Ray.

But he denied misusing the public payroll, saying she was fully qualified to do committee work. Hays was later deposed as the committee chairman a position that enabled Hays to rise to highest levels of power and influence in Washington. WITH HAYS' departure, the seven county chairmen in his district will have until next Wednesday to choose a replacement on the November ballot. Groundskeepers at Firestone Country Club will return to work Monday following ratification today of a new three-year contract. The 22-7 vote ends a strike by members of Local 7 of the United Rubber Workers who walked off the course Aug.

1 after contract negotiations failed. The agreement calls for $1.40 in raises over the three-year period, with gains made in pensions and insurance, said Clark Lantz. a negotiator and Division 4 chairman. HOWEVER, one of the demands, a cost-of-living protection, was dropped. A cost-of-living clause has been a central factor in the national rubber strike and union negotiators have won major concessions on that issue.

But Ray Shaw, secretary of Local 7, said the grounds-keepers unit dropped that demand in return for a larger wage in crease in the first year of a three-year contract. Still, Shaw termed the agreement "substantial" without a cost-of-living clause. The agreement calls for wage hikes of 70 cents in the first year and 35 cents each in the next two years. Workers now make $4.40 an hour. COMPANY neogitators sweetened the first-year offer by 10 cents Thursday, after the union's executive board said it wasn't satisfied with the wage package, Shaw said.

If the agreement is turned down and the strike continues much longer, the country club could face problems with the American Golf Classic Aug. 22-29 and the World Series of Golf, Aug. 30-Sept. 5. While the groundskeepers have been on strike, salaried personnel have been keeping the north and south courses manicured.

Bank saved from razing Safety booster COLUMBUS OB Col. Robert Chiaramonte, project director of Operation Crime Alert, has been named to the board of directors of REACT International a service organization formed to help law enforcement agencies promote highway safety. 4. away and tear down the old bank to make way for a city parking lot. But the Ohio Historical Society says the historical listing means any plans to tear down the building must first be reviewed by the society.

ASHLAND, Ohio (JP) Plans to tear down the 103-year-old First National Bank of Ashland may be sidetracked by the bank's recent listing on the register of national historic places. The bank directors decided to move to a new building a block.