Tampa Bay Times from St. Petersburg, Florida • 65

0 i Ann Landers, 3-D i Movies, 3-D i Television, 7-D i Comics, 8-D 0 od section SATURDAY, JUNE 11, 1988 1 LJ LJ ra ST. PETERSBURG TIMES Clearwater can relax; monster is unmasked RLKE KAMI By JAN KIRBY tr, 7 Sorry, kids, she's just gotta sing The year was 1948. Richard Nixon was pushing for a congressional investigation of the Alger Hiss affair, the State of Israel was founded, and Ted Mack's Original A mateur I lour was one of the newest shows on television. In Clearwater, a town of about 15,000, crazy things were happening. On a morning in February, a resident out for a walk on Clearwater Beach discovered what looked like the footprints of a monster and ran home to call the police.

The tracks were large 14 inches long, 11 inches wide. They had three long toes with claws. Whatever had made them apparently had come out of the Gulf of Mexico at the south end of the beach and, taking 4-foot to 6-foot strides, had walked for more than two miles in the soft sand before returning to the water. The police didn't know what had made the tracks, but an official with the Pinellas County Sheriff's Department said he had "studied the footprints carefully and was personally assured that, if a prank, Times photos JOE WALLES eastly tracks appeared on Clearwater Beach. Zoologist Ivan it was one of the most masterful ever perpetrated in Pinellas." Over the next 10 years, the footprints of the "Clearwater Monster" appeared frequently: on Clearwater Beach, on Indian Rocks Beach, on the Courtney Campbell Parkway, on St.

Petersburg Beach, on the beach at Sarasota. The "monster" also left its prints on Please see MONSTER 3-D Sanderson, after studying plaster casts such as the one he holds above left, said the creature was a giant penguin. Now, 40 years after the monster's debut, Tony Signorini, above right, has stepped forward wearing cast iron feet to explain. In my mind I am Alicia Lamour, the recluse chanteuse. I saunter up to the piano and slowly peel my elbow-length white gloves.

A rhinestone bracelet dangles from my wrist. My white fox wrap (fake! fake animal fur!) falls to the floor. And in my simple black velvet strapless gown, I begin to play Satin Doll. Then, switcherooty, I am Patti Page singing Tennessee Waltz. Segue into Bil-lie Holiday singing Cover the Waterfront, into Barbra Streisand singing the slowest, saddest Happy Days Are Here Again you ever heard.

Then I am Linda Ronstadt singing Blue Bayou in that opera-singer-with-gallstones voice. i In the real world, the unjust world, I am a woman in a sweat shirt who can't carry a tune. But in the musical world where dreams come true, I am Tina Turner in two feet of skirt and 10 feet of legs singing River Deep, Mountain High. My children scream out, "Oh no, Mom, puh-leeze, don't sing." My husband forces them to leave the room so the performance can continue. He has learned through time that a medley beats an ugly female mood swing any day.

I have always loved to sing and play the piano. Unfortunately, it's my curse to have been given a pretty bad voice, a tone-deaf ear and no sense of rhythm. But play and sing I must because, hey Jude, it's the only thing that will make things better. As a child insomniac, I would wait until everyone was asleep and then at midnight take out my Hit Parader magazines and sing Mocking Bird Hill or Knew You Were Comin I'd Have Baked a Cake or Till I Waltz Again With You or The Man in the Raincoat or The Wheel of Fortune until the wee hours of the morning. My bedroom, my pleasant land of counterpane, became the Club Trocad-ero, where ladies with gardenia corsages and men with thin sterling cigarette cases ate chili con carne and sipped sparkling champagne.

Later, after I took piano lessons, I discovered that when my parents were fighting, music was my only friend. I would sit there banging the ivories until they stopped. I really believed my music had charms. This was confirmed when I worked as a volunteer at a free clinic in the '60s. Maybe I couldn't bring down the house with my skills, but I could bring down an acid freakout like nobody's business.

I'd just relax and let my fingers do the dancing. Hedge with 4-inch thorns Trifoliate orange has sharp thorns and intertwined branches. It is claimed that a 4-foot-thick hedge can stop a light truck. -i Tire-slashing spikes Another pop-up vehicle barrier is a heavy steel blade that can block a roadway within one second after a threat is detected. Checking weight If a person weighs more on leaving than he did on entering, he may be carrying contraband.

Retinal identification By MALCOLM W. BROWNE New Yofto Times Visitors must look into a device that scans patterns of blood vessels in the retina and compares them to patterns in the computer memory. No two retinas are alike. A perfect match is required for entry. Just how difficult would it be to steal the materials needed to make a nuclear bomb or to penetrate the barriers that safeguard bank transactions and vital corporate secrets? In the last few years, terrorists, spies and other potential intruders into sensitive facilities have become more adept and better equipped than ever.

Experts note, for example, that terrorists from the Middle East. Japan and Badge reader The latest identification badges, when read by a computer, contain such information as a person's weight and the times he is authorized to enter. Somehow I am never ever Little Richard. No matter how hard I try, imagination has its limits. Infrared beam New "electric eye" systems are pulsed so the beam's travel can be timed, thus foiling attempts by intruders to reroute the beam with mirrors.

Immobilizing foam Entire rooms or corridors can be quick ly filled with dense, blinding foam that hampers movement. Heavy security doors Europe are increasingly equipped with advanced weapons and bullet-resistant jackets. Even more disquieting is the fact that terrorists are becoming skilled in circumventing technologically advanced security systems, including those controlled by computer programs. But in the continuing battle of wits, officials say that technology and tactics designed to keep intruders out of buildings or to protect sensitive materials and documents are keeping pace. Security devices and systems that a few years ago existed only in science fiction or as prohibitively expensive prototypes are becoming avail- able even to ordinary businesses.

Jails, banks and modest-sized companies are already using some of the new technologies. The toughest security measures are reserved for facilities that make or store plutonium and uranium 235 as well as the equipment a terrorist could use in assembling an atomic bomb. The would-be thief, spy or terrorist now faces hedges that are really walls, invisible sensors made of tamper-proof radiation beams and foam that can mire the intruder like a fly in meringue. Traditional identification systems based on pho- tographs and handprints are being replaced by advanced systems that can speedily distinguish one person from all others by biological measurement. In one system coming into widespread use, a scan of the pattern of blood vessels at the back of a person's eyeball is used to determine whether the person is authorized to enter a restricted area.

Supervising the operation of all this is an army of 6,800 Department of Energy "inspectors," crack fighting men and women as skilled in hand-to-hand combat as in operating computers. Last year there was a dramatic reminder that defense laboratories face a continuing threat. On Nov. 28 a man planted a powerful bomb beneath a car parked across the street from the sprawling Lawrence Liver-more Laboratory in California. Although the bomb caused neither casualties nor serious damage, it dej stroyed the car and alarmed officials at Livermore, one of America's main designers of nuclear warheads and anti-missile weapons.

Still today when I'm sad, if I can just get to that piano, I can save my soul. Sometimes I really am Janis singing, "Take a little Piece of My Heart," and sometimes I'm Frank singing Never Entered My Mind, and sometimes I'm Frankie singing Why Do Fools Fall in Love? so sweetly and happily that you'd swear the whole world was 14 years old. But somehow I am never ever Little Richard. No matter how hard I try, imagination has its limits. Certain songs I never liked on the radio, like Wichita Lineman, can sound good to me as performed by Alicia Lamour.

While others which I loved, like Heard It Through the Grapevine, stink because I'll never be Marvin Gaye. And just because I can't do Jim Morrison, "Come on baby, Light My Fire" comes out like In the Good Old Summertime. The strange thing is that I can't play around other people at all unless they are blood relatives or are ODing on drugs. Every once in a while, when I'm really wailing, I'll think: If my friends could see me now. But the few times I tried to sing for others, it's been a disaster.

When I learned that my mail carrier, George C. George, had been a musical comedy star in his youth, I tried to give him a song and dance for Christmas. As he approached my porch, I came out singing and tap-dancing, "It's Mr. George C. George (clap) the mailman bringing me (clap) letters, and maybe (clap) presents, and maybe some (clap) money.

He literally ran away as if he had been attacked by a yelping dog. But I suppose that has always been the goal of Alicia Lamour, a woman and her music to make the world go away. 1988, San Francisco Chronicle. Distributed by Los Angeles Times Syndicate Armed guard Despite new technology and the development of robot guards, human sentries are still indispensable. Please see SECURITY 2-0 i Closed-circuit TV cameras i I i ''-7 'J i 4 TimM OAVTO WILLIAMS.