The Tampa Tribune from Tampa, Florida • 43

SfiRf THE TAMPA TRIBUNE Tuesday, August 5, 1986 Section AMAZING Michael Kilgore Personal View fsv ojl UJ ijy yffi mid 1 How I spent my vacation When I came back to work a few weeks ago, friends asked the normal questions: "Where did you go?" "What did you do?" They seemed a little disappointed when I told them I stayed at home, resting and reading. Maybe they thought I read because I didn't have anything else to do. I read because I wanted to. I like to read so much I had a thousand comic books when I was 10 years old. I like to read so much I used to sit in a separate room from my parents and read while I ate dinner.

(Yeah, I know it was rude but I hadn't read Miss Manners guide to etiquette yet.) I like to read so much that one of my friends used to say, like a carnival sideshow barker, "He's read every book ever written." The problem Is, I still feel overwhelmed at the volume of books I haven't even heard of, let alone read. It's disturbing when someone mentions a favorite writer and I've never heard the name. So when the chance comes for a concentrated dose of reading, I greedily snatch it For a few weeks before my time off, I start putting my vacation reading aside, fighting the urge to read the books early. They try appealing to me with their colorful covers and whisper to me from inside their jackets. Mostly I resist, although I might nibble a bit, like a dieter at someone else's dessert.

By vacation time, I'm chomping at the bit eager to turn those pages. I get comfortable and place nourishment close by. Although I mostly prefer fiction, I'm an equal-opportunity reader. This vacation batch featured non-fiction: "Sometimes a Shining Moment," by Eliot Wigginton, the high school teacher who founded the "Foxfire" folk and folklore series; "The Death of a President," the reissue of William Manchester's opus on Kennedy's assassination; "What Don't Teach You at Harvard Business plus biographies of Mickey Mantle and Lee Iacocca and Linda Ellerbee's stories of TV follies, "And So It Goes." What a strange bunch. But that's what I like about it: Varying tones, styles, subjects, writers.

It's also a long list. Sometimes people ask me when I find time to read. I don't find time. I make it Other times people ask how I know what to read. Although it's a little self-serving because I also do book reviews, I tell them to read reviews.

I also tell them to read Interviews with authors, excerpts in magazines, jacket blurbs and summaries, best-seller lists (with caution), and other books by authors they've liked before. Reading is broadening, educational, enjoyable, enlightening and maybe best of all with this heat wave it's no sweat Like the poster says, "Breeze through summer. Read a book." Michael Kilgore is an assistant features editor at the Tribune. From reading the amazingly complete reference work "What's What," he just learned that the point between your thumb and index finger is called the "anatomical snuffbox." Now he can sleep nights. By RICHARD ROEPER These are the shadowy stories, the ones that happened to "my sister's hairdresser's ex-husband's neighbor." Rumors, myths, tall tales, legends, lies, falsifications, exaggerations, fabrications.

Recurring stories that never can be traced to the original source because they simply aren't true, even though people will swear that "it really happened to someone I know." With the popularity of books such as "The Vanishing Hitchhiker" and "Rumor," the most enduring rumors are so widespread that they can be identified by title, just like popular songs. Who hasn't heard the one about "The Cat in the Microwave," "The Kentucky Fried Rat" or "The Mouse in the Coke In recent weeks, heard two versions of a story that has all the earmarks of a New Rumorl The "someone said someone said" attribution, a semi-believable premise that takes an implausible turn, and just enough details to make you wonder If it could just possibly be true. Even though you don't believe it you can't wait to tell the story to someone else. Here is a composite of the two variations Fve heard: A friend of mine knows this guy who lives on Chicago's North Shore with his parents. We'll call him Danny.

Back In January, Danny's parents were on vacation in the Bahamas, and he had the house all to himself. When the Bears made it to the Super Bowl, Danny decided that he wanted to go down to New Orleans, even though he didn't have tickets or reservations. His parents had just bought a brand new luxury RV. This thing really was loaded. Even though his parents had left specific instructions with him not to touch it Danny decided to drive the RV down to New Orleans.

That way he wouldn't have to worry about a place to stay. Danny and three buddies drove down to New Orleans, found a place to park the RV, and went about the process of tearing up the town. On his third night there, Danny met a pretty woman, and they went back to the RV for an hour of mutual satisfaction. When they were finished, the woman said, "You owe me $200." Danny laughed. "I'm not paying you anything," he said.

"You'll be sorry," the woman told him. "Last chance." "No way," Danny scoffed. "You're not getting a nickel out of me." The woman left The next day, Danny and his buddies returned from a round of partying, only to find that the RV had been burned to the ground. It turned out that his parents hadn't yet insured the RV, so they were out $22,000. Not only that they had to send Danny money so he could fly home.

New Orleans newspapers have no record of any RV burning on Super Bowl weekend. And it's a little hard to believe that anyone would buy a $22,000 vehicle and then fall to have it Insured. But to appreciate New Rumors fully, you have to leave your suspicions at the door. See AMAZING, Page 8D Tribune art by RAY QRUMNEY The rumor about J.D. Salinger cluded home nearby, and has been making several appearances at the hospital, so he probably knows all about Giles Weaver.

Maybe he even has an arrangement with Weaver to write under his name. The name itself is kind of a tipoff: "Giles Weaver" means that Salinger is using guile to weave his tales. J.D. Salinger, the reclusive author of "The Catcher in the Rye," hasn't written a pubv lished story since 1966. Or has he? Actually, Salinger has been writing short stories under the name of Giles Weaver.

Although evidence shows that the real Giles Weaver is a patient at a V.A. -hospital in North Hampton, Salinger does have a se Richard Roeper is a regular columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper. Inside Rick Segall: The act of growing up Reader takes on shady florists A reader tells Ann Landers about a bad experience she' had with a florist who did not fill her order to an out-of-town relative correctly. See the columnist's response. Hot Tuna in Tampa Hot Tuna, a rock group that includes two former members of the Jefferson Airplane, Jack Casady and Jorma Kaukonen, performed Saturday at Tampa Theatre.

Staff Writer Hugh Martin was there. The Ricky-next-door on "The Partridge Family" is now the big hitter in "Brighton Beach Memoirs." Review, 2D By PORTER ANDERSON Tribune Theater Critic Don't call "Places!" when it's time for Rick Segall to open Act I of "Brighton Beach Memoirs" at the Showboat Dinner Theatre. Try "Batter up!" The curtain rises, the lights warm up and Segall goes on stage as the 15-year-old future-writer Eugene, with his baseball, his glove and a grand-slam fantasy: "One out, a mart on second, bottom of the seventh, (wo balls, no strikes Ruffing checks the runner on second, gets the sign from Dickey, Ruffing stretches, Ruffing pitches Caught the inside corner, steerike one! Atta baby!" Those opening lines of Nell Simon's 1983 comedy are dear to this 17-year-old actor's heart "What I really want to do," he said, "Is go to a good college and major in drama and play baseball. I've been acting and playing baseball ever since I was little." And ever since he was little, you've likely been watching Segall. Over a rehearsal lunch of corned beef and cabbage recently, he ran through his TV commercial resume: "The first TV commercial I ever did was for Tonka Toys.

I was 5 years old. And I did Rice Krisples I woke up to Snap, Crackle, Pop. I did Kentucky Fried Chicken. Then I started getting into the swing of Star Wan action figures I did three of those commercials." His work "for a season as neighbor-boy Ricky Stevens on TV's "The Partridge Family" is his major playbill credit "I was 4," he said. "Very little.

All I knew was that I was on the set and I'd sit on a stool and sing. "What they (ABC) wanted to do was knock off 'All in the Family' (on CBS). It didn't work. 'All In the Family' stayed on for 10 more years and 'The Partridge Family died." See SEGALL, Page 2D RlOw Segall, 17, playt Eugtn In "Brighton Beach Memoirs" at the Showboat'.