Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • 59

Chicago Tribune, Tuesday, December 18, 1934 Section 5 3 Fonteyn says she ran dancing into Ihs ground cm TPI CAN LIVE without dancing." I said Margot Fonteyn, on a tour of America to publicize 1 her new book about Pavlova. "Maybe it's because I danced too much. Maybe it'g because I ran dancing into the ground. "I recently talked to someone who knew Pavlova well. I told her I thought perhaps Pavlova didn't fight her final illness because, unconsciously, she felt death would finally free her from the pressures of dancing.

"She said, no, no, that Pavlova could not live without dancing. I can, I've finished with it. I don't need any more attention." Fonteyn also insists she does not regret being childless, never wanted children, and thinks there are quite enough of the little dears in the world as it is. Her maternal instincts never exactly raged. Nor does she want her own life to stretch out too long.

She has heard that ballet dancers often live to 90 and beyond and is not enchanted by the thought. What she likes is to be "a pres- ence" as she puts it, someone who is asked to walk on to the stage and bow, and that's about it. Fonteyn has tried her hand at fiction, but it was not a success. She lacks a literary imagination. But in her view it is music and dance, not words, that will save the world.

"You can get four people from four warring countries and they can dance together. In words, you can argue. In music, you cannot. Music is a method of communication far more accurate than words. The choice of the wrong word can bring misunderstanding.

It is hard to misunderstand music or dance. "The true brotherhood of man will one day be manipulated by artists. They are the ones who will make the peace, not the politicians." London Express Service. 1 Say no thanks' to thankless giving 1 Dear I Abby By Abigail Van Buren fT EAR ABBY: I'm sure II)) you've heard this many I si times, but I need an answer soon. I am hurt and very angry! Why don't my grandchildren fwho live in another cityl thank me for the birthday and Christmas presents I send them? They range from age 7 to 19.

I have sent sell-addressed, stamped envelopes and boxes of thank-you notes, hoping they will get the hint. I have not had a written thank-you from any of them, and I feel hurt, neglected and unappreciated. When they see me, as an afterthought they mention how much they appreciated the gifts and checks, then offer a weak apology, "You know how busy I am, Don't tell me it's their parents' fault for not teaching them better manners. Their parents know better because I taught them since they were old enough to print that they must send thank-you notes. Should I conveniently "forget" their birthdays and Christmas? I select their gifts with loving care and send generous checks, too, but not one word do I hear.

I love them very much and it hurts to know they care so little for me or my feelings. Should I tell them? Or Should I tell their parents? Hurt Grandmother Dear Hurt: Tell the children lovingly that you are hurt. And stress the importance of making a cents. Furthermore, since the young woman knew the avocado was 59 cents, was she not, by her silence, aiding and abetting who she thought was a criminal at the checkout counter? Southfield, Mich. Dear Southfield: Yes.

The whisperer may have hesitated to correct you at the time because she probably didn't want to risk embarrassing you for a mere 20 cents. How-ever, the size of the sum does not alter the principle. DEAR ABBY: Thanks for the wonderful rerun on what to give and what not to give the older person for the holidays. You really should run that every year because people forget. As an older person, I do not need any more things.

The gift of service is the gift I enjoy the most. My children and grandchildren, now grown, come over here ana clean my windows, wash my woodwork, launder my curtains, and do all sorts of chores I am no longer able to do myself. The year before last they took turns working on remodeling my kitchen. Last year, they modernized my bathroom. It took them over a year working nights and weekends but I will enjoy those gifts as long as I live.

Grateful Grandma Problems? What's bugging you? tnlood on Abby, P.O. Box 38923, Hollywood, Calif. 90038. For a personal reply, please enclose a stamped, self-addressed envelope. lifelong habit of acknowledging gills and promptly.

Most children land some adults "appreciate" gifts and they truly love the giver, but they procrastinate their thanks until they're so embarrassed, they put it out of their minds. Since the absence of a thank-you Is genuinely painful to you, give no more gilts provided the punishment doesn't hurt you more than It hurts them. DEAR ABBY: Yesterday, the cashier at the checkout counter did not know the price of an avocado I was purchasing, so to save time I told her what I honestly thought to be the price 39 cents. While in line at my next stop the bakery department the young woman directly behind me said fin a stage whisper, "By the way, the avocado was 59 cents." Had she spoken up when she heard me tell the cashier the avocado was 39 cents. I would have thanked her and apologized to the cashier for having given her the wrong information.

I am a senior citizen who has no need to con a supermarket out of 20 Tom Selleck stars in "Runaway." 'Runaway' success eludes Selleck By Gene Siskel Movie critic nrr UNAWAY" BEGINS with an Intriguing I premise. In the near future robots will I become as common as toaster ovens and Vlk many of them will go on the fritz with potentially catastrophic results. Rather than just mistiming a turkey, a robot could pick up a gun hidden the house and shoot someone in a domestic quarrel. So the police department must have a robot expert who knows how to calm down the little mechanical critters. In "Runaway" that job belongs to Tom Selleck, making his third attempt at a good movie after the artistic failure of "High Road to China" and "Las-siter." Unfortunately Selleck has a problem he's too nice, too familiar to be a big star in the movies, a -medium that prefers remoteness.

That has been Selleck problem in his two previous films, and it also hurts this one. You can't have a smiling, friendly puppy dog at the center of a thriller. He won't generate any tension. He will make the "Runaway" Mlnl-revlew: Back Into your box, Tom Written and directed by MIchMl CrlcMortj photographed by John Alonto; edited by Glenn Ftrr; mutlc by Jerry Goldsmlm; produced by Michael Rechmll; a Tri-Ster huh at the Cheetnut Station and outlying theatere. Rated PO-tJ.

THE CAST Rameey Tom Selleck Thompeon Cynthle Rbodee lur Gene Slmmoni Jle Klretle Alley Marvin Sten Shew Chief O.W. Belley world around him seem safe. "Runaway" begins in a fresh way by not tipping us that the film is set in the future. We just start right in with Selleck chasing a robot. At first we're confused by Sel-leck's lob; then, after we figure it all out, we appreciate the opportunity to encounter something other than a paint-by-the-numbers movie.

Of course there la mnrn Saw rig nightmare came true for Ben NE OF MY childhood nightmares came true the other day. Fortunately for me, I was not In It. Unfortunately for Arthur Ben Gross, he was in it. The nightmare has to do with a circular saw rig that is used to cut up firewood. They were once very common across rural America.

They consist of a motorized power source, a belt drive and a big circular saw with jagged ieeth that whirls with an evil, hissing sound. If you are a country person, you know about them. If you are a city person, you might have seem similiar machines in some early movies when the heroine was tied to a plank and then moved toward the awful saw blade. My earliest memory of one of these "buzz saws" was on a frosty autumn day when an uncle pulled In to our farmyard with one of them. Then he and my father and a couple of neighbors proceeded to "saw wood." The job consisted of sawing long poles and tree trunks Into 6tove length pieces.

I was too young to do much of anything except watch, and to stay out of the way. I can remember how the whizzing saw filled me with a cold kind of fear. No matter how I tried, I could not prevent the intrusion of horrible images of what would happen to someone who came in contact with the toothy blade. The saw had no protective guards of any kind around it, and it made a strange, buzzing sound when it cut through a piece of wood. This angry noise was accompanied by twangs and clangs and whines.

I COULD NOT stand to watch my father and the others wrestle the poles about and push them into the saw. It was Inevitable, It seemed to me, that one of them would stumble or lose his balance and end up a mass of ripped flesh and blood. It was a long day. But finally the poles were all cut up and a pile of stove wood stood like a ragged pyramid back by the windbreak of spruce trees. And my father and all of the others were intact.

I got very well acquainted with that wood pile through the following winter, making daily visits to it to fill a woodbox next to the kitchen stove. I never visited it without thinking about the saw rig that created it. Farming has always been a hazardous occupation. Those Involved in it are forever being injured or maimed by various machines. But none of the machines could ever be more hazardous than the saw rig.

Almost every rural community has a horror story of one kind or another about them. And so any one familiar with them lives with the old nightmare. Then the other day there was the story out of Missouri. It told how Ben Gross, 70, was helping his son Bill saw up some wood when the belt started to come off the pulleys and Ben made a grab for it. Bill Gross told his father to let It go and that he would shut down the machine to put the belt back on.

Then the belt wrapped up on the tractor pulley and pulled Ben into the saw. YOU MIGHT HAVE seen the news report. It was a horror story of how Ben was nearly sawed in two. The teeth ripped through the flesh, tendons and bones of his right arm and then cut through the left side of his rib cage, through the underside of his liver, through loops of bowel and the artery that supplies his colon with blood, into his pelvis, through his scrotum and into his rectum. "I looked down and saw my whole side lying wide open," Ben said.

"Then I saw my arm wide open and I thought to myself, 'Oh, The pain was so bad that I'd just as soon have been a goner." The fact that Ben was not "a goner" is considered by doctors to be a miracle. Dr. Everett Lerwick, chief of surgery at Missouri Baptist Hospital in St. Louis, said, "This man shouldn't have lived to even get to the hospital. I've never heard of anyone surviving such a wound." During the 20-minute wait for the ambulance, Ben leaned against a tractor and was fully conscious.

His condition was stabilized at Sullivan Memorial Hospital and he was then flown to St. Louis where he underwent seven hours of surgery, during which he was given 14 pints of blood. A week or so later, from a hospital bed, Ben said he would not be afraid to use the saw again. But he apparently won't get a chance to do so. His wife, June, said that by the time Ben comes home, the saw "will be at the bottom of the deepest lake I can find." JUNE GROSS SAID she would not mind expanding her project to include all such saw rigs.

"They are very dangerous things," she said. "Maybe I could help to eliminate them to commemorate Ben's recovery." I'd like to help June Gross with that project. Obviously, the monumental problem of getting rid of hazardous industrial waste is beyond us, but here's something June and you and I can do something about: We can rid the country once and for all of those damnable saw rigs. If you have one, or you know of someone who has one, do your part to see that it is eliminated. There may be a better way to do that than to throw it Into a lake.

Dan Mazur, a spokesman for the Missouri Environmental Quality Division, said he would rather see the metal in a saw rig recycled instead of thrown into a lake. He also wasn't sure whether it might be a violation of water quality laws to put a saw rig In a lake. The deepest lake in Missouri is Table Rock Lake, which is about a four-hour drive from the Gross home. So perhaps June Gross may want to rethink her saw disposal plan. However she does it, she is determined to get rid of the saw, and she encourages everyone else who owns one to do the same.

I applaud her efforts and wish Ben a speedy recovery. Now maybe I can eliminate my saw rig nightmares and replace them with dreams of being stepped on by a horse, which Is another thing I worried about as a child. 1 w-. i- 4 1 to the robots dis-functioning tor turning into "runaways" than mere mechanical failure. As it turns out a world-class criminal named Luthor Gene Simmons from the rock group Kiss is placing microchips with an evil program inside robots.

The robots eventually will form Luthor's army as he takes over the world. But he doesn't get much farther than Vancouver, where virtually all of the film story is set. During his tracking of Luthor, Selleck makes the acquaintance of a couple of women. One is his police partner Cynthia Rhodes the other is Luthor's gun moll Kirstie Alley. Writer-director Michael Crichton "Westworld," "Coma" missed a good bet when he didn allow Selleck to get hot and heavy with either character.

His great grin alone isn't enough to justify a film. ANOTHER ANNOYANCE is that Selleck's character has been given a fear of heights, which can only mean that we're going to get a climactic scene between Selleck and Luthor on top of some skyscraper. Ever since Alfred Hitchcock's "Rear Window" and "Vertigo" were rereleased, vertigo and voyeurism have been popping up more and more in the movies. Think up some new fears, fellas, please; don't bother trying to compete with the master. As exciting as "Runaway" is In the beginning, the film quickly degenerates into a routine chase picture, freshened only bv one of Luthor's gadgets heat-seeking bullets that are programmed to strike only a person with a specific body chemistry.

Thanks to the Steadicam camera, we follow the bullets as they round corners and chase their victims. Another one of Luthor's gimmicks mechanical spiders that shoot daggersis more gruesome than entertaining. So "Runaway" could use fewer chases, more sex and a cooler lead actor. Come to think of it, that's quite a laundry list of mistakes. THE FAR CSDZ By gary iarson sfhe divorce rvy vauf Most young children find out about their parents' divorce the night one parent leaves.

And many kids may suffer from it for years. Tonight, Lee Phillip looks at the ways children and parents 1984 UniverMi Pteai Syndicate SMASKS cope wun divorce: The personal stories of five Chicago-area children who have gone through a family break-up. The surprising find ings from the most ambitious study to date on children and divorce. How divorcing couples help their children prepare for the anxieties to come. Don't miss this powerful special by Scott Craig Chicago's leading producer of documentaries.

IN AVM Lee Phillip, host "Children end Divcrco" CBS "Well, It just sort of wiggled its way up the beach, grabbed poor Jonathan, and dragged him back again. I mean, the poor thing must have been.