Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • 49

(fhicao.0 (Tribune Tuesday, July 30, 1985 Section 5 MM TELEVISION Bob Greene tor VV A Back in battle: The ace shows his mettle I 1 I I 1 TELEVIZiUi, Create your own Dew Drop Inn I "uL JVL-J TELEVISIONE 1 love to leaf through catalogues, hmwsina mi over everything from canned fruits to i TELEVISION Christmas toys to computer software. lELEVUIOIi Jn part three of his autobiography, "Yeager" the first man to break the sound barrier tells how he persuaded Gen. Eisenhower to allow him to return to combat after his escape from Nazi-occupied France. By Chuck Yeager and Leo Janos FJ hen I returned to England in the middle I May, 1944 tne Buys tne squadron couldn't believe what they saw. Not only did they never expect to see me again, but I was 20 pounds heavier and brown as a hog in mud.

I was the first evadee to make it back. "Yeager," Obie O'Brien said, greeting me, "when are you gonna do things right? When you're shot down, you're supposed to stay down." My shoulders were peeling from the Spanish sun, while the guys were pale and skinny. Flying daily above the weather, they got sunburn circles around their eyes contoured around the outlines of their oxygen masks and flying helmets and looked like a pack of damned raccoons. When I handed out a bunch of ripe bananas I brought back for them, man, they were speechless; they hadn't seen a banana since we left the States. That's how I got so fat, I told them, eating bananas in Spain, while soaking up sunshine at a I iAEEJ HiOJM 'S TV immigrants Ethnic stations vie for big bucks By Kenneth R.

Clark Media writer ayne Casa, general man nn7 ager of spoke slowly so there and "Dynasty" to more than 80 nations and opening up to offerings far beyond Britain's traditional Public Broadcasting Service fare. Tune in a cable-enhanced UHF channel carrying the Italian service RAIUSA and you will find urging you to "raggiungi tocca" someone. Flip the dial to the Spanish International Network SIN and you will be exhorted to "tomez Coca-Cola." Another click and a Mandarin channel is singing the praises of "Tsingtao Bee-joh," the beer of mainland China. Once, such ethnic foreign-language channels were confined to the ghostly spectrum of UHF, virtually unreceivable until FCC "must carry" rules demanded that cable systems bring their signals into the living room with sparkling clarity. Now, in a land where immigrants once were urged to forget their native tongues and cultures, speak only English and "be American," the old ways are proliferating, especially among Hispanics who constitute the largest and fastest-growing ethnic market in America.

If Miami is its capital, Chicago is its Wall Street. "Chicago is one of the highest Continued on following page could be no misunderstanding. "One hundred billion dollars a year," he said. "That's with a 'b. Casa was not talking about the national deficit, the balance of trade or the latest Pentagon budget request.

He was discussing $100 billion in annual income, burning holes in the pockets of increasingly affluent Spanish-speaking Americans, up to 70 percent of whom, surveys show, prefer television in their native tongue to anything the commercial networks offer in English. He also was discussing advertising on a scale that, in the last five years, has made ethnic, foreign-language television programming the most bullish innovation in the industry. The nearest thing to "foreign language" on television 30 years ago was Ricky Ricardo's fractured Cuban accent on "I Love Lucy." Now, in a phenomenon so recent the A C. Nielsen Co. has yet to rate it, television has joined the import-export business, sending "Dallas" Some high-priced department stores in Texas have become famous through their catalogues; even people who can't afford to buy the stores' merchandise love to fantasize by leaning back in an easy chair and losing themselves in the catalogues.

I always thought that I was immune to the lure of catalogues; for some reason they never appealed to me, and I never spent even five minutes gazing through their pages. But recently I have come across a catalogue that has me mesmerized. It isn't intended for the general public; it is called the "American Hotel Register Co. Catalogue," and it is aimed at people in the hotel industry. The catalogue is 1,344 pages long, and it is designed for hotel and motel operators to order virtually anything they need for their establishments.

The idea is that if you own a hotel or motel, there is no product or supply that you can buy through the catalogue. As I say, the general public has no use for a catalogue like this one. But I have never made a secret of my perverse fascination with hotels. I am more at home in hotels than I am in houses but I never stopped to think about where the hotel owners got all their stuff. For the last few weeks I have been tearing through the hotel-supply catalogue, and I feel like a little kid with his first collection of baseball cards.

This stuff is great. Let's be specific. Here are some of the treasures to be found in the pages of the catalogue: Laundry bags These are made of white paper, with red and green ink saying "Welcome, Guest! We Hope Your Stay Will Be Restful. Laundry Bag For Your Convenience. Please Include Completed Laundry List." There is a drawing on the bags of a bear sleeping as he leans back against a laundry bag his eyes are closed and he has "Z-z-z-z-z-z-z" coming out of his head.

These sell for $46.95 per 1,000. Disposable plastic shower caps These come sealed in individual bags, each of which says: "Your Personal Shower Cap with Our Compliments." Price: $79.95 per 1,000. Woven bamboo hospitality baskets To place in the hotel room's bathroom, to hold soap, shampoo, washcloths, etc. "Here's a whole new dimension in room amenities," says the catalogue. Price: $44.25 per 100.

Fy swatters Made of unbreakable plastic, 20'A inches long, available in red, yellow, aqua or white. Name of the hotel can.be imprinted on the handle. Has hole in handle for hanging. Price varies with quantity ordered ranges from 40 cents each when 250 are ordered, to 26 cents each when 10,000 are ordered. Framed autumn vistas These are the paintings you see over the beds in your hotel rooms.

Bet you always wondered where they came from, didn't you? The paintings show country roads and streams, depicting peaceful settings. Artist is A. Bottanelli; colors are "rich earth tones." Price: $18.95 per print. Guideline lane equipment You probably never heard of these by name before, but you've seen them many times. They are the posts, connected with chains, that funnel guests into orderly lines in front of hotel registration desks.

These are made of plastic "It has a forged iron look at a fraction of the price." Price: $19.85 each for the posts, 60 cents per foot for the chains. Plastic key tags Again, you've seen them all your life, but you never thought in terms of someone having to buy them. These are the elongated diamond shape "the most preferred shape in America the favorite of thousands of motel operators! Because it's good looking, it holds up, it's easy to find in one's pocket, and gives the name and address in large letters." Available in orange, black, red, green and gold-includes customized labeling, and room numbers. Price in lots of 1,000 27 cents each. Refused reservation forms These are to mail to people who have requested reservations on nights that the hotel is completely booked.

Printed in black ink on Vellum index bristol stock, the text begins: "We Are Truly Sorry." Price: $6.50 per hundred. "Do Not Disturb" signs And once more, you've taken these for granted, but never considered that someone had to order and purchase them, did you? These feature bright red ink on durable white plastic; the opposite side is blank "so prankster can't reverse message." Price in lots of 1,000: 16 cents each. Sturdy waxed cardboard ice buckets These come in a woodgrain design, to be left in the room for use with ice machines in hallway. Looks like they are made of oak, but can be disposed of and economically replaced. Price: $47.95 per hundred.

It just occurred to me that some weird readers among you may have become bored by this point in today's column. If that's you, you're just not the kind of person who can appreciate the beauty of this catalogue. I haven't even begun to skim the surface of what's available yet; remember, the catalogue goes on for 1,344 pages. It's the best book I've read all year. I want everything in it.

It promises that most glorious of all American dreams: You, too, can transform your home into a motel room. resort hotel. All expenses were paid by Uncle Sam, including civilian clothes, room, food and booze. By the time I was finished, they couldn't wait to bail out over Spain. I was sent back to England to pack my bags: I was going home.

No more combat. The regulations were strictly enforced to protect the underground in occupied countries who assisted Allied airmen. German intelligence kept dossiers on most of us and knew who had been shot down before; they'd go right to work on your fingernails if you were shot down again. In Spain, I looked forward to going home and marrying my girlfriend Glennis. But from the moment I arrived back at Leiston Air Base, I knew that this was where I belonged until I had done my share of the fighting.

I felt like a bug-out artist. And the idea of sitting out the war as a damned flight instructor in Texas somewhere tore me up. Guys like Bud Anderson and Don Bochkay were already double aces who completed their tours and then volunteered for more. I was raised to finish what I started, not slink off after flying only eight missions. Screw the regulations.

And when I said as much to friends like O'Brien, they looked at me as if my brains had been boiled into oatmeal by the Spanish sun. Group put me in for the Bronze Star for helping Pat the bomber pilot who escaped with Yeager to make it over the Pyrenees, and my friends told me to take my medal and run. I was scheduled to fly to New York on June 25. "No way," I said. Without realizing it, I was about to take charge of my life and push it in a direction where everything that happened in later years was a logical outcome for a career fighter pilot who had compiled an outstanding combat record.

If I had submitted to being sent home, I doubt whether the Army Air Corps would have been interested in retaining my services when the war ended. I would've been just another noncommissioned officer who had spent most of the war instructing young fighter pilots how to fly. Not very impressive. I would probably have been mustered out and my flying career abruptly ended. But I wasn't consciously thinking about my future; I was just being stubborn about the present.

I knew the odds were stacked against me, but in the end events and luck came together for me, and one man the only one who could decided my fate: Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower. I was brassy and pushed my way up the chain of command. And because I was the first evadee to Continued on page 3 Tribun photo by Ron Bailey Long before Live Aid, churches quietly toiled for Africa By Mike Capuzzo volunteer agencies, African churches and the U.S.

government to mount an effort year after year that dwarfs Live Aid. With an army of 212 paid Americans and Africans in Ethiopia alone and 400 others in 30 countries across Africa, gargantuan Catholic Relief Services, the overseas aid arm of 50 million U.S. Catholics, leads the way. It spent $220 million in 1984 on African famine relief and development and will spend $200 million this year in Ethiopia alone. Catholic workers teach women in Gambia to grow sunflowers, whose seeds are pressed for oil that is sold or used in cooking.

They teach Ethiopians to raise farm animals and make tools for the future. Each month they feed 1.6 Continued on page 4 groups this year alone was at work in Africa. "In a very quiet way, long before this became an international cause, the churches have been raising money, but no one mentioned it," said Chuck Eastman, director of the United Protestant Appeal of Dade County, Fla. Eastman said the United Church of Christ alone has raised millions for more than a decade fighting the agricultural problems that Decame the African crisis. "There are a lot of unsung heroes," said Pastor Bob Cottingham, who heads Lutheran World Reliefs African effort.

An international effort led by three giant church relief organizations Catholic Relief Services, the Protestant-backed Church World Service and Lutheran World Relief work with other yellow fever, malaria, "one disease after another." The Bowens' daughter was the first missionary child to die in Nigeria. The Bowens were driven from the hostile continent, but more than a century later their Southern Baptist Convention remains, a record of continuous service interrupted only by the Civil War. While Live Aid was cheered around the globe during its 16-hour lifespan, Baptist missionaries and members of every flock in America have quietly built roads, dug wells, planted crops and fed the hungry in more than a century of bringing the word of God and the goods of modern life to Africa. As McCartney and Jagger sang in an effort that raised $70 million, more than $200 million raised by U.S. religious fl hen Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger and Bob Dylan were ill summoned to London and Philadelphia with the kings of rock 'n' roll and the princes of nations to raise money for Africa, 2 billion people worldwide joined in.

Live Aid, they called it, "The Concert of the Century." When T.J. Bowen, Hurey Goodale and Robert Hill were summoned to Nigeria in 1850 to help the impoverished in North Africa, the Southern Baptist missionaries traveled alone. The Nigeria Mission, they called it, "The White Man's Grave." In a month, Goodale was dead. Hill fled. Bowen's wife came and kept a 250-day diary of misery, with 77 entries on I GET TO HAN6 AR0UNP SHOPPING MALLS! WHAT HAPPENS IN EI6HT MORE YEARS? Smile A fool and his money are soon accepted into the highest social circles.

Inside It's time once again for the television beach party, and this year it's ABC's "Rock 'n' Roll Summer Ac-ion," hosted by Christopher Atkins left on Wednesday nights. Steve Daley looks at the show and recalls ts undistinguished forebears. just eight my whole life A VMORE VEARSjy I WILL CHANGE ..) -r" 1.