The Atlanta Constitution from Atlanta, Georgia • 37

1 THE ATLANTA CONSTITUTION leoplgetc SECTION Thursday, Aug. 23, 1984 B. Glassbmster Ron John Carman Hudspeth GOP makes test pattern look lively j- i :) Reports of days off exaggerated "Ron Hudspeth is taking a few days off. His column will resume when he returns" That's what it said in the good or 'Constitution, folks. Acapulco maybe? Paris? Hawaii is nice this time of year.

ya bum!" screamed an acquaintance through the phone, jolting me from a restless slumber. "Ya just get back from a cruise and now you gotta have a couple days off?" Acapulco," Paris or Hawaii would have been nice, but the fact is I would have preferred Birmingham and Fort Deposit to the reality of "couple days off." I can explain. I had invited fellow journalists Lee Walburn and Lewie Grizzard up to the "family farm near Cumming and then on to Lanierland to see Merle Haggard. It a joyous affair, since the three of us 'concur that Merle Haggard is about the best singer on the planet and getting bet-' 'ter all the time. Lee even brought along a collection of Merle's religious songs for us to warm up on.

Boy, am I glad I listened closely to them. It might have made the difference. Columbus, Ohio, photographer Fred Shannon took this photo of a phone flying through the air in front of Tina Resch Does Tina Resch cause dishes to fly? rl 1 Magician charges collusion, Page 6-B By Bo Emerson Staff Writer Things are quiet now at the Resch household in Columbus, Ohio. Quiet, but not normal. Most of the broken glassware and china has been replaced, the egg stains removed from the ceiling and the furniture put back where it belongs.

Paintings don't leap off Political junkies began to whoop and holler at the TV networks as soon as the echoes cleared last month from San Francisco's Moscone Center. -w-iK Time magazine harrumphed that the networks "cover tennis matches with more fidelity to the action" than they had the Democratic convention and lamented the trim coverage expected for the Republicans this week in Dallas, The editors of New Republic magazine were angrier, insisting that a political convention is "a mammoth combination of the Tonight the evening news, 'Queen for a Day, 'People's 'This Is Your Life, 'Saturday Night Live' and the biggest Phil Donahue show imaginable." ABC's David Brinkley, who has been publicly amused by politicians for 28 years, contravened the network line this week with his observation that any political convention is "essentially crazy, which is one reason it's so interesting." Bill Moyers of CBS also reacted to an ABC executive's now-famous remark that the conventions are dinosaurs. Anyone who thinks they're dull, Moyers said on the "CBS Evening News" this week, suffers from "terminal cynicism." Gasp-'. Before I keel over from incurable cynicism, I would like to that the Republican convention has afforded, the dullest, the most insufferably boryigi the most torturous, hours, of. TV vvie wing I have beeri fprced to endure public invented pledge Television should cover the conventions.

Americans have scant opportunity to watch their democracy function in any let fraant manifestation. It's not too mucK.to.k the networks to lay it out on the every four years. 7 But this year's sleek coverage is enough. This week has been more than enough. You can absorb the flavor of the event and catch the main It doesn't take gavel-to-gavel galvanization to understand that the Republican Party is content with itself, confident of its nominee and brimming with conservative fervor.

The Republicans are, NBC's Tom Brokaw said, "putting on an electric happy face." People who think the networks are shortchanging them should take a closer look at the Republican coverage. How about that platform plank that would See CARMAN, Page 11-B the walls and candles don take flight. But they might, they might Now that Tina is back. Tina Resch, a 14-year-old high school freshman grabbed national headlines last spring as the supposed unconscious and involuntary cause of a spate of strange events. Whenever Tina was wineglasses, candles and groceries flew violently around tlie house, propelled by unseen forces.

Furniture moved itself, appliances turned on and chandeliers began swinging as if in scenes from the Steven Spielberg movie "Poltergeist" After Columbus columnist wrote -about the incidents, the Resch house and property became an arena for competing re JIM BATTI FSStaH Tina Resch (left) holds tight to psychic teacher Pat Hayes' hand porters, television cameramen, curious parapsychologists and skeptical professional magicians. Tina underwent a barrage of brain scans, personality tests and psychokinetic exercises, traveling to North Carolina, Florida and finally, this month, to Georgia for a "Mediumship Development Seminar" at a school for psychics north of Atlanta. The testing did not determine whether Tina possesses psychokinetic powers the ability to move objects with mental energy. Neither did it resolve the scientific debate over whether psychokinesis even exists. But her odyssey has worked deep changes in the young girl.

She once fought with fellow students, argued with teachers and performed so poorly in schoolwork that her adoptive parents, Joan and John Resch, took her out of public school and hired a tutor to teach her at home. This fall, for the first time in years, Tina will return to public school, enrolling as a freshman at Northland High School in Columbus. She is determined to do well. "I'm going to refuse to get angry," she says, "I'm going to refuse to get in a fight or get upset about anything anybody says. I just think of a lot of love and light and happiness and hope." See TINA, Page 7-B Vin not so ordinaire in France these days Haggard Lee Walburn IS MERLE SINGING AT MY FUNERAL? Merle's' show was fabulous.

"He's the best ever," said Grizzard, who enter- lajhed and amused the crowd around him singing with Merle. Walburn agreed iysasi'splendjdrformance, and sotfral So much so tnlttQgbout two songs from the end I began to feel oddly 1 hot and thirsty and then dizzy. Uh-oh. wrong here. Oh, no.

I'm gonna faint, And I did- Kerplunk! atoke to? calls from my companions and the stares of strangers with looks on their faces4 that read: "Who's the drunk?" 'Vou're hyperventilating," said Lee. "pnon, I'll walk you out and we'll get some air." We started up the aisle, Lee holding on. td me as I wobbled like Gale Sayeri on a broken field run! made it about halfway out before you guessed it'- Kerplunk! I fainted again. This time I landed and broke "hot dog" Pascual Pe- rei'i record, smearing someone's discarded mustard over much of my body. paramedic crew arrived and carried me to the top of a picnic table outside the concert One put a mask over my nose and said, "Breathe." Another strapped something tight around my arm.

Semiconscious, I heard one of them say, "I can't find his pulse. Better upgrade the ambulance from a three to a two." And then Grizzard's voice: "What he needs is a drink!" So this was the way it was gonna end? On a picnic table like a huge ham with Grizzard preaching my funeral. At least in the background I could still hear Merle singing. IT AINT GRADY, BUT THAT AINT BAD: The ambulance ride was nice. They even let my companion, Jen ride irt the front.

My attendant was an attractive blonde. It's not every guy who kicks out with two nice-looking blondes in attendance. I did have to postpone my trip to the pearly gates momentarily when the cute paramedic radioed the hospital and began, "I have a 52-year-old white "Whoa!" I said, sitting up. "I may have aged in the last 20 minutes, but fm not as old as Skip She blushed and asked me how the show was. ''Great," I managed, "except for the last part- Someone blacked it out" The tflflts at Forsyth County Hospital were rjiee.

While Grizzard entertained them with his Haggard imitations, the doctor gave me every test known to mankind. IWhat did you have to eat today?" he asked. "Let's see," I said. "A cold chicken tying, assorted potato chips, Fritos and peanuts and three Miller Lites." "Hmmm-m," he said. "Been going pretty hard lately?" "Maybe a little too much research," I admitted.

the end, we concluded that I was the victim of exhaustion and a nasty stomach virus that has been attacking our town. HELLO, GOODBYE: Grizzard In- sisted on wheeling me out of the hospital. IUboked like a scene from "Airplane." He rolled the wheelchair right into a wall. I sjjowed him. I passed out again.

Safe at-home, finally, thanks to a tired Walburn who, fearing the worst admitted, "You scared me to death!" A couple of days later a newspaper reporter and her husband were at lunch at a Mexican restaurant and, suddenly, he passed out face down in his enchiladas. They were having lunch with Lee Walburn. "I don't know," said Walburn, "how much more I can stand." Winner of MTV's guest veejay slot an avid video fan By Cathy Bernstein He's a true video fan a self -described fanatic. He's found happiness jwithin the realms of his TV set, tuning in 16 hours of video music a day even when he sleeps which would have been enough. But this this is ecstasy.

Thirty-four-year-old Jim Boggs of Marietta is the winner of the first MTV Viewer Guest Veejay Contest That means he'll appear for an hour on MTV, the 24-hour rock video cable channel, as a guest veejay. The date isn't set yet but when the big day comes, Boggs is sure it'll be a dream come true. 1 To win, all Boggs had to do was send in a post card to MTV well, 23 post cards, one of which was chosen in a random drawing. The call came on Aug. 13.

It was Judy Evans, star of "The Guiding Light," who informed Boggs that he was the winner of the contest. Why Judy Evans? Because he not only will appear on MTV, but also will play a small cameo role on "The Guiding Light" daytime soap opera. He's looking forward to that but says "it's definitely second to MTV." Wait there's more. Boggs and a guest will fly first class to New York City where luxury hotel accommodations await them for four days and three nights. They'll receive $1,000 to spend as they wish, have limousines on call at all times, and visit several night clubs where the rock stars hang out.

Boggs' addiction to videos started when MTV aired in August 1981. "I was running across the channels when I saw a popular song. I loved what was being done to it" said Boggs. "I thought to myself, 'What is From there on out it's been my life." Boggs' devotion doesn't stop at the tube. He's a rock 'n' roll trivia buff and has collected all the NEIL McGAHEEStatf grew more than 14 percent, to 54 million.

And the drop shows no signs of leveling off. "On the contrary," said Jeaii Yves Huguef marketing director of the Office of Wines, "It's really dropping faster. There wiU be some-kind of stabilization, but it's hard to say -v Pierre Kleinmann, 23, a Paris fashion designer, almost never touches the stuff. He was drinking a lemonade with his sandwich the other day. Philippe Beziau, 32, a courier, indulges just twice a week, much less than his grandfather, who somehow managed to down a gallon a day.

And at lunch, Becq is increasingly resisting what has been an ancient French reflex having wine when having food, at lunch, at dinner, at home, at restaurants, on weekdays, on weekends. Wine and food always had seemed inseparable until now. "There is no problem now if you invite friends over and don't serve wine," said Beziau. Fewer corks are popping, it seems, because the French want to feel better, look better, drive better and work better and because France's lifestyles and economy have changed enormously since World War II. For many French Yuppies yes, they are here too beer drinking is trendy now (up 24.6 percent) while wine, at least the traditional ordinary table wine, is spurned as too blue collar.

Kntohf-Riddff NtwiMMri PARIS Here in the land of the grape whose vine-laced regions of Chablis, Bordeaux and Beaujolais have given-their very names to wine, whose meals have never been meals without a bottle of red, whose fondness for the glass is being ever emulated by the civilized world -Michel Becq settled down to an outdoor lunch and ordered a salad and something to drink. Water, please. Everyone remained calm. "Oui, monsieur," came the reply. "It's better for me not to drink at lunch," Becq, 32, a government analyst said between sips of his mineral water at a cafe on the Boulevard St.

Germain. "I'm in the middle of work and I prefer to drink the water. In general, I'm drinking less wine." And so are the French as a whole a lot less. In fact one-third less. Just when wine consumption is exploding in most major countries up 146 percent in the United States since 1963, 125 percent in West Germany, 124 percent in Belgium, 211 percent in Britain, 400 percent in the Netherlands the nation synonymous with wine is sipping 33.2 percent less per capita, according to the National Interprofessional Office of Wines here.

France, rest assured, is still the world leader. But from 1.59 billion gallons in 1956, consumption here sank to 1.3 billion gallons in 1980, even though France's population Jim Boggs also will appear on a soap opera MTV paraphernalia he can find. A computer programmer, he likes to give friends at work MTV T-shirts and wears his red satin MTV jacket and baseball cap in his spare time. He is the proud owner of MTV's book of "Who's Who in Rock Video," a library of the first year of MTV videos. Every song he has taped in the past year and there are more than 100 has come from MTV.

Boggs, who is originally from Athens, Ohio, and has lived here for five years, even owns two stereos because of his fanaticism about MTV. His original stereo was in the shop last year when, MTV scheduled a special he wanted to hear in stereo, so he went out and bought another unit to hook up to his TV. Although the exact date of his appearance isn't set, Boggs says he expects to appear either Aug. 28 or Sept 25. Between now and then, he says, "there's nothing else on my mind.".