The Daily Courier from Connellsville, Pennsylvania • Page 8

THE DAILY COUMER, CONNEUSVILLE, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY II, 1174 Disappearing Link With the Elegant Past by THOMAS JOSEPH BynUNKGREENWALT The ttakk of cryiUl, til ver- wan udcfaiM. Gourmet coococted in narrow kitchens in rockinf, rolliof railcars. SfflUiaf black waiters and sophiiticated monstached Someday it may only eitt in heaven, but you can experience it today on the Super Chief. Yes, there's still a Super Chief. Eastbouod and westbound trains still roll every day between Chicago and Los Angeles, preserving one of the best examples of a great American institution--the railroad pining car.

Some compromises have been made. heavy silverware is being replaced with stainless steel. And menus are not as sumptuous as they once were. But there are still fresh yellow roses on the tables and service is comparable to fine restaurants. The crews are still proud.

Curt Voigt was steward of our train. Aside from seating customers, he handles all cash in the operation and makes sure everything runs smoothly. Voigt, who speaks with a clipped German accent, quit his job in a fine Chicago restaurant to go to the Santa Fe. He eventually worked up to the Super Chief--his favorite train. "Now, I have everything I want," he said.

"We get all the VIPs-Jackie Gleason, James Cagney, Gov. Ronald Reagan, Frank Sinatra. Judy Garland used to ride this train." A 10-year veteran, he is a relative newcomer to the railroad business. L. C.

Tate, a waiter, has been working Santa Fe dining cars for 29 years. "We deal with good people all the way--good people," he said. "I say that from the bottom of my heart. I've never heard anyone say anything wrong on this train." E. J.

Walker, chef, has been working Santa Fe lines for 27 years. His reason for being a chef? "Chef was the highest a black man could get when I started," he said. "So that's what I shot for. I wanted the best." The day we rode the Super Chief, it was late pulling into Los Angeles Union Station from the yards. Passengers didn't notice it, but it created a tremendous rush getting food aboard the diner for the 7:30 p.m.

departure for Chicago. Inside the dining area, some waiters set tables while others clipped on their bow ties to be ready for passengers. PENN MT. PLEASANT S47-4100 HELD OVER thraTHURS. 2 RATED HITS TEENAGE FANTASISS-X lunch Teen 8:00 MAGIC LANTERN CINEMA SMITHTON WED.

thru SUN. "Forbidden" 3 Shows Nightly Rated Ladies and Over 21 Admitted NOW By the time passengers began filing aboard the long silver streamliner, the crew's suitcases had been put away and air conditioning had cleared the stuffy atmosphere. We were ready to go. Passengers began strolling into the car as the diesel horns screamed and the train rolled smoothly put of the gigantic Union Station. Voigt greeted customers and showed them to a table.

Each family was handed a pencil and an order check. Railroad custom demands that passengers write their own orders. Super Chief passengers enjoy subtle benefits of riding the finest train in the United States. "We never stop breakfast," Voigt said. "We don't want to wake them.

If they wake at 11 a.m., they can still come in to eat. "That's why people pay a little more to ride the Super Chief." Lunch and dinner are announced with a xylophone-like chime a waiter plays through the sleeping cars. Each waiter has his own special method for maintaining good relations with passengers. Tate, for example, is always careful to a man's wife and children right. "All the men watch that," he said.

Remember how boy met girl in the old movies? A considerate steward placed them at the same dining car table. They even wrote a song about it. It could still happen on the Super Chief. "When the dining car is full," Voigt said, "I usually seat a single with someone else. "When they come to the table, they're strangers.

When I pass them again, they're talking like old friends." Gerald Conrad, a young man from Detroit, was seated with John Curtis, an older busi- nessman from Los Angeles. Conrad was taking the train because it was "different." Curtis was a veteran rail traveler. "I've made 30 cross-country trips," he said. "I like riding trains because you get away from the telephone. You get away from everything.

Once you're aboard, you have two days of complete rest. You can turn it off." Every passenger had a reason for riding the train. Charles Stewart, owner of a tennis shop in Pasadena, son's age. "I want him to have the same experience," he said, turning to his son, Sean, who is 7. "This will be his first train rode the Super Chief for two ride.

When we fly back, it will reasons. be his first plane tide. "It's nostalgic for me because "Hopefully, this institution I'm going back to visit my old will be around long enough for high school in Colorado," he him to do the same with his said. sons." "Pius, I remember how much Although the Super Chief runs I enjoyed trains when I was my on Santa Fe tracks and uses mostly ex-Santa Fe crews and equipment, it is officially part of Amtrak--a federal agency with maintaining rail passenger service in the United The crew agreed that Amtrack was working hard to bring passengers back to trains. "Amtrak is trying very, very hard to bring them back," Voigt said.

"I hope it makes it." ACSMS 1. Fastener 5. Sea call It. Opponent forLaver 11. "Macbeth" fhort llCellblock outbreak 14ConMc- utively IS.

Taro root 1C. Nigerian city 17. Cabin boy 18. Measurement of contents 20. Old- DOWN Seraglio "Stand --I" 1 Call a spade a spade (2wds.) 4 Coddle 5.

Tolerated 7. Soldier 8. On the up-and-up (2wds.) 9. Type of engine a thousand (2wds.) 1C. Czech river 19.

Emigrant Ze. Antler part 23.Eritrean capital 24. Prophetic woman 25. Passageway 27. Stringent 39.

Famed Rita Hayworth role 31. Wound up 33.Winglike 37. Anguish Three Local Service Clubs Get Awards Area service clubs were presented with 'Bell-Ringers' certificates for combined efforts during the Salvation Army's Christmas bell ringing project in the city. Capt. Jacquelyn Drake, commanding officer of the Connellsville Salvation Army citadel, presents the awards to James M.

Driscoll (left), representing the Connellsville Kiwanis Club; William Cropp, repre-, senting the Connellsville Lions Club and Jack Sweyers (right) representing the Connellsville Rotary Club. (Courier Photo) Subject Of This Museum Is A Bunch Of Dummies 2L Toboggan 22.Rockfish 23. In full swing 25. Olive green 26. Withered 27.

Sensible 28. Signify 29. Hire 32. Mr. Onassis 33.

Farewell! 34. Waterfall (Scot.) 35. Entertain lavishly 37. Wooly's partner 38. Hewn stone 39.

Wavy (her.) 40. Be curious 41. By Jove! DAILY bRYPTOQUOTE-Here's how to work it: A A A is One letter simply stands for another. In this sample A is used for the three L's, for the two O's, etc. Single letters, apostrophes, the length and formation of the words are all.

hints. Each day the code letters are different. CRYTOQUOTES A A JTU A A A Yesterday's Cryptoqnote: INSTEAD OF HATING THE PEOPLE YOU THINK ARE WARMAKERS, HATE THE APPETITES AND DISORDER IN YOUR OWN SOUL WHICH ARE THE CAUSES OF MERTON 1974 King Syndicate, Inc.) Present "Journey Into Blackness' Voices, will present "Journey Into Blackness" at 8 p.m. Monday, Jan. 28, at Uniontown Area High School auditorium, sponsored by the Black Student Union at Fayette Campus of Pennsylvania State University.

The production, performed by 12 young people, spans the hundreds of years of Negro history from Africa to the present. The songs are the music of slave ships, crowded tenements, cotton fields, railroad tracks, good-time bar rooms and rocking church houses. Tickets may be obtained at the office of the assistant to the dean of student affairs at Fayette Campus. By RICK VAN SANT dummies are dressed in all FORT MITCHELL, Ky. manner of outfits, from tuxedos (UPI) It all started with to comic clothes.

They sit Tommy Baloney, a wooden lifelessly on chairs packed into dummy purchased by business- the three buildings, man and amateur ventriloquist Susan DeFalaise, caretaker William Shakespeare Berger in of the museum, brought a few to 1910. life. By the time "W.S." -as his "This is Tommy Baloney," friends in this small Cincinnati she said. Putting her hand surburb called him--died a through an opening in the couple of years ago at age 94, dummy's back and pulling a his collection of small wooden lever on a pole extending up to figures with rolling eyes and Tommy's head. Tommy's clacking mouths had grown so mouth moved.

"Tommy was the big that the dummies took over first dummy Mr. Berger ever bought. It was in 1910." Most of the 500 dummies here were used professionally this century. Many have unique names like "Willie Talk" and his brother, "Kenny Talk." Although Berger never performed professionally as a ventriloquist, he had a little stage built in his bedroom where he would practice. his house.

Soon W.S. was sleeping in the dining room for lack of space. Berger, who was president of a company and director of a bank, is gone, but his collection of 500 dummies, thousands of photographs, hundreds of books and reams of correspondence and newsletters on ventriloquism, still occupies his old brick house, known as the "Vent Haven" museum. The three and four-foot-high a month to keep it going," said Mrs. DeFalaise.

"He collected so much material on ventriloquism that it ran him out of the house. He built a garage to store it in and when that wasn't big enough, he built another garage next to it. "He left a quarter-million dollars in a trust fund to keep the museum going," she added. "Little by little, I'm working to improve the museum and to catalogue all the material--but there's just thousands and thousands of items." When a third museum building was dedicated here last summer, Edgar Bergen brought "Charlie McCarthy" and "Mortimer Snerd," while Jimmy Nelson brought "Danny O'Day" and the dog became famous a few years back for advertising chocolate on television. Elderly to Get Tax Assistance Free From IRS elderly taxpayers turn to paid professional preparers for assistance even though they cannot afford the cost, so the IRS decided to provide a viable alternative for them, he said.

Switzer said the IRS trains Low-income and elderly tax- volunteer assistors who, in turn, payers in Fayette County can- hel taxpayers complete their receive income tax returns free returns fully, accurately, and assistance this year through a without charge. Assistors may public service program, C. D. vote 5 Switzer, district director of wisn to me program. Internal Revenue for Western TM gives VITA assistors Pennsylvania reported.

a brief self-instructional course For the fourth consecutive income tax procedures, year the IRS is conducting its and provides the necessary Volunteer Income Tax Assist- forms, schedules, and back- ance (VITA) program which ground materials. A training He formed an international association of ventriloquists and sometimes wrote 500 letters Some 5.1 billion light bulbs were sold in the United States last year. provides for concerned indivi- das 11 conducted from 9 duals and groups to assist tax- a to 5 p.m., Thursday and payers with fairly simple filing Friday, Jan. 24 and 25 in the requirements, especially short Community Action offices at 61 form 1040A filers, Switzer said. E.

Penn Uniontown. Indivi- The assistance is given in local duals groups who wish to communities--usually at com- participate in VITA may munity centers, church halls, or register by calling Patricia neighborhood meeting places. Gallo, community action deputy Locally, VITA is being spon- director, in Uniontown. Regis- sored by the Fayette County tration deadline is Friday. Community Action Agency, Inc.

Applicants will be accepted on a Many of these low-income and first come, first served basis. EXECUTIVE Elizabeth Taylor Ash Wednesday' JAPANESE LAND COST UP Tokyo--In one typical Tokyo suburb a home lot bought five years ago for $7,500 is now- worth $32,000. The lot's Just of an acre. COLOR 7:45 9:30 :30 9: FINAL 7 DAYS TODAY IS LADIES DAY EVE. 7:30 9:30 Whereujereuouin'62? ALUCASH.MJD COPPOUV CO Production A UMVfffSAt PICTURE OF IT ALL GREAT NEW MATURE FILM FOR 1974" NOW SNOWING warns UNIONTOWN 431-9171 WEEKDAYS SAT.

SUN. 1:00 3:00 5:00 7:009:00 SORRY NO PASSES THURS. SAT. RE6. GIRLS' 8.99 SADDLES Taken from J.

S. Raub regular stock. Next I Monday they go back to $8.99 White With Black Beige Blue Beige With Brown SAVE'3" Because We Try Harder Sites to 10 106 W. CRAWFORD AVE. CONNELLSVILLE FRI.

A SAT. to 9 P.M. REAR ENTRANCE fiirh'Opape or Argyte KNEE SOX.