Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 50

12D DETROIT FREE PRESSFRIDAY, JULY 29, 1983 wy Jim Fitzgerald TT II I .11 STT' '8? 3 i W.v- Write 'Return to Sender' on Red Skelton's advice A few days ago, on the occasion of his 70th birthday, comedian Red Skelton told a newspaper reporter he had no advice to give on how to get through life. "It has all been said and nobody paid any attention," he explained. I paid attention. According to my How-to-Get-Through-Life file, it was in 1970 that Skelton publicly advised husbands on how to get through life with their wives. I was so impressed I followed Skelton's advice.

Skelton said he woke up at 5 o'clock every morning and wrote a love letter to his wife. They lived in the same house and slept in the same room, but he still wrote her a mushy letter every day. He probably had his own stamp machine and mailman strategically located beside his bed. called the daily messages to his wife "Letters to Little Red." (They both had red hair and he was bigger than she was; get it?) He said the letters were his "thoughts and ideas." They included short stories and Anne Kobylenski, left, and Valerie Fons paddle in a recent practice on the Au Sable River. Kobylenski and Fons look over a map of the river.

Getting ready for a tough trip mw lift, H-(f 2 musical compositions. My first reaction was to laugh at Big Red for being a Big Boob, and to sympathize with Little Red who was surely way behind in answering her mail. But my second reaction was to remember that Red Skelton was an eminently successful, wealthy' re rrfir. spected person, and I wasn't. No one ever asked me how to get through life, or even doors.

It might well be that Skelton knew something I didn't. So I decided to wake up at 5 a.m. and write a letter to my wife, Little Dishwater Blond. The only problem was how to wake myself up that early without waking her up, too. My wife and I have always shared the same bed because we believe the couple that sleeps together is the couple that doesn't have to buy two alarm clocks.

THERE ARE SOME people who have "inner" alarm clocks. When they get in bed, they simply tell themselves what time they want to wake up, and they' always do. So every night for several months, before going to sleep, I kept telling myself over and over to jy wake up at 5 a.m. But myself never paid any attention. A few times, in fact, myself laughed in my face.

That woke up Little Dishwater Blond, who wanted to know what was so funny. I told her she'd read all about it someday. She finally did, on the day I managed to write a letter at 5 a.m. by never going to sleep the night before. I kept myself awake by forcing myself to count my wife's shoe boxes by romantic moonlight.

There were 18 boxes 1 on her side of the closet and 42 on my side. In the letter, which I slipped under her breakfast plate, I said she was loved madly by the only man in town who had to hang his pants on a tie rack. My wife wasn't at all impressed when I said my mushy note was inspired by Red Skelton. The trouble was that it took me too long to wake up at 5 a.m. I started trying in 1970 but didn't succeed until 1971, only a few days after Little Dishwater Blond read an embarrassing newspaper item I'd missed.

IT SAID THE SKELTONS were getting a divorce. It even hinted that Big Red had found another. Perhaps some of his letters were delivered to the wrong address. Anyway, that was 12 years ago, and I'd forgotten all about taking Red Skelton's advice until reading that he's now 70 and doesn't think anyone ever pays any attention to such advice. "Just don't take life seriously because you're not going to get out of it alive," he added.

"The cemeteries are full of people we couldn't get along without. I'm just hanging around long enough to see who gets Brooke Shields." "I wish Skelton said that in 1970," I told myself. "No one had heard of Brooke Shields then, but if he'd said Elizabeth Taylor it would have helped me get through life without writing a dumb letter at 5 a.m." "Thanks a lot," myself answered, "for reminding me that Brooke Shields will grow up to marry Richard Burton. If it's all the same to you, and there are no more shoe boxes to count, I'd just as soon sleep through that wedding." When the 36th Au Sable Marathon starts Friday at 9 p.m., about 30 teams will have trained hundreds of hours for the grueling 240-mile canoe race from Grayling to Oscoda along the Au Sable River. One of the teams will include Anne Kobylenski, 29, of Condon, and Valerie Fons, 32, of Woodinville, who started training for the race in February.

The two canoeists have spent 250 hours making preparations. This week they tapered off their practice runs and increased their carbohydrates and sleeping time tor the race, two-thirds of which is paddled at night. See related story and photo, Page IB. 4 L-yK Photostory by Craig Porter The two canoeists have tapered off their practices for Friday's start of the Au Sable Marathon. Above, they lift their 18 '2-foot ultralight canoe from the car rack.

At right, they go through one of the numerous changes of clothes they will make during the race. names 8 faces Sonny Eliot is looking for answers GET READY for echoes of the old briefly: not shtick SIGNED: Burt Reynolds to direct and star in "Stick," based on the detective novel by Birmingham author Elmore Leonard. FINED: Randolph Churchill, great-grandson of Winston, 50 pounds for dodging a train fare by showing an expired ticket. VINDICATED: Depot, a black-and-brown mutt, pet of Sen. John Warner and actress Elizabeth Taylor when they were wed.

The dog was cleared in a $250,000 lawsuit by a pediatrician claiming Depot bit him in 1980. ELECTED: Father James Wleging, chief chaplain for the Detroit Police Department, to a two-year term as president of the International Police Chaplains. ARRESTED: The former secretary of Eunice Kennedy Shrlver, Pamela Luna, who was accused of using Shriver's charge and bank accounts to obtain a mink coat, diamond jewelry and other items valued at more than $80,000. Edited by CATHY COLLISON SMI six) wires contributed "Rita Bell Prize Movie." Starting sometime in August, Channel 50's "One O'Clock Movie" with Sonny Eliot will be transformed into "Sonny's Money Movie." WKBD program director Bill Castleman confirmed Eliot will begin asking trivia questions with money for correct answers. "Sonny's been sitting in Bill Kennedy's set and we thought he ought to have his own home," Castleman explained.

"And we wanted to spice it up." i yi. Kennedy: De Loren: Booking for bar Few friends Midler is on her way to Minneapolis for her next show. Meanwhile, Pine Knob spokesman Jon Essex said there is a "pretty good chance" the Midler concert will be rescheduled in September. "IF I HAD to rank them I would put appearance at the top of the list," testified Christine Craft's station manager in Kansas City, R. Kent Replogle on Wednesday.

Said Replogle, "from the time (she) began her work the (ratings) trend was downward," Craft earlier testified that her news director, Ridge Shannon, told her, "When the people of Kansas City see your face they turn the dial." Shannon, incidentally, is a former Detroit broadcast personality, having held news department posts at both Channel 2 and 7 in the early 70s. ROBERT KENNEDY JR. has resigned as assistant district attorney in New York to study and retake the bar exam he failed a year ago. The 28-year-old son of the late senator and nephew of President John F. Kennedy, who was sworn in as an assistant district attorney last Aug.

23. Loclihorns I I JOHNNY CARSON doesn't visit, neither does Pete Rozelle or Frank Gifford a few of the fickle and former friends of auto maverick John De Lorean, said De Lorean's wife, Christina, to Barbara Walters. "They just stopped calling," De Lorean told Walters in an interview on ABC's "20-20." Said De Lorean, "I see Joanna Carson. She's a very dear friend and I love her dearly." De Lorean, who believes that her husband was framed TOM BRAY, associate editor of the Wall Street Journal's editorial page, will take over as editor of the Detroit News' editorial page sometime next month. The News is expected to announce Bray's appointment soon.

Bray, 40, is a graduate of Princeton University. He's married and has two children. BETTE MIDLER was released Thursday from Pontiac Hospital, where she was taken after her collapse at Pine Knob Tuesday night. "She Is feeling much better and thanks everyone for the concern and flowers," said hospital spokeswoman Rita Johnson. Fret Press Photo by AL AMU DA On the fast track and will be acquitted in the cocaine case, said they have become born-again Yes, that was Loni Anderson out at Ford's proving grounds in Dearborn Thursday, taking a spin but slowing down just enough 'rr the local media to take some shots.

Anderson is in Datroit for filming of "Fast Eddie" with her co-star. Robert Hays, who also took morehan a few spins around the track. Christians and attend weekly Bible "WOOLP YOU BELIEVE MY CAR WAS RECALLED WITH ME IN IT! class. i 3.