THE BATTALION
WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 1981
Page 13
T
\7 n
eatures
y
of fee-cup conversation avoids world problems
Columnist provides trivial details for comic relief
I VI (t United Press International
Lilt JWEATHERFORD — There
u |ll be no quiz on this later, but
W for your fleeting enlighten
ment, the Statue of Liberty’s
effects o niouth is 3 feet wide and about 15
ipossibl prcent of all obscene phone calls
llifemade by women. And by the
ng is I way. the top speed of a running
■token is about 9 mph.
tbouttbi;B You will soon forget the above,
xed emc bo doubt, which is as it should be.
phen considered with meatier
>aid. mpics like the Russian army in Po-
is by tl Sand and presidential assassination
Basical), Itempts, those tidbits of trivia
airbefoi(|oiit matter a whit. Their sole
rpose is to bring a little comic
said Eadilief, says L.M. Boyd, one of the
leeringt lpemost masters of trivial details.
Beginning in Seattle in 1967,
L.M. Boyd column has been
dicated in newspapers around
country, advising readers that
Mrillas outnumber tigers by 3-to-
'ercapMBin a typical box of animal crack-
e said, as and that 42 percent of the na-
dongwilipn’s population doesn’t eat
■eakfast. Nothing heavy, nothing
lobb saAportant — just light patter pro-
n for lab®
at
viding a diversion from the
weightier matters of the world.
“Years ago it became apparent
to me that as people gathered in
metropolitan areas and lost con
tact with the butcher and the
drugstore and the barber shop
kind of things; they were becom
ing more and more isolated,”
Boyd said.
“And a subscriber to a newspap
er didn’t actually have somebody
on the newspaper to talk to. He
would read editorial opinion and
hard-breaking news without a cof
fee-cup conversation with
someone.
“So I set up the column de
signed to trade conversation and
trade notes on a one-to-one basis.
There are a lot of lonely people out
there and they can’t find anything
in the paper any more to which
they can relate personally.”
Boyd’s tool for fashioning that
one-on-one relationship is the
purpose of the daily column com
prised of 10 to 15 unrelated, in
consequential items presented in
a chatty style, with puns and per
sonal observations mixed in.
“I use the trivia as a vehicle — a
vehicle to carry on the conversa
tion,” he said at his home-office a
few miles outside Weatherford. “I
wanted a column that wasn’t a per
formance. I wanted a graceful
routine that didn’t call for me to
juggle and show off everyday.
“Some newspaper people sit
down and write a pompous story
about a movie review or if it’s a
police reporter’s story it’s a hard,
crackling thing. But somewhere
there’s got to be someplace for
somebody who isn’t on an ego trip,
but still is talking to the people.”
Before syndicating his trivia,
Boyd was a reporter and editor for
newspapers in Seattle, Pittsburgh
and Houston, where he ran the
Houston Chronicle’s popular
“Watchem” column, one of the
first newspaper action lines. He
came to realize newspapers did
not always have the room or place
to print the things he found truly
interesting.
“You’ve heard that song “Hold
that Tiger’ that some schools use
for their fight song? I went out to
cover a shooting at an after-hours
club and there was an old black
man on piano who I got the infor
mation from about the shootings. I
don’t remember anything else ab
out the killings but I remember
something else he told me.
“He said that when he was in
New Orleans the lowest possible
poker hand a man can hold —
seven on down with no straights or
flushes or pairs — was called a
‘tiger’ in jazz lingo. ‘Hold that Ti
ger’ didn’t have anything to do
with a big cat. ”
Later there would be a prison
riot where the inmates had two
complaints: the food was atrocious
and they weren’t allowed to have
seconds. The incongruity of it all
was terribly appealing.
“The things that stuck in my
memory were less significant but
more humorous and interesting
than the things I was supposed to
cover,” Boyd said.
“There’s a kind of ant that chews
its vegetation, forms it into little
droplets and deposits it on rocks
and lets it solidify in the sun. The
incongruity that I see is that this
an ant is the only animal besides
man that bakes its own biscuits.”
Trivia is his medium but not his
life. Boyd says he is not the sort
who can enthrall cocktail party au
diences with tidbits like “Catch
22” originally was titled “Catch
18” or that Albert J. Parkhouse
invented the wire coat hanger in
1903.
“I just can’t call them up on
command, ” he said. “I don’t have
them indexed in my head.”
Boyd’s writing style is a transi
tionless grab-bag of questions and
answers, one-line statements and
light musings along the lines of his
love for trout (“Not only do I in
tend to raise them but also breed
them for show, train them to cut
minnows, maybe even race in
New Mexico if the creek ever
comes up).” His writing guide
lines are a conversational
approach that delivers the goods
quickly and obviously and with di
versification of subject.
“Most columnists and feature
writers take a subject and expand
on it, ” Boyd said. “I take as many
ideas as I can get and strip them
bare and run in just the bare bones
of a selected few. How are you
going to explain this any more:
yaks give pink milk?”
Take the$25.00j
Challenge
Bud Ward's! i
y*
just can't lose! i
So >
Sez
Fiddlin' J
Faron |
Is
Life not so serene down on the farm
ALVAREZ
^ United Press International
£}]]( JRBANA, Ill. — A farmer’s life
'"stressful one despite an image
erenity, experts say.
late ^ 0 l ) * nson > w h° con '
1 After:l cts a st ? ess - mana g ernent course
M, J farmers through the University
reducinjl F 110 ' 5 extension service, said
I S stress a farmer faces is aggra-
I l edby the fact much of his worry
m Tm>«L l * )0ut thing 8 he can’t control.
irdiMlii Tlie weat her, international
case Tui r ^ ets anc ^ in^ 31 ' 00 are a ll hey
nponents in a farmer’s business
1 mthey cause a lot of headaches.
staffseJ“W e know that stress is most
l one an to people when they are
^ ■ Apless, powerless to control
ar ’ ,, hat’seausing the stress," Robin-
s wa lk®,nsaid.
’ ah 011 *® ! Further, he said, farming is
sr ’ 15110 ‘lessful because there are times
Vehicle J!e|
|liigh activity mixed with rela-
• .frfly slow periods,
otiecsinoii yy c ] iave p C . a p periods like
iied app -j n g anc ] fall, planting and har-
10 days it. ^ eS p ec i a [ly f or grain farmers, ”
d-Eve^ d Robinson, a U of I professor
jrs to an Reaches rural sociology on the
mted to ■ Urbana-Champaign campus,
more And then there isn’t much to do
4 the winter.
jpartmentBgoth t 00 m uch and too little
to alb pressure has been found to create
; 10dayW i esS) he said,
lained. “[ think that’s one reason why
n left to J sketball is so popular in rural
e almost
is point,
dice deps
that fain*
d time v(<
ad mantp
onsaref® 7
does esS
y&MVelid
it appefe [
itire a]
ircumsta®
lar case.
nt has
icl this ye-'
mtire
sandb
Illinois; it’s something to do in the
winter,” he said.
The healthy environment of the
farm is a myth, said Benton Bris
tol, a professor of agricultural
mechanics at Illinois State Univer
sity in Normal.
“Most people don’t have to wor
ry about things like the Russian
grain embargo and other govern
ment interference to that extent,”
Bristol said.
“And when so many things like
this come up that farmers aren’t
really warned about, they have no
way to prepare for them and lack
of preparation is a stressful thing
in itself.”
The ever-fickle weather is a ma
jor concern for the farmer. He
worries that it is either too wet or
too dry or whether the rain will
come in time to pollinate the corn.
“When you have much work
which needs to be done in a rela
tively short period of time, the
weather definitely is something
that causes stress, not only for the
farmer but for every member of
his family,” Bristol said.
Farming also has become an ex
periment in high finance. Farmers
must take out large loans just to
put in a new crop every spring.
“Farmers are big businessmen
and some farmers are not equip
ped to handle it,” Robinson said.
While farmers don’t punch time
clocks, Robinson said, they have
pressures similar to those who do.
“They have to get the hay in
before it rains, they have to get
their crop in by a certain time, ” he
said. “Instead of nine to five,
sometimes it’s dawn to dark and
sometimes they’re out there with
the lights on.”
To deal with the stress, Bristol
suggests farmers not rush their
chores and take several short rest
periods rather than one long
period between times of work.
In Robinson’s course on stress
management, he teaches an inte
grated approach involving several
different aspects of a lifestyle. It
promotes good nutrition, exer
cise, a well-balanced social life and
relaxation, but most of all, aware
ness of the problem.
There has been little research
done on farmers and stress and
Robinson is considering conduct
ing his own study on the farmer’s
lifestyle from a medical, physical
and social perspective.
He also is planning to work with
another U of I professor to develop
a retirement-planning program
for farm couples in their late 40s
and early 50s.
“We want to get these farmers
to sit down with their wives and
plan what they’re going to do in
retirement because they don’t
have John Deere, they don’t have
the federal government and they
don’t have the university,” Robin
son said. “They’ve got to do it on
their own.”
Nearly one-third of all farmers
in Illinois are over 65 and another
third are between 50 and 65.
Many families now are going
through the process of passing the
farms on to a younger generation.
“There is a lot of stress out there
with the transfer of this capital and
this management from the older
generation to the younger or from
the owner to the leaser,” Robin
son said.
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tjzcjLfinincj '^una: fit
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d campaigns get lift
ith hot-air balloons
United Press International
The billboard is taking to the air — via the hot-air
NEW YORK
Jloon.
The surface of a hot-air balloon cannot carry a message as easy to
id as a highway billboard, but it does carry corporate image ads that
an be seen for many miles. A billboard can usually be seen from the
a few hundred yards.
Balloon races and rallies lend themselves to all sorts of television,
lio, newspaper and dealer demonstration promotions. Such an
ort-term • vent will be held in September with a race of 50 teams with 200
RatherW klloons from Las Vegas to Atlantic City for $960,000 in prizes.
First prize is $.5 million dollars in gold bullion. Twenty teams
(ready have corporate sponsors and all are fairly sure to get sponsors.
, J The race is the creation of Anthony J. Reichelt of Rutherford, N. J.,
L in s ,/ L who formed a corporation called the World’s Greatest Balloon Race to
a’"! aJ' ganize and promote it '
' d! C vtl Beichelt is a veteran sales and trade fair promoter who became
" " 11 interested in the balloon’s advertising possibilities when he found
there are between 2,000 and 3,000 balloonists in the United States
pone. He also discovered many blue chip national advertisers recog-
ihize the value of balloon advertising and would be willing to put up
$100,000 or more to sponsor a team in a single big race. Some advertis
ers pay active balloonists up to $30,000 to keep their emblems on the
pioons the year around.
The race will cover 2,250 miles and make 24 stops. Conditions for
ing hot-air balloons are ideal only from dawn until about 11 a. m., so
ere will be plenty of time for promotional activities on the ground,
fl. Even ordinary balloon rallies often attract crowds of 5,000 or more.
1 vT j Pac L | balloon in the air must be followed by a tracking car on the
t V If^s and the logistics of the race involve moving 120 vehicles and 500
»ple over the whole course, in addition to the balloons.
AGGIES!
Douglas
Jewelry
10% AGGIE DISCOUNT
ON ALL MERCHANDISE
WITH STUDENT ID
(Cash Only Please)
We reserve the right to limit
use of this privilege.
Downtown Bryan (212 N. Main)
and
Culpepper Plaza
PCX MG
cwiiese rc&txurxnt
JVOON BUFFET
£3.50
Monday thru Friday — All You Can Eat!
SUNDAY & WEDNESDAY EVENING BUFFET $4.25
All You Can EatS From 6 to 8 p.ni.
SPECIAL lUVMK $3.75
Peking - Szechwan & Cantonese Dishes • Take Out Ordei
OPEN DAILY:
11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. 4lMak
5:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
1313 S. College Ave.
822-7661
THE FIRST TIME WAS ONLY A WARNING
PIRANHACON II
coming May 8
Appearing
FIVE
Wednesday
Night
pires
15/81
Steve FromholtzS
Summer Work
Make $3294
INTERVIEWS WED. & THURS.
2 p.m. or 4 p.m. or 6 p.m. or 8 p.m.
Agronomy Bldg. Rm. 100
SOUTH WE STERfNJ
Please be prompt
We need a few hard workers.
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