Way, Way Out

The
Amalgamated Flying Saucer Clubs of America have been sending me daily
notices concerning their convention here this weekend and, although I
am open-minded on flying saucers, I simply don't know how to handle
thisoverwhelming situation. As the boys say, it bugs me.

One featured speaker, a press release states, will be Kelvin Rowe of San Jacinto,
"who reportedly has flown into outer space more than 350 times." The
release blandly adds, "Rowe's contacts have been primarily with people
from Jupiter and Pluto." Just like that.

Another will be Daniel W. Fry of West Covina,
"who in 1950 rode in a spaceship from another world from White Sands
Proving Grounds, N.M. to New York City and back in half an hour."

Another will be Hope Troxel, Altadena interior decorator, "who has enjoyed many remarkable incidents involving extraterrestrial life."

ANOTHER WILL BE
Reinhold Schmidt, Bakersfield grain buyer, "who on Aug. 14, 1958, flew
from the Mojave Desert to the Arctic Circle and under the ice pack in a
spaceship from the planet Saturn." Schmidt's experiences, which
required a whole page for the telling, continue: "On Nov. 5, 1957, he
was contacted by aSaturnian spaceship and invited aboard by its crew of
four men and two women outside Kearney, Neb. Schmidt has since had many
contacts with his friends from outer space."

 Many aviation and
military authorities are quoted as expressing belief that there's
something up there all right, doubtless from outer space. Of a sighting
in Rome, Clare Boothe Luce said, "I did see an object. I don't know
what it was."

The AFSCA also raises some interesting questions,
including the following: Was the star of Bethlehem a spaceship? Did
Moses receive the Ten Commandments from outer space? Was the Red Sea parted by extraterrestrial technology? Are there more than nine planets in our solar system?

Honest, fellows, I don't know. Somewhere along the line I seem to have lost my childlike credulity.

::

LET US LOOK IN on an exciting drama of conflict and emotion in a suburb and hope we don't disturb it.

There's
a campaign in this town to cut down trees for one reason or another,
mostly beauty of what is called progress. A certain woman announced she
was going to take out a crooked fig tree at the side of her house. She
feared it would crack the sidewalk. Not only that, it looked dead.

Suddenly,
the tree has busted loose with leaves and small figs. She can't
understand it. A neighbor can. A tree lover, she has been secretly
watering it at night.

::

 AFTER MANY years
of drinking as he pleased, a movie studio worker recently saw the
light. His doctor held the lamp for him. Stop or drop, he warned. Dead,
he meant.

Four days after he quit the liquor store he'd patronized for 14 years had a sign in the window, "Going Out of Business."

The
poor guy now has a guilt complex. He is brooding about the possibility
that he may have undermined the economic foundation of an Inglewood
shopping center.

::

  HARDEST KIND
The most difficult work that
    I have to go through,
Is trying to look busy when
    I've nothing to do.
    –RALPH FREEMAN

::

A CABDRIVER named
Dick Vasquez tells of the time he picked up a passenger who had
misplaced his car while busy relaxing and suggested they cruise around
looking for it.

They went up one street and down the next but it was nowhere in sight. As the cabby turned a corner the passenger said irritably, "We've been on this street before. Gosh, you're dumb!"

"Yes, sir," Dick said, "but my cab's not lost, is it?"