AMERICANA: Golden Opportunities

Many miles and moods apart, these Americans made the most of their opportunities :

Massachusetts. Four-year-old Rose Marie Ball got locked in a Roxbury Supermarket after hours; it was two hours before rescue came. At first she cried, while 300 people gathered outside watching her, then she began gobbling down bananas, ice cream, grapes, orangeade. She had just discovered the liquor supply (see cut) when the owner arrived and let her out.

Texas. In Houston, where two wealthy householders have already built bomb shelters, a contractor sent out 7,500 brochures advertising a $2,000, igloo-shaped shelter that can house ten people. A Teaneck, N.J. concrete company advertised that bomb shelters "won't be a total loss even if there are no atomic-bomb explosions, because they can be used as wine cellars or utility rooms."

Washington, D.C. A visiting San Francisco spinster, who felt she had every right to see the President and screamed as much when three Secret Service guards stood in her way, went up for a sanity hearing. "The idea of a citizen going to see the President," argued her lawyer, "is not indicative of insanity. Mr. Truman is known as the common man's President, and the prevailing belief is that some citizens get in to see him." The jury agreed.

California. Pasadena cops writing an examination for sergeant's ratings found themselves unable to define such low-down underworld terms as gopher (safeblower), third rail (incorruptible official), derrick (shoplifter) and kite (a letter sneaked past the warden). Crooks don't talk that way in Pasadena, they complained. The chief of police agreed, ordered all "detective fiction crime terms" stricken from the exam. Said one cop who got a higher score than his mates: "I'd read a short story in the Saturday Evening Post the night before, so I knew most of the answers."