NEW YORK: The Rains Came

Attorney Hermann Gottfried of Margaretville, N.Y. stood outside an upstate bus rest stop one day last week, desperately trying to thumb a ride, while his bus careened off toward New York City carrying his Gladstone bag with it. A motorist picked him up, the bus company held the bag at the Manhattan terminal, and Gottfried arrived in New York City's Municipal Building right on deadline. There he opened his bag and dumped out its contents: 117 claims demanding a total of $1,500,000 from the City of New York for the rainmaking experiments it conducted last year in the Catskill Mountains. The charges: "trespass" and "damages to real and personal property."