Television: Troubles & Bubbles

Even before she began to tick off her troubles, the contestant was obviously teetering on the brink of a good cry. She barely had time to tell how she had raised her three teen-age boys all by herself when Master of Ceremonies Jack Bailey shoved her over the edge with a deft flick of folksiness. "Why," he chirped with chipmunk cheeriness. "you don't look much over 19. maw!"

That did it. From then on, Mrs. Phyllis Adams had all the tearmarks of a winner. Painfully, she told how her two oldest boys were planning to leave school because they were ashamed of...