---

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, January 31, 1992                   TAG: 9201310310
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: E-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

---

SIT ON A POTATO PAN, OTIS

Jim Ruland was at a creative impasse.

Stuck in the middle of a fictional story he was writing, the Radford University senior needed help coming up with details for his main character.

The story centered around a palindromist, a person who collects, admires and studies palindromes - words or phrases spelled the same backwards as forwards. "Radar," for example, or "Madam, I'm Adam."

So the 23-year-old took out a classified ad in the college mag, Mojo Sloth, asking people to phone him with palindromes - the more absurd the better.

The contributions haven't inspired him enough to finish the story yet, but Ruland does have an impressive list going, including:

Do nine men interpret nine men?

I nod.

Zeus was deified, saw Suez.

Straw? No, too stupid a fad.

I put soot on warts.

Gate man sees name.

Garage man sees name tag.

A dog, a panic in a pagoda.

Won't lovers revolt now?

---