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

DATE: SATURDAY, January 29, 1994                   TAG: 9401290141
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: C-9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

PEOPLE

"That's great, but how am I going to find a bathtub big enough to float it in?" Hope quipped from his Palm Springs, Calif., home.

The USNS Bob Hope will be the first of six noncombat, sealift vessels used to handle cargo for the Department of Defense. The entire class of vessels will also carry his name, the Navy said in an announcement.

"We can never repay him for his contributions to the men and women in uniform, but we can show our appreciation with a class of ships named in his honor. This is our way of saying, `Thanks for the memories,' " Navy Secretary John Dalton said in the announcement.

Dalton said the move recognizes Hope's 50 years of support to U.S. forces stationed around the world.

When the Dallas Cowboys and the Buffalo Bills revisit their rivalry on Super Bowl Sunday, former Vice President Dan Quayle will tackle an old nemesis: The potato(e).

Quayle will make a cameo appearance in a commercial for Wavy Lay's Potato Chips to be shown just before halftime.

While vice president in June 1992, Quayle erroneously instructed a New Jersey elementary school pupil to spell "potato" as "potatoe" during a spelling bee.

Frito-Lay Inc. said the 60-second commercial, filmed at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, will be shown only once. The spot also features 12-year-old actor Elijah Wood and Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman.

Quayle and Wood are donating their proceeds from the commercial to charity, said Plano, Texas-based Frito-Lay, the U.S. snack food division of PepsiCo.

The guitarist whose 1960s rock and roll band gave the Woodstock generation the famous fish cheer is now representing troubled youths as a public defender.

With little fanfare, the Mendocino County (Calif.) Board of Supervisors hired Barry (The Fish) Melton as a $42,000-a-year deputy public defender. His principal duties will be representing the legal interests of juvenile delinquents.

The 46-year-old rocker, along with Country Joe McDonald, formed the legendary Country Joe and the Fish band 30 years ago.

In the 1960s, Melton's band provided a rallying cry with the "Fish Cheer." Mainstream radio stations played a sanitized version that spelled fish, but the more earthy version at the Woodstock festival became an anthem for Vietnam War protesters as part of the group's "The I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag."

("It's one, two, three what are we fighting for?/Don't ask me I don't give a damn/Next stop is Viet-nam . . .")