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

DATE: MONDAY, October 17, 1994                   TAG: 9410180077
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

HERE'S LOOKIN' AT HUGH . . .

I hope that all of you have read about, and thought over, Hugh Hefner's performance at the 50th reunion of his high school class.

You know Hugh.

He invented Playboy magazine with those unclothed women who say profound things like: "Give me a man who likes the Grateful Dead and has great pecs and abs."

And has never-ending interviews with people like Joyce Carol Oates, who says any number of neat things your average English major can't understand.

You should have read by now that Hugh came to the reunion in a luxury bus and had bodyguards with him. I guess it's possible that LaToya Jackson was in the bus.

You should have read all of this because I'm hitting you right now with a pop quiz. Persons who fail will be forced to listen to LaToya sing for a long time. (Why is it I always want to call her "Toyota"?)

To our quiz:

1. Multiple choice: If you were a member of the committee that planned the reunion and anybody showed up that way, would you:

a) Get the guy tending the cash bar to put prussic acid in his first drink of the evening?

b) Personally let the air of the bus' tires and sabotage the air conditioning and the plumbing?

c) Perform a citizen's arrest and bust LaToya or any aging Miss Februaries who may be aboard the bus?

d) Just waste the sucker while the door prizes are being distributed?

2. Essay: In 400 words or less, describe what such behavior on the part of a man no longer young - unless he graduated high school as an infant - says to us about the current state of good taste and discretion in America. (The use of LaToya Jackson - not to mention her brother - to underline a lack of taste will get you an extra mark, even if the essay is lousy.)

3. Essay: (I really like essay questions, don't you?) In as many words as you want, describe how such ostentation might affect class member Brigham Wagonmaster - class president and football hero - who fell on bad times during the Reagan Administration and is now the guy who calls you during your nap trying to sell you vinyl siding. Brigham, incidentally, came to the reunion in a 1978 Jeep Cherokee.

Turn in your papers, please, and I have to tell you that I'm saving up for a luxury bus and bodyguards for my 55th reunion in 1999.

See the bus pulling up in front of the Radford Best Western. See his classmates riding old Bennie down Tyler Avenue on a rail.

by CNB