ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, March 3, 1996 TAG: 9603010092
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: F-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: FROM WIRE REPORTS
Q: What is the reason for former President Lyndon B. Johnson's getting a Silver Star? My congressman couldn't provide the information.
A: Johnson was awarded the Silver Star for ``gallantry in action'' in the vicinity of Port Moresby, New Guinea, on June 9, 1942, said Linda Hanson of the LBJ Library and Museum in Austin, Texas. This is how his citation reads, in part: ``While on a mission of obtaining information in the Southwest Pacific area, Lt. Cmdr. Johnson, in order to obtain personal knowledge of combat conditions, volunteered as an observer on a hazardous aerial combat mission over hostile positions. ... As our planes neared the target area, they were intercepted by eight hostile fighters. ... The plane in which Lt. Cmdr. Johnson was an observer developed mechanical troubles and was forced to turn back alone, presenting a favorable target to the enemy fighters. . . . He evidenced marked coolness in spite of the hazards involved. His gallant action enabled him to obtain, and return with, valuable information.''
Q: How can I subscribe to Fig Leaf Forum, the newsletter for Christian nudists?
A: Send a letter requesting a copy to: Fig Leaf Forum, P.O. Box 1955, Winnipeg, Manitoba R3C 3R2, Canada. Letters to Canada require 52 cents postage. The newsletter is free, but donations are accepted to cover the return postage and handling.
Q: I've read about several members of Britain's royal family having been confined to an institution. Details, please?
A: The situation is back in the news because Royal Earlswood Hospital, the state-funded institution where several relatives of Queen Elizabeth II and the Queen Mother were admitted in 1941, will close in March 1997. One of the relatives, Katherine Bowes-Lyon, 69, is still living. A sister, Nerissa, is believed to have died in 1986. The sisters were daughters of John Herbert Bowes-Lyon, the Queen Mother's now-dead brother, and Fenella Trefusis, a daughter of the 21st Baron Clinton. Three other women, cousins of the Bowes-Lyons sisters and daughters of Harriet Fane, sister-in-law of the Queen Mother, also were admitted in 1941. They are believed dead. The Bowes-Lyon sisters were committed secretly by their mother, who continued to visit them until she died in 1966. Their father died in 1930. The royal family reportedly did not acknowledge the existence of their relatives, and Burke's Peerage and Debrett's, the bibles of British aristocracy, listed all of them as dead, even when two were still alive.
Q: Where did the expression ``being on Cloud Nine'' come from?
A: Cloud Nine - a feeling of euphoric exultation - comes from Weather Bureau terminology. Clouds are divided into classes, each class further divided into nine types. No. 9 is the cumulonimbus, the kind often seen building up on hot summer afternoons. It may reach 40,000 feet, so if you're on Cloud Nine, you're high indeed. The term as a catch phrase has been credited to the ``Johnny Dollar'' radio show of the 1950s. Every time the hero was knocked unconscious, which was often, he was transported to Cloud Nine. Once there, Johnny would start talking again.
Q: Now that Magic Johnson is playing basketball again, many of his fans would like to write him. What is the address?
A: Write in care of the Los Angeles Lakers, Great Western Forum, Inglewood, Calif. 90306; or his agency, First Team Marketing, 1801 Avenue of the Stars, Los Angeles, Calif. 90067.
Q: Exactly how was Sen. Bob Dole wounded in World War II?
A: As an Army second lieutenant, Dole was leading an assault on a last-ditch German machine gun nest in the Po Valley of Italy on April 14, 1945, when he was struck by an exploding shell that destroyed his right shoulder, fractured vertebrae in his neck and spine, and riddled his body with metal slivers. It happened just a few weeks before V-E Day. He was told that he might never walk again, but over the course of three years in Army hospitals - and several major operations - he began standing and cautiously moving about. His right arm and hand were beyond recuperation, but his left hand had some residual feeling and he gradually mastered its use. He still suffers considerable pain and even the daily ordeal of buttoning his shirt reminds him, as he has said, ``that you've got to keep pushing, because you're not quite a whole person.'' .
Q: I heard a policeman talking about a ``gore area'' on the road. Where did that expression come from?
A: It originally was a Middle English word meaning a triangular piece of land. In the highway context, it refers to the tapering, somewhat triangular area where an entry or exit ramp joins an expressway's traffic lanes.
Q: How can we contribute to the fund for Travis Roy?
A: Make your check out to Travis Roy Fund and send to: Travis Roy Fund, Century Bank, 400 Mystic Ave., Medford, Mass. 02155. Roy, injured Oct. 20 in his first game as a member of Boston University's hockey team, is undergoing treatment at the Shepherd Center in Atlanta. Anyone wishing to send get-well greetings should address them to: Travis Roy, Shepherd Center, 2020 Peachtree Road N.W., Atlanta, Ga. 30309.
Q: I want to write Ralph Reed to urge him to add the word Fundamentalist to the name of his Christian Coalition. What is his address?
A: Ralph Reed Jr., Christian Coalition, P.O. Box 1900, Chesapeake, Va. 23327.
Q: I know writer e.e. cummings insisted on lower-case letters for his name, but I've never seen any explanation. Why did he do that?
A: Could it be extra eccentricity? When he was born in 1894, his parents named him Edward Estlin Cummings. As a poet and playwright, he developed a highly individualistic style often disregarding the rules of grammar and punctuation, and often abandoning the use of capital letters. It gained him a reputation among other writers as the enfant terrible of American letters, some of whom got their revenge by referring to the poet as LOWER CASE CUMMINGS - always in capital letters. Cummings died in 1962.
Q: About the Chattanooga, Tenn., police officer who spoke again 71/2 years after being shot by a drunken man who called 911 in September 1988: What happened to the assailant?
A: A year after the incident, Samuel Franklin Downey was convicted of assault with intent to commit first-degree murder. Downey, 58 when the shooting occurred, is an inmate at the Tennessee Department of Corrections Geriatric Unit in Wayne County, Tenn. He was sentenced to 37 years and becomes eligible for parole May 9.
Q: I'm curious about Morgan Island, between Edisto and Hunting islands off the South Carolina coast. Signs say it is U.S. government property and warn that trespassers will be prosecuted. What is going on there?
A: The island, owned by the federal government, is leased to a company that raises rhesus monkeys for research. It is not open to the public and is accessible only by water. There's a good reason that visitors are warned away, said Low Country Tourism Commission spokesman Jim Wescott. Rhesus monkeys are susceptible to the same illnesses and diseases as humans, such as colds and flu, so researchers don't want people to bring germs into the environment.
Q: I heard an item on ``Live With Regis & Kathie Lee'' about someone who helped a man change a flat tire. The man with the flat turned out to be Donald Trump. To repay the kindness, Trump supposedly surprised the man with a gift. Do you have any information?
A: Details are sketchy and it may be nothing more than an urban legend, but, according to the story, Trump first offered the good Samaritan money. But the man told Trump it would be reward enough if Trump sent his wife some flowers. Shortly afterward, an arrangement of orchids arrived, along with a note saying that Trump had paid off the couple's home mortgage. The Donald Trump Organization would neither confirm nor deny the story.
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