DATE: Tuesday, September 23, 1997           TAG: 9709230241

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B2   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Column 

SOURCE: Guy Friddell 

                                            LENGTH:   47 lines

DON'T LET A MODEL CLUTTER YOUR MIND WITH COBWEBS

You may be sure that whenever an error pops up in this column, it will concern some cause or someone for whom I care deeply.

As it was in my recent column about a benefit show of world-class fashions from a dozen international design houses.

The proceeds will go to support Operation Smile, a 15-year-old crusade in healing and repairing birth defects in the faces of thousands of children throughout the world.

The show will begin at 7 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 27, at a formal dinner in the Marriott. For reservations, call 625-0375.

There was no excuse for my mistake in trying to convey those distinct, simple facts the other day.

My mind may have been distracted at my having accepted an invitation to escort a model down the runway in the Marriott's Hampton Roads Ballroom.

With my faltering, wavering way, it may become necessary for me to crawl down the runway in a rented tuxedo, but if it takes that, you may be sure I will try to carry it out with aplomb.

It puts me in mind of my work on a stage in the third grade. Miss Eubanks had us looking into Columbus' discovering America and Bartholomew Dias' finding a way around the Cape of Good Hope.

She seated me and Henry, my best friend, side by side with our legs dangling over the edge of the stage as if we were a dock.

When my turn came to speak, gazing out at the sea of faces, not one line came to mind.

Henry saved me. He turned sideways to the audience, propping his elbow on his upraised knee, resting his chin on his right hand, partly concealing his mouth, reciting his lines and then, lowering his voice behind his hand, feeding me mine. It was ingenious. It worked. He even whispered a stage direction to me: ``Louder!''

After the little play, our mommas hurried down the aisle to greet us. ``Henry,'' my mother said, ``you were splendid in the believable way you looked at Guyboy as you spoke to him.''

And Henry's mother told me, ``Guyboy, I was proud of the way you spoke slowly and loudly as you delivered your words.''

All of which were Henry's.

There will be a wonderful parade of the world's most recent fashions, along with a formal dinner and fine music at the Marriott.

I just wish Henry were going to be in the audience.

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