Americana

Notes on U.S. customs, habits, manners & morals:

P: An Associated Press analyst figured out that if California's population has kept up its tremendous rate of growth since July 1946, it is now the second largest state. Los Angeles' Mayor Fletcher Bowron declared firmly that his city is now the nation's third largest, with nearly two million population. The 1950 census would decide.

The Virginia State Conservation Commission, 44 years late, got around to putting a marker where the Old 97 express, which was

Going down grade making 90 miles an hour When his whistle began to scream (Whoo! Whoo!)

crashed into a ravine near Danville in 1903. The Southern Railway's "mighty rough road from Lynchburg to Danville" had since been shifted, and the exact spot where the engineer

Was found in the wreck with his hand on the throttle And was scalded to death with the steam

had been forgotten. It was only recently found, with the help of two oldtime railroaders.

P:The International Cigar Band Society, 75 strong, gathered in Brooklyn for a three-day meeting, noted mournfully that "cigar bands today are tame and unimaginative." Said President G. A. Greasby, of Milwaukee (who has collected 40,000 different bands): "We have hopes that the rococo will return when the new shipment from Holland arrives. Our only salvation lies abroad."

P:The frigate Constellation, the U.S. Navy's oldest ship, celebrated its 150th birthday. Tied up at a Boston Navy Yard dock next to the U.S.S. Constitution (which was saved from destruction in 1830 by Oliver Wendell Holmes's impassioned "Ay, tear her tattered ensign down!"), the Constellation was mastless, and badly in need of a "complete rebuilding." The Navy hoped that "patriotic societies" would come to her rescue.

P: For the Midwest's farmers, whose corn crop is dangerously late because spring floods delayed planting, the Chicago Tribune noted a portent of disaster. Despite the heat, the purple martins had left for the South ahead of schedule--a sure sign of early frost.

P:The B. F. Goodrich Co. reported that since the war the most popular size in rubber gloves has been 7 1/2 instead of the prewar 8, which might indicate that U.S. hands are getting smaller.

P:The owners of the Red Rose Inn in West Grove, Pa., solemnly went through the yearly ceremony stipulated by a 216-year-old deed, handed over one red rose to the heir of William Penn. The heir: Amy Penn-Gaskell Hall, II, a tenth direct descendant of Penn.

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