By E. Graydon Carter

Like so many of the approximately 25,000 spectators who turned out for the Braemar Highland Games in Scotland, Prince Charles, 32, and Diana, Princess of Wales, 20, donned their tartans. During the opening ceremonies, however, Diana's highland fling turned a bit flippant: as the band struck up God Save the Queen, the young Princess continued chatting with the Prince. Hardly the proper reaction, especially when the subject of the song is standing a few feet away. Without saying a word, Queen Elizabeth turned to her daughter-in-law with that now famous "We are not amused" look that would curl the hair on a corgi's back. God Save the Queen-to-Be.

"If I was being honored in Dallas, they would have dropped me from a helicopter without a parachute," said Actor Larry ("J.R.") Hagman, 49, who last week became part of the pavement along the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The three-mile-long celebrity stretch has honored just about every conceivable show-biz type from Clark Gable to Mickey Mouse. For Hagman, place was everything--his star was imbedded next to that of his mother, Broadway Great Mary Martin, 67. When Mom congratulated him, Larry noted the positioning of their two stars, then said: "Looks like I'm going to get top billing." Countered Mary: "It all depends on which way you walk down the street."

Oh, to be in New York in the fall, when they're lining up for sausages back in Gdansk. But to Zygmunt Przetakiewicz, 35, a representative of Solidarity, Poland's independent union federation, his Manhattan stayover is strictly business. Przetakiewicz has since been busying himself with preparations for the opening of Solidarity's first overseas press information office on Park Avenue South and adjusting to New York City.

"This job is going to be very difficult," says Zygmunt, who now drives his 1979 Oldsmobile to work every day. "The subways are terrible, and the roads--I think they are better in Poland."

The lanky young man with the somewhat familiar eyes ambled onto the green. Crouched in his Ben Crenshaw-like putting stance, Nathaniel Crosby, 19, shot a final glance at the pin, coolly sank the 15-ft. birdie putt, then jubilantly leaped into the arms of his caddie, Joby Ross. Bing Crosby's son had just won the 81st U.S. Amateur Golf Championship. Off course, the University of Miami junior displayed all the easygoing awshucksness of his late father, but during play he proved to be a scrappy, tenacious opponent. Coming back from four holes down during the final afternoon round, Nathaniel scrambled over San Francisco's Olympic Club course, peppering his play with instructions to the ball: "Get tight," "Be there," "Go," "Sit," "Stop." Throughout the match, he soothed his nerves with something given to him earlier by his mother, Kathryn Crosby, a medallion that Bing had won for making the field in the same tournament exactly 40 years earlier. "I definitely felt his presence, and thinking of him calmed me," said the young Crosby. "I wasn't absentmindedly touching that medal. Dad was in my mind all day." --By E. Graydon Carter

On the Record

Ashley Montagu, 76, author and anthropologist, commenting on the ongoing debate between evolutionists and creationists: "Science has proof without any certainty. Creationists have certainty without any proof."

Louis Auchincloss, 63, author, on the merits of literary awards: "Prizes are for the birds. They fill the head of one author with vanity and 30 others with misery."

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