Arizona Daily Star from Tucson, Arizona • Page 91

pm CHjr Amana Batln Star Tucson, Sunday, February 17, 1985 Advice 2 URSUITS if I TR VIAL 'i JVOTNV pWVHI MfeM, Oil I ssS A I 'C'T i v. V' 1 1 TO .,4 7 i I .1 3 1 How about his clothes? Did he hang them By Leo W. Banks The Arizona Daily Star The question came to me as I was waiting in the checkout line at the supermarket. I was behind an old woman who was writing a check for two cans of cat food and a deluxe bag of Milky Ways. It was hot.

I gazed out the window at the traffic on the street and it hit me: Did Perry Mason have any hobbies? This might sound like a strange topic to be mulling over at the supermarket, but you don't know the half of it. I have become a prisoner of TV. For more than two decades I have been a faithful couch potato, probably watching more TV in that time than your average lifer at the state pen. And now I'm paying the price. The characters on the shows I have watched have become part of me.

I wonder about their lives, their friends, their habits, the situations fhey find themselves in. I wonder how they are doing. Now and then, I even indulge in a little gossip about them. Nothing malicious, mind you, but I would be curious to know if Aunt Bea, Andy Taylor's housekeeper on "The Andy Griffith Show," ever had a date? Or if there was anything going on between Perry and his secretary, Delia Street? Or if Barney Fife and his main squeeze, Thelma Lou, ever snuck off to Raleigh for the weekend? Speaking of Barney, did he ever use that bullet he kept in his shirt pocket? Questions such as these keep popping up in the fan magazine of my mind. I've tried biofeedback, Gestalt, TM, shock therapy, deep breathing, no breathing, diet pills.

Nothing works. I am powerless to stop it. Sometimes I wake up in the dead of night in a feverish state. I've been dreaming about the Professor and Mary Ann, wondering why none of the people who came to "Gilligan's Island" ever told the authorities the castaways were there? Or why Thurston Howell III brought all his money with him on the fateful cruise? Every now and then, stalled in traffic, I'll think about Ward Cleaver, wearing his sweater and tie, standing at the bottom of the stairs, saying: "It's awfully quiet up there, June. What do you suppose Wally and the Beaver are doing?" Well, what were they doing? Another thing that has been bothering me: What did Clark Kent do with his wallet when he went into the phone booth to change into his Superman outfit? up or just drop them on the floor of the phone booth like a slob? And while we're on the subject of Perry Mason, can anyone explain why Perry didn't tell Paul Drake, the handsome private eye, to quit sitting on his desk? Some days I'm overwhelmed with questions.

They come in sinister bunches. I can't get anything done. The only thing that helps me relax is re-runs. But that only brings on more questions. Where did Fred Flintstone get his car serviced? Weren't there any deed restrictions in Herman Munster's neighborhood? Did Lassie ever mess in the house? Did Timmy wallop her with a rolled up newspaper? How high do Ed McMahon's socks go, anyway? You see, TV isn't part of a lifestyle; it's a way of life, a presence, a shadow darting in and out of my memory.

Just when I think I have it under control, the shadow returns. What can I do except try to answer these nagging questions? But I'll be honest there are somethings I don't think I'll ever figure out. Like why women always fall down when they are being chased? Or why it takes cartoon characters so long to start running? Or why crooks throw their guns at the police when they run out of ammunition? (Just once, I would like to see a crook bean a cop with his pistol and get away.) Why is it that people never die on police shows; they are always blown away, iced, axed, offed, zipped, or wasted? Also, events don't just happen, they go down. Do you suppose that officers Joe Friday and Bill Gannon of "Dragnet" practiced the way they walked? My theory is that they were in a band together before entering the police academy. "Star Trek" is a fertile ground for a number of insightful questions.

When Captain Kirk falls in love with a spacewoman, he always says: "Let's kiss." And the space woman looks dazed (possibly with passion) and says: "Kiss? What's kiss?" It makes me wonder what spacewomen do instead? Another thing about "Star Did they have a ship's laundry? How about a men's room? On "The Andy Griffith Show," did Floyd Severson -i and hit them both over the head with a book. In this country, when it comes to courtesy, you can't make the message too strong for some people. Courtesy is important because it is the way everyone has to behave if you don't want everyday life such as you find in libraries, movies, political debates, freeways, courtrooms or even basketball games to turn into free-for-alls. You may have read about how they closed high school basketball games to the fans in Rochester, N.Y. During one game, the crowd kept surging onto the court.

Somebody grabbed a player's ankles, and somebody else pointed Who wouldn't have a healthy curiosity about these obviously fictional characters? Yes. Healthy curiosity. That is a good way to describe it. I'll have to write that down. While I'm up, I think I'll jot down a few more questions.

Did Ozzie Nelson ever have to discipline Ricky and David? I want to know what Ben Cartwright's Oriental cook on "Bonanza," Hop Sing, did in his spare time. Did he have to work weekends? What about holidays? Library books convey lesson on being courteous Illustration by Mark Frednckson, The Arizona Daily Slar Call me right away if you know whether "Taxi's" Louis DePalma is standing or sitting in the dispatcher's cage. My bet is that Skip Stevenson, David Letterman and Lauren Hutton have the same orthodontist, but that is just between you and me. Oh yes, one more thing: Did Rod Serling, host of "Twilight Zone," talk that way around the house? It is not really important. I was just, you know, sitting here twitching, and wondering.

English are smarter than we are about stopping things before they go too far. But over in Japan where everyone bows to everyone else, and courtesy is supposed to be second nature they're slipping a little. Japan's surfing beaches are crowded, which means that courtesy is even more important than usual. Two women showed up in court, and one wanted $36,000 for getting hit on the head by the other's surfboard in 1983. A spokesman for the Japan Surfing League said, "It shouldn't be every man for himself." He complained about the lack of "civilized surfing etiquette." The country is simply too crowded for discourtesy.

I don't know if the injured woman will get $36,000 or not. Whatever happv it might be a good idea if the judge also bops her over the head with a library book to give her a lesson in courtesy. the barber ever give haircuts? If so, why wasn't there ever any hair around his chair? Who was that whistling at the beginning of the show? Did you ever notice how Andy's pants were always caught on the tops of his boots? That drove me crazy. For years I've had this unfulfilled need to straighten his cuffs. Maybe I'm being too hard on myself.

Other TV viewers must wonder the same things. Sure they do. a pistol at another player. After another game, a gun was fired in the parking lot. There was obviously a massive breakdown in ordinary courtesy.

Anyway, what finally happened was that at a game in December, a snowball fight turned into a fist fight that involved 500 people. That was it. Officials figured things had gotten out of hand, and the games were closed to everybody but the players, coaches, referees and cheerleaders. "We don't want students hurt," the city school superintendent said about the closing of the games to the public, "and the crowd has to behave." That sounds reasonable to me. If you don't have everyday courtesy if the crowd won't behave then you no longer have a basketball game: You don't have anything but a brawl.

So, if you don't want a brawl, you get rid of the crowd. In some ways, they're a lot smarter over in England than we are here, because they don't let things get out of hand. I keep running across these terrific House of Commons stories. The idea of the House of Commons, as everybody knows, is to provide a place for political debate. To keep the debates from turning into an out-and-out battle, like a Rochester basketball game, members must display common courtesy toward each other.

The other day. a guy named Dennis Skinner called another member a "pompous sod." The Speaker told Skinner to withdraw the word. Skinner said, "I withdraw the word pompous." In England, sod is considered an obscene word and is short for sodomite. Obscenity was too much for the Speaker to swallow. "You know perfectly well," he said, "that moderation in language in our proceedings is all-important if we are to have civilized debate." That was it for Skinner.

Out he went. The The Arizona Daily Star There was no excuse for John Dunn to hit a woman over the head with a book. According to a newspaper story, Dunn was sitting in a Madison, library a few weeks back while two women were talking. He went, "Shhh." They kept talking. He kept going, "Shhh," but they wouldn't shut up.

Finally, he went over to one of them and hit her over the head" with a book. The story did not say how big the book was or how hard he hit her. However, he was finally able to get her attention. She became irate, called the police, and Dunn was charged in the Dane County Circuit Court with battery. I don't know whether she and her friend finished their conversation at the library.

Personally, I think Dunn got what he deserved. If the woman refused to button her lip in the library, Dunn should have discreetly notified the librarian, who should then have gone quietly over to the women.