More Damn Fun

"Buck Byrd rides again," cracked Washington newshawks. Down the warpath, sure enough, padded Economizer Harry Byrd of Virginia, his apple cheeks stained winesap-red with indignation. He was still after the scalp of OCD; and he was hot on the trail. He had discovered that OCD had still stranger captives in its tepee than Dancer Mayris Chancy (resigned).

OCD, it seemed, had appointed 62 "coordinators" in its Physical Fitness Division--coordinators for such physically fitting sports as Ping-pong, Codeball,* archery, paddle tennis, marbles, canoeing, horseshoe pitching.

Acidly Senator Byrd remarked the fact that Chicago's Jack M. Willem had been made coordinator of bowling. Icily he claimed: "Mr. Willem, as national bowling coordinator, I understand, is authorized to undertake a national campaign to recruit 25,000,000 men, women and children for regular attendance at bowling alleys. Mr. Willem has been identified to me as an executive of the Stack-Goble Advertising Agency, which handles the account of the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company. I am informed the company holds a virtual monopoly on the manufacture of bowling alleys, balls and pins."

OCDirector James M. Landis set up the pins again as if nothing had happened. No Federal cash, he pointed out, was being spent on the bowling project. Oh, no? said the Senator, whizzing one down for a strike; well, what about those red-white-&-blue posters being turned out by the Government Printing Office, urging U.S. citizens to "keep them rolling, hit the headpin with Uncle Sam?" Director Landis left the pins lying, retired to think that one over.

At this point, Franklin Roosevelt put in a word. "I believe that the war effort will not be hampered, but actually improved by sensible participation in healthy recreational pursuits. It must be borne in mind, however, that 'recreation as usual' is just as bad as 'business as usual.' "

The New York Herald Tribune straightway called for a coordinator of crapshooting; the New York Daily News, for a coordinator of gin-rummy. Pinboy Landis had reason to think that he had been handed a tough job.

But perhaps happier days were ahead. The Fitness Division was taken over by Paul McNutt's Federal Security Administration. Soon, perhaps, the Office of Civilian Defense could concentrate on civilian defense.

* Coordinator is the game's inventor: Dr. William E. Code of Chicago. Codeball is played with six-inch rubber balls; has two forms: Codeball-on-the-Green is like golf, except that the ball is kicked into 14 specially constructed "bowls" covering about a mile and a quarter in one round. Codeball-on-the-Court is played, also with the feet, on a handball court.

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