The riots that bloom in the spring, tra la. And the first students to gallop out of the labs and libes for the annual monkey-see, monkey-do monkeyshines were the fair sons of John Harvard. Seems some sycamores along Cambridge's Memorial Drive were due for the ax (TIME, Feb. 14), and before anyone could bellow "Rinehart!" 2,000 undergraduate tree lovers rushed to the defense. "Two, four, six, eight, sycamores foliate," chanted the Cantabs fiercely. Then the crowd decided to block traffic instead. That brought the cops, who brought four dogs, which brought indignant cries of "Cambridge, Cambridge" (Md., not Mass.). A few yips and nips later, the discretion-filled Harvards were headed for home, leaving poor John on high to turn crimson with shame at the perfidious fainthearts.

At his death in 1962, Arthur Vining Davis regarded himself as one of the U.S.'s richest men, worth on the order of $400 million. But when his holdings--mainly in Aluminum Co. of America and in Florida real estate--were finally totted up for a court accounting, he turned out to be worth considerably less, $87,629,282.83 to be precise.

Just the other night Lady Bird Johnson went to the Metropolitan Opera in Manhattan, the first member of the First Family to do so in 19 years. She made a sweeping entrance with lissome Mrs. Anthony Bliss, wife of the Met's president, that had wide-eyed bystanders glomming the glamour, and Lady Bird was still drawing stares and applause as she returned to her box for the third act. As she smiled and acknowledged the attention, she started to sit down, then--ploop--she disappeared. The audience gasped, but quickly relaxed as she bobbed up unhurt and laughing. Met General Manager Rudolf Bing had been holding her chair, and he pulled it away to exchange it for one more comfortable. That's the story, anyway.

"Shall we make peace again? Today? Here? Shall we again become friends?" The moving plea was extemporaneously put by Pope Paul VI in a special Sistine Chapel service to several hundred painters, writers, musicians, sculptors and actors, and it marked the first time a Pontiff has tried bridging the century-old chasm between art and the church. Abstract art still disturbed the Pope. "The result is a language of Babel, of confusion," finger-wagged Paul. But the culture-loving Pontiff wanted a change: "We need you. For, as you know, our ministry is that of rendering accessible, comprehensible and also moving, the world of the spirit, of the invisible, of God, of the ineffable. And in this you are the masters. It is your trade."

When he's happiest is when he's snorting, and he did plenty of it. But in his 80th birthday week, Harry Truman was all choked up between potshots at the press, the Republicans, and everyone else within BB range. President Johnson telephoned Kansas City with early congratulations. "I wanted to call collect," ho-hoed L.B.J., who then added: "When you blow out those candles, I hope you think of all the lights you have turned on during 80 years." But the biggest thrill came during a birthday appearance on the Senate floor. After eulogies from no fewer than 25 Senators plus a standing ovation, H.S.T. stammered: "I'm so overcome. This is one of the greatest things that has happened to me in my whole life." Afterward he was still touched. "If they had cussed me out, I would have known what to do."

Charlton Heston was not lynched last week. The reason this is remarkable is that he was actually trying to be fair to a studio. No big star is supposed to do this. But Heston had an attack of ethics. Though it was not in his contract, he had browbeaten Columbia Pictures into doing a couple of scenes his way in the just-completed Major Dundee. "In effect," he explained, "I applied the muscle without the legal right. The only ethical thing to do was to return my salary." Return his what? Yep, the whole estimated $200,000 salary he got for the flick. "Ghastly precedent," thought his fellow performers. "Gem of a notion," thought Columbia.

He is more untouchable than Eliot Ness, more famous than Dick Tracy, and more widely respected in his job than just about anybody. John Edgar Hoover, 69, has been head of the FBI so long that people forget he could have been replaced by any incoming Administration. Last week he completed 40 years in the post, and Lyndon Johnson weighed in with his own endorsement. Next New Year's Day the top lawman will reach the compulsory retirement age of 70. "I know you wouldn't think of breaking the law," said L.B.J. So to offset the requirement, the President signed a special executive order that will allow the hale and hearty bachelor to continue serving "for an indefinite period of time."

Women across America tuned her in for two decades to hear all the poop on products and personalities. Then in 1954 Mary Margaret McBride gave the mike a pat and retired from the daily network grind. "It seemed as if 20 years was enough," she said. Of course, it wasn't really. And last week as her 30th radio anniversary came around, Mary Margaret, 64, was still at it. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 11 to noon, her folksy chat goes out to WGHQ listeners. It's just a local station in Kingston, N.Y., and she mostly interviews the neighbors at her book-lined "retirement" home. But Richard Rodgers journeyed up for the show a few broadcasts ago, and the sponsors, as always with Mary Margaret, are breathlessly waiting in line.

The usual run of big names flew into Rome's Fiumicino Airport that day, Ava Gardner, Adlai Stevenson and a few others. Nothing much there, thought reporters. Ava and Adlai were both heading to Naples, but that did not even raise an aha. That night Adlai climbed aboard the yacht of a friend for a short vacation cruise before heading for a Paris NATO meeting. The next morning Ava also embarked on the yacht of a friend. Yawwwn, reacted the press. Until someone suddenly remembered they both got on the same yacht. Cowabunga! said the newsmen, and raced to pick up the pieces. But Spanish-American Industrialist Ricardo Sicre's Rampager had already sailed with the big eggs aboard, leaving nothing but scrambled facts behind. No one even knew for sure just who else was along. And it looked like as long as the yacht stayed at sea, so would everyone else.

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