European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - August 19, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Travelling America the adventure ends today s crossword by Jack Smith los Angeles times his is the summer we Are told thai americans Are discovering America in greater numbers than Ever. Scared away from foreign travel by terrorism we Are exploring our own country by the tens of millions. Our efficient cars our endless freeways and our ubiquitous motels have made it possible for any family to cover from 200 to 400 Miles of geography a Day depending on the Pace. Add our Handy credit cards which give us the illusion that it s free. My wife and i recently travelled into Northern California and Back never worried about the performance of our car about where we would stay about How we would pay. We Jutt drove on picking destinations from our Road map and in late afternoon we would find some inn with a vacancy sign show our credit card and put up for the night. Sometimes we had a Pool and a hot tub. Often free ice. And always to which we never watched. Not watching to we found was a part of being on vacation. It was so easy i could t help remembering the trip my family made from Whittier calif., to Joplin. Mo., Back in 1929. We set out in Early summer in our Oakland Sedan my Mother my grandmother my older brother Harry my Cousin Betty Mae and i. My brother was a student at Whittier College. Being the Only Driver he drove every mile of the Way a heroic performance. As i remember my grandmother was 75 years old. Her youngest Eon Charlie who had been maimed and blinded at 21 in a mining Accident was working a 40 acre farm in the ozarks and she wanted to see him before she died. We took . Highway 66. It was an arduous trip. The Oakland was a Good car for its Day but it had no air conditioning. The Highway was Only two or three lanes and in Many places Only gravel. Motels were a Brand new thing in those Days. They were mostly courts of Small cottages mostly without inside plumbing. Sometimes in Small towns we stayed in private houses whose owners were trying to eke out a living by renting out rooms and offering Home  somewhere in Ari Iono we pulled off the Road into a real ghost town. We walked through a swinging door into what had been the Saloon. The Long bar and the mirrored Back bar were still in place. It looked like the set of a Hundred westerns we had seen. There was not another human being in town. We i Ove through Arizona new Mexico the Texas Panhandle and Oklahoma All of them great wastes of land. I think it was when we crossed into Missouri that we encountered mud so deep that we made Only 10 Miles that Day. My grandmother weighed less than 100 pounds but she was Tough. As a Young wife she had crossed from Kentucky to Colorado in a covered Wagon and had encountered hostile indians. She never complained. My Uncle Charlie was scratching out a living on his 40 acres with his wife Elsie and two Small sons. Because of Charlie s blindness Elsie and the older son did most of the work blowing with Molly their Only horse and harvesting their paltry crop with the help of neighbors. Uncle Charlie was absolutely thrilled by the Oakland. He had never Ridden in a car before. We drove him into town one Day. He sat in the front seat by my brother Elsie sat in Back. My brother drove faster and faster. How fast we a Goin now my Uncle shouted. Fortyl my brother said. You hear that Elsie my Uncle shouted Back. We re a Goin 40" returning to California was harder than going East. It was so hot crossing the desert that we Hung wet towels in the windows to Cool the air. The last Day we had six Flat tires. Every time a tire blew my brother and i would have to get out Jack up the car remove the wheel remove the tube Patch the tube put it Back in the tire pump it up put the wheel Back on the car and sat out once again waiting for the next Blowout. If i m riot mistaken my grandmother died soon after we got Home. But she had seen Uncle Charlie. Mission accomplished. And we did it without a credit card. Winning at marbles no aggie joke by Dick West United press internationale very sports fan is entitled to his own idea of what is thrilling. Nevertheless i was a bit surprised by a poll published by sports illustrated. In that Survey More than 2,000 adults responded to about 70 questions including if you were a professional athlete which one of the following would be the biggest thrill for you one thing that surprised me was the narrowness of the Field. Only eight sports were listed under such thrills As getting the winning hit in the final world series  throwing the winning touchdown in the super  winning the masters Golf  Riding the winning horse in the Kentucky  winning the heavyweight boxing  sinking the winning Basket in the final Aba basketball championship  scoring the winning goal in the final Stanley cup hockey  nowhere was there any mention of such sports As Polo volleyball and my own favorite marbles. I for one would derive a bigger kick from knocking your Taw out of the ring than i would from dropping in the winning putt at Augusta. While you re dreaming Why not dream big it s of to envision yourself getting the winning hit in the final world series game. But while you re at it. Why not dream of hitting a winning Home run that Way you not Only get credit for the knocking in the winning run you score the winning run As Well. Or Why not make it a grand slam Homer when your team is three runs behind with two outs in the last half of the ninth inning of the seventh game Speakma of dreaming i also was a mite surprised by some of the results of the poll. Certain votes were predictable. Tennis players for instance might get a bigger thrill out of serving the winning Ace at Wimbledon rather than winning the . Open title. It was understandable that horse racing would run behind baseball and football. However i was a bit puzzled by participants who ranked Riding the winning horse in the Kentucky Derby ahead of basketball and Golf.   &. Nejus Unm to sent hohm6-d$ub whom a . By Eugene Sheffer across1 Teddy or grizzly5 sur Cal Bur lab incite 12 japanese aborigine 13 actress Alicia 14 Lively dance 15 Long tailed birds17 Wanton revel18 place 19 Milter quest 20 deals21 Large cask 22 syllable with Call or boat23 business record26 colourful birds30 River in France 31 invite32 cose for Small articles 33 Pittsburg player 35 jury 38 tint41 curve 42 Pronoble 45 Samoa seaport 46 wooden Spike 48 await Settle ment49 woman s secret?50 formerly 51 far animals 52 came i first ii  amphibians 2hlbemla heel3 Puckler s 23 Romaine Weed 24 great4 future fish Success 5 scotch 25peergynt s Chi a mother6 Arrow 26 moslem fuel often �"8 closet a 8 Parson Ceas Orlea bird9 Harbor 29 hold 10 impel session Smuland 31 implore and 34 Gibbo Charles 35 step solution time 23 mans. Cloak39 overt 40 fuzz41 Jason s ship42 rower s needs43 and shine44 Canadian prov.46 Marble 47 education yesterday s a wer 8-19 8-19 Hubert shopping nothing i m cup Tom poc Torfe appoint went Page 18 the stars and stripes tuesday August 19, 1986