Events & Discoveries

Turnout
More than 19 million fans braved storm and sleet and traffic and heat to watch their favorite college teams play football this year. The total attendance of 19,280,709 for 2,586 games represented a 5.41% increase over last year, and the average of 31,199 per game was the highest in history.

Squaw's Progress

When a couple of Air Force helicopters flew into the 1960 Winter Olympic site at Squaw Valley, California one warm and cloudless morning last week, they were greeted by a flat, thick cloud of gray smoke coming from the fire and fumes of a hive of activity below.

There was reason aplenty for the bustle. In a little more than two years, California has had to turn this pretty but woefully unprepared little valley into the beginnings of a massive winter sports center. The state has bulldozed acres of jumbled terrain into an orderly landscape, built a flood-control lake, laid miles of sewer, built a disposal plant and installed a small town on the valley floor. All this is basic construction needed to house a thousand expected athletes, plus twice that number of delegates, officials, trainers and coaches. On top of this, the valley had to be manicured into a series of perfectly prepared courses and arenas where the athletes can slither, slide and slip in the intricate maneuvers of winter sport.

All this, quite naturally, has generated a considerable degree of stormy weather. From the beginning, Prentis Hale, the San Francisco store magnate and the man chiefly responsible for Squaw's progress, has been involved in one verbal blizzard after another. Among these was a running battle with his chief technical adviser, Alan Bartholemy, which ended last summer with the brisk announcement by Hale of Bartholemy's resignation. Somewhere along the line a publisher of a national skiing magazine joined the fight, pelted Hale and his California Olympic committee with accusations of gross incompetence. And last month, three more technical aides resigned.

The remarkable fact about all this storm and strife, however, is that it has done little if anything to block the steady march of progress in the valley. Chairman Hale could never be accused of diplomatic finesse, but he is a man with a commendable, if blunt, talent for getting things done. Last week, still firmly in the driver's seat, he had the satisfaction of knowing that all important construction in his valley was on schedule and due for completion well before the deadline in 1960.

Already, Squaw is bracing itself for an avalanche of eager customers. Tickets for the Games are now on sale—limited four to a customer—for those who write early enough to the Olympic Committee (333 Market St., San Francisco) and enclose $7.50 for each ticket. Squalls or not, we have already sent for ours.

Home-from-home

Two summers ago Mrs. Hattie Louise Browning of Dallas tried to find a place to board her poodles while she took a vacation trip. She was shocked to find that nothing was available but "slum dwellings." "My poodles were indoor pets," said Mrs. Browning. "I wanted a place that would treat them as they were treated at home."

The only way to find a proper home-from-home for pampered poodles, it seemed, was to build it, and after considerable research Mrs. Browning decided to do just that. Now the 50 guests at her swank Canine Country Club have air-conditioned rooms and foam-rubber mattresses. For hardy outdoor types there are dog runs shaded from the Texas sun. Music from a local FM station is piped to every room, and there is also a microphone to pick up the voices of the eight people who work about the place and transmit them to the dogs. Dogs, for some reason, like to hear people talking.