Events & Discoveries

Ultimate Absurdity

Boxing has had a black-and-blue time of it in the 1950s, but the ultimate absurdity was reached last week when New York's attorney general had to send the state troopers out to bring in Cus D'Amato for answers to questions the attorney general had every right to ask; questions about Cus's custodianship of Floyd Patterson as heavyweight champion of the world; questions that Cus insists he has clear and shining answers to. It was beneath the D'Amato dignity or something to respond to an invitation to come in and talk to the attorney general; so a subpoena was issued, and still no D'Amato; and thus the police were called out, and D'Amato surrendered.

Anticlimactically, the New York State Athletic Commission three days later revoked D'Amato's license as a manager. At the same time it suspended for three years the matchmaker's license of Bill Rosensohn, who was in charge of the last heavyweight championship fight.

In 1960 boxing has no place to go but up.

Hunters Can't Forget

Isolated by deep marsh and ice covered channels in Lake St. Clair, though hardly out of sight of Detroit's skyscrapers, is the island of Ste. Anne's. Refuge for sporting industrialists and a duck hunter's paradise, it became in one short minute last week the scene of tragedy.

Sitting on ammunition boxes behind a three-foot-high improvised shore blind were two duck hunters the nation knew: Harlow H. Curtice, 66, onetime president of General Motors, and Harry W. Anderson, 67, former G.M. vice-president and Curtice's longtime hunting companion.

It was a good day by the perverse weather standards of duck hunters. A 13-mile-an-hour wind gave bite to the 17� cold, keeping the ducks moving beneath the overcast sky. The hunters had killed six mallards by 11:15 that morning when another flock swung upwind across the decoys from the left. Curtice, sitting on the right, sighted on the lead duck, which was properly his target. Anderson, presumably, would remain sitting like Curtice, and fire at the rear of the flock. Instead, Anderson inexplicably stood and came into Curtice's line of fire. His death focused attention on some things that all hunters know or are supposed to know.

The close quarters of duck blinds make accidents like this one rare. Duck hunting accounts for only 5% of shooting accidents and is relatively hazard-free. Perhaps the secretary of the National Rifle Association, Frank Daniel, said it best: "What happened is the same thing that happens when a man who knows better walks out in front of a truck. He just forgot."

Half-ripe Amateur