Past Catches but Can’t Keep Him

--Since he fled from the state prison in Walla Walla, Wash., in 1958, Mayland Groo has been living in law-abiding obscurity in Nebraska. He got married, bought a house and put his past behind him. But a chance encounter with police led to a fingerprint check, the record of his conviction for attempted robbery and his escape, and extradition to Washington state. But it all worked out on Monday when the state parole board voted unanimously to allow Groo, 61, to return to Nebraska with only minimal parole supervision. “It’s our opinion he’s safe to be released and that there will be no danger in releasing him,” said board Chairman Bill Henry. “This is an extraordinary case, there is no question about that.” Henry said the board agreed to allow Groo to remain in the state for another week in order to visit his family, including two grown children in Spokane from a previous marriage and five grandchildren. Groo, who has been living under the alias Eugene Day, was delighted. “The way things turned out, I’d do it (escape) again,” he said. “I think we have had a good life.”

--Monday was Fast Day in Concord, N.H. It’s an official state holiday, but few people seem to know why. “The fastest day of the year?” guessed one teen-ager at a shopping mall. Resident Kathy Smith said she “always thought it (had) something to do with wars.” Actually, Fast Day marks various calamities in the state’s history, such as fires, floods or famine. At such times, residents were urged to go without food for a day, attend church and abstain from recreation. In 1899, fast days were declared official state holidays, and in 1949 the fourth Monday of April was made the standard day of observance.

--Readers of People magazine, participating in the publication’s seventh annual poll, said that President Reagan and pop superstar Michael Jackson are the celebrities they would “be happy not to hear another word about in 1985.” But the unscientific survey also found that Reagan was the man that a majority of readers would choose as the next President. Vice President George Bush and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) tied for second.

--The president of the National Geographic Society thinks that too many Americans are dangerously ignorant of geography. “We know about malnutrition but we know very little of where millions are dying of famine,” said Gilbert M. Grosvenor, the fifth of his family to lead the society, in a speech to the Economic Club of Detroit. “How can we help Africa when we don’t know where Africa is?” The teaching of basic geography has practically disappeared from the nation’s schools and colleges, he said. “When geography was folded into the social sciences, it kind of got lost in the shuffle,” Grosvenor said. “To me, to graduate a kid from college when he barely knows how to drive home is a darn shame. I’m suggesting that ignorance kills, and I’m suggesting that if you are ignorant, you aren’t going to go very far in the world.”