Nouveau Riche Walking on Error
--The First City Bank in Dallas is Fred Minton’s kind of bank. Minton, who lives in Valencia, asked First City to transfer $1,000 to his bank in Los Angeles, and First City kicked in an extra $1.009 million. The mistake went undetected until the other night when Minton, a psychologist who was in Texas to help in the selection of a jury, noticed that his receipt was for $1,010,000. He notified the bank the next day. “He’s still got the receipt,” Minton’s wife, Marci, said from the couple’s home Thursday. “We’re going to frame it. I thought they (the bank) might offer a reward, but I guess not.” Minton said that First City Vice President Jerry Donovan accepted the news with “shaking hands . . . . You have never seen a banker so appreciative in all your life.” Reflecting on his temporary wealth, Minton said: “It was the first time in my life I have ever felt like I was truly walking on air. I could see that there were a lot of possibilities.” Asked for the bank’s reaction, Donovan replied: “We don’t discuss customer transactions.”
--In a Rose Garden ceremony attended by 150 members of volunteer organizations such as the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and 4-H Club, President Reagan gave Presidential Private Sector Initiatives citations to several young people and honored the others with words of praise. “Super volunteers are springing up all over the country to spread the good news about how much fun it really is to get involved with people who need you,” he said. “Your pep and energy are astonishing.”
--There are many motorcycle groups on the road--the Hells Angels, the Ghost Riders, the Bandidos. And now, from Yakima, Wash., the Bureaucratic Bikers. These mild-mannered government employees have as their club emblem a scrap of red tape fluttering in the breeze. “This is our way of poking a little fun at government in general,” said Al Brown, a club founder. The club is open to people who work for any level of government, he said. It has no bylaws, officers or anything remotely resembling a governmental structure. “We don’t want too much organization,” Brown said. “Red tape can kill.”
--A Royal Air Force test pilot will become Britain’s first astronaut, joining a U.S. space shuttle crew in June, 1986, British Defense Secretary Michael Heseltine announced in London. Nigel Wood, 35, will help launch a British military communications satellite, Skynet 4. “I feel impatient,” Wood told reporters. “I wish the shuttle was outside now and we could go right on to the launch tomorrow.” Wood will be a payload specialist aboard the shuttle, but no space walk is planned for him. “There is no possibility of stepping outside unless they throw me out,” he said.
