Wheelchair Bowler Rolls to 3rd Place in Tournament

“Pardon the pun,” said Greg Winterbottom, 38, of Villa Park, who placed third in the recent national American Wheelchair Bowling Assn. tournament in Orange, “but it was a handicap tournament, you know.”

Winterbottom, confined to a wheelchair following an auto accident in 1966, said he rolled a high game of 235 (with pin handicap) and averaged 129 for 16 games.

Currently on leave as an aide to state Sen. Paul Carpenter (D-Cypress), Winterbottom said bowling is one of the few outlets paraplegics have for exercise, although he noted that he was California wheelchair table tennis champion in 1973.

Then he cut short the telephone interview. “My ride is waiting,” he said. “We’re going to get in some motorcycle riding in the desert.”

Off and on for 14 years, Fountain Valley sculptor Ken Sanders, 65, would return to the life-size statue he was making of B.J., a long-ago girlfriend who “sort of got away.”

Well, Sanders, who, coincidentally, separated from his wife about the same time he started the sculpture of his 40-years-ago sweetheart, has finally completed the project made from hand-me-down copper wire, some as thin as hair and some as thick as a pencil.

“Electricians kept giving me scraps of copper, and I would work on the sculpture when I felt burned out from doing other projects,” said Sanders, who noted that his creation has 9,000 solder joints. It is being shown at the Orange County Fair in Costa Mesa, where it won second place in the fine arts category.

“When I would run out of fresh ideas, I would always go back to B.J.,” Sanders said. “It was tedious at times, and sometimes I would talk to her (the statue), but now she’s done.”

Who is B.J.? “B.J. is just B.J.,” Sanders said with a smile.

Paul Gimondo of Buena Park has led an exciting life considering he’s only 6 years old.

He has performed with Bob Hope and Andy Wiliams, was one of the singers at the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, performs with the International Children’s Choir of Long Beach and was one of 79 youngsters to record the children’s version of “We Are the World,” now being sold to raise money to fight the famines in Africa and other parts of the world.

“At the beginning, I don’t think Paul understood what it (the recording) was all about,” said his mother, Ivy, “but we watched television that showed the starving children, and he asked questions. He wanted to know why their stomachs were swollen and why they were starving.”

As an afterthought, she added: “You know, when children are at his age, mothers are constantly pushing their children to finish their meals, and now we look at the news and see so many starving children. It’s so tragic.”

But the point is coming across to Paul, one of five children in the Gimondo family.

“One time after watching televison,” Ivy Gimondo said, “he said he wished he could give his dinner to the starving children. He understands.”

Thirteen years ago, Florence Cvengros retired as sewing instructor at Nicholas Junior High School in Fullerton. With time on her hands these days, it seemed natural that she return to school. So so she enrolled in a sewing class.

Instructor Mary Vedenoff at Wilshire Continuing Education Center in Fullerton said everyone, including herself, needs to learn about new fabrics and techniques, and those are two of the reasons Cvengros attends.

Is she a good student? “She’s terrific,” Vedenoff said.