Having an Unbearable Day? Try These--Just for Pun

--Barbara Isenberg’s teddies bear all sorts of semi-familiar names--Humphrey Beargart, Lauren Bearcall, William Shakesbear. Isenberg, founder and president of Chicago’s North American Bear Co., says she came up with the idea for punning bears about six years ago, when she decided to make an old-fashioned soft teddy out of a sweat shirt for her son, then 3. “The adult response was so great,” she said, that she realized she might have a marketable idea. “Then I came up with the idea of Douglas Bearbanks. It just came out of the blue. I was trying to think of a suave bear that adults would like. Then came Scarlett O’Beara, Amelia Bearhart and Chef Bearnaise. Once you’ve done one pun, you can do 800”--which is the number of names the company has waiting to be marketed. It takes several months of research to get the details just right--like Beargart’s pin-striped gray pants, belted trench coat, ascot and gray felt fedora. With price tags of between $40 and $50, these fuzzy fellows attract mostly adults, she said--adults like Dan Turner, a 51-year-old Cook County court official, who has three or four of the critters. “For one thing, they look like the kind of teddies that I was very friendly with as a youth,” he said. “Show me a man who doesn’t like teddy bears, and I’ll show you a man without a soul.”

--The Soviet Union named a diamond after Samantha Smith, the 13-year-old American girl who died in a Maine plane crash last month, the official news agency Tass reported from Yakutsk. Tass said the diamond was found in Peaceful, a small settlement in eastern Siberia. Two years ago, Samantha wrote a letter to then-Soviet President Yuri V. Andropov, asking why the superpowers could not live in peace. He invited her to the Soviet Union. Tass said the gem would be placed in the Armory Museum, a Kremlin collection of crown jewels.

--Country music star Barbara Mandrell gave birth to her third child, a boy, in Nashville. She and her husband, Ken Dudney, named the 7-pound, 7-ounce boy Nathaniel.

--Rep. Bill Nelson says he has been training for 2 1/2 years to go into space on one of the shuttle missions--running four miles a day, doing push-ups, sit-ups and leg lifts. The Florida Democrat finally got his invitation from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. “I’m a happy boy,” said Nelson, who chairs the House subcommittee on space science. Nelson’s flight is expected to take place next year. He would be the second congressman in space. Sen. Jake Garn (R-Utah) flew on a seven-day mission last April.