Girl Wants the Top Brass to Give Way to Little Wheels

--How would the public respond? It’s not even clear yet how Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger will answer the writer’s request. He has been asked to consider turning the Pentagon into a roller rink. Megan Weinstein, a 9-year-old from Dumfries, Va., offered the suggestion to Weinberger in a letter. “I was thinking that it would be a good idea to turn the Pentagon into a roller skating rink because it is old, round, big and has lots of ramps,” the fourth-grader wrote. “Also, its floors are good for skating.” Megan then disclosed an ulterior motive. If the Pentagon were turned into a roller rink, “then you could build a new Pentagon in Dumfries so my daddy would not have to drive so far to work.” Megan closed by requesting an autographed picture from Weinberger and signed off, “Your friend.” Megan’s father, John M. Weinstein, who has a 50-minute drive to work in heavy traffic, is a strategic nuclear forces analyst with the Army. He said his daughter had visited the Pentagon and chose it as her subject for a current events class. The Pentagon could undoubtedly become the world’s greatest roller rink. The building occupies 29 acres of land and has 17.5 miles of inside corridors and ramps.

--Comedian Bill Cosby is asking his hometown of Philadelphia to show that it’s still the City of Brotherly Love despite recent racial incidents that gained national attention. The star of the top-rated “The Cosby Show” taped two public-service radio messages to be broadcast in the metropolitan area on behalf of the Coalition for the Reaffirmation of Brotherly Love, the group said. In November, hundreds of whites in a southwest Philadelphia neighborhood took to the streets demanding that a black couple and an interracial couple move out. “Many of us want to prove these incidents do not represent the true spirit of our city,” Cosby says in one of the radio spots.

--No more night lights for your child, says J.S. Dugan. He thinks he has a better way to calm a youngster’s fear of the dark. It’s glow-in-the-dark bed sheets. Dugan, of Wilmington, N.C., said he came up with the idea about a year ago while working in research and development for Springs Industries in South Carolina. The sheets will be available in a children’s design, Glo-Bunnies, and the design part will glow after being exposed to light, he said. The greenish glow is harmless and will survive repeated washings.

--A musical affair at the Kennedy Center in Washington marked the 25th anniversary of Peter, Paul & Mary and raised $75,000 for the anti-apartheid group TransAfrica. Included in those gathered to applaud Peter Yarrow, Paul Stookey and Mary Travers were John Denver, Judy Collins, Odetta and Harry Belafonte.