‘Hello’ Is Apt, but Not Original

What do you say when you’re called to the phone and President Reagan is on the line? “I think I said, ‘Hello, Mr. President.’ I’m not really sure. I was shaking so bad,” said Sara Horak of Delia, Kan. Horak, 57, and a group of Kansans were in the office of Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) when Reagan called. After speaking with the President for a few minutes, Dole motioned Horak to the phone and introduced her to Reagan. Horak said Reagan, who was aboard Air Force One en route to Omaha for a campaign appearance, talked about the weather and said his plane was “above the clouds . . . 31,000 feet in the air. He said to enjoy our visit and was very happy we were here . . . .” The group planned to spend several more days touring the capital, including making a trip to the White House. But Horak said, “I will probably forget everything from here on out.”

--”We’ll meet again,” sang Vera Lynn in a popular World War II song. Dame Vera, now 69, will sing the song once again at a reunion of GI brides, many of whom are returning to their native Britain for the first time in 40 years. The four-day gathering will take place in the southern port town of Southampton, where many of the 70,000 war brides set sail for the United States between January and October, 1946. “We expect to see quite a number of old friends,” said one of the brides, Doreen Kriegler, who moved to the United States from Tenterden in southern England. She met her husband, from Wilson, N. Y., when his plane crashed near her hometown in 1943. “The Americans came down like the wolf on the fold,” another bride, Denise Bryan, recalled in a British television documentary broadcast on the eve of the reunion. “When they told those little 17-year-olds, ‘Honey, you are the most beautiful thing that ever came down the pike,’ the girls hadn’t a clue what it was about. They had never been spoken to like that in their lives.” Many of the women kept in touch after they moved to the United States. “We were terribly homesick, Kriegler, 67, said. “It was a vast change for many of the girls.”

--It may come as news to Boston pitcher Roger Clemens or third baseman Wade Boggs, but House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill Jr. (D-Mass.) credits the success of the first-place Red Sox this year to his wife, Millie, who threw out the first ball at Fenway Park on opening day last April. O’Neill, who is retiring from Congress after 34 years, has a passion for the American League East leaders exceeded only by his passion for his spouse. “We sit there and have a conversation, read and watch the Red Sox,” he told reporters. “I tell you, that’s what love is all about, especially when you’re in your 70s.”