Happy Trailers to You: Chicagoan Home on the Ranch

--It’s no fancy mansion, but it has a bathroom and a butane stove and is a sight better than the rotting shack that former carpenter Harold Thomas had been living in for the last nine months. The 35-year-old homeless Chicago man, who had been unable to find work for more than a year, was the subject of an Associated Press story that had caught the eye of Roy and Ethel Gilman in Portales, N.M. The elderly couple invited Thomas to come West and live in a trailer on property they owned at a wrecking company outside town, earning his keep by doing odd jobs around their ranch. It was a chance to start over for Thomas, who is on probation after pleading guilty to a burglary charge that his probation officer said stemmed “from not having a place to stay last winter.” “I just want to thank the Lord for giving me the opportunity to prove myself again,” Thomas said as he stepped off the bus in New Mexico. “The people have been wonderful. I’ve met so many along the way.” “It’s nothing fancy,” said the Gilmans’ son, Ralph, of Thomas’ new quarters. “We’re poor people. (But) Daddy and Mama’s always tried to help.”

--Her husband may be in the middle of a lame-duck presidency, but Nancy Reagan was on top of the polls--Gallup, that is--as the woman Americans admire most. It was the third time in the last six years that the First Lady has led the polling; she was third last year, with Mother Teresa of Calcutta first. This year, Mother Teresa finished third, with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher second. Fourth among the most admired is Philippines President Corazon Aquino; fifth is Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, former ambassador to the United Nations; sixth is Patricia Schroeder, Democratic representative from Colorado, and seventh is Betty Ford, former First Lady.

--A radio dispatcher who essentially got a bum steer sent eight firefighters and three sheriff’s deputies stampeding to a gas station in Rock Hill, S.C., after receiving a call of a “bomb.” Only the caller had actually said “bum.” “From now on, when somebody calls me they’re going to spell that word,” said a chagrined Robin Corder, a dispatcher for York County emergency personnel. Corder discovered the mistake when, following procedure, she called back to warn the gas station manager to evacuate the area. “I went on to stress that it was procedure to call the Fire Department when there was a bomb call,” Corder said. “Oh, no, ma’am,” the manager said. “I wouldn’t be anywhere near a bomb. I said I have a bum on the bathroom floor.”