Pedaling for a Purpose
They really have no idea what they’re getting into. What they do have is great faith. No slowing down now. As the Lord said, “It is the spirit that quickeneth.” Still, they could use a few bucks.
Jim Brennan, a Jesuit volunteer in Visalia for the past year, proposes a “Coast to Coast for the Homeless” bicycle trip, 4,000 miles, 100 a day, beginning Aug. 30. With him will be fellow volunteers Sue Costello, Greg Lysko, John Holihan and Greg Barker. Kathleen Cooney and Pauline Doherty will drive the support vehicle, “if we can afford one.” Beneficiary of whatever contributions the cyclists can amass en route to the East Coast will be St. Joseph Center in Venice.
“There are 50,000 homeless in the L.A. area alone,” says Brennan, 23. “It’s the hub of the homeless problem in America, and St. Joseph’s is the heart of the hub.”
The group hopes to raise $50,000 for the center, but first things first: They need about $7,000 just to get off the ground, and had collected about half that by last week. Brennan seems unruffled. “We’ll get it,” he says, “with the help of God--and the media.”
So much for finances. What about endurance? “Hey, we’ve all ridden bikes,” Brennan says. “We may have a few beers here and there, but we’re in real good shape.” Still, 100 miles a day? “No, I’ve never tried it,” Brennan says, “but a lot of it is mental preparation, no? Speaking of preparation, could you print St. Joseph Center’s telephone number? It’s (213) 396-6468. We need the support.
Return From Hog Heaven
Thummer, they called him. They had a contest and some kid named him that in 1952.
For 31 years, Thummer the Pig served as mascot of the Los Angeles County Fair. Then, in 1984, he was gone. “Nobody said, ‘You’re outta here,’ ” fair spokesman Sid Robinson says. “It was more a fade-out. The fair began using different themes.”
He’s back now, though, the dapper hitchhiking pig. He’s back as the logo of the ’88 Fair, Sept. 15 to Oct. 2, and nobody is happier about it than Morrie Stewart.
Stewart, 76, now retired in Lompoc, got into the Thummer game by accident.
“In 1929,” he recalls, “there were five of us with cartooning ability in my graduating class at Pomona High. The others went with Disney: One drew Pluto, another did backgrounds. . . . Walt was a good promoter, a dreamer, but no businessman. He offered me $12 a week. I turned him down. Went into business for myself, until the war.”
During the war, Stewart worked for Kaiser Steel, and the pig was born: “Henry J. asked me to work up a symbol of pig iron, which he used in training manuals and such. Called him Snorty. Kaiser fell in love with that pig.”
After the war, Stewart became head sign painter for the Orange County Fair and brought Snorty with him, soon to be Porky. When that name was immortalized elsewhere, Stewart’s pig was rechristened Thummer.
In short order, the pig was ubiquitous, on signs all over the Southland, “hitching” to the fair.
Times changed, and so did Thummer’s garb (overalls) and physiognomy. Then he was dropped completely. Now he’s back. Is Stewart pleased? “You betcha,” he said by phone from Lompoc. “That’s my boy!”
Bushmasters, Now Hear This:
Gen. Douglas MacArthur, whose praise rarely radiated beyond his immediate circle, said that there was “no greater fighting team ever deployed in battle.”
The outfit called itself the Bushmasters after a deadly snake native to Central America, where they trained for jungle warfare in World War II. And for Hal Braun of Hollywood, the 158th Infantry Regiment was the stuff of dreams--or at least movies.
Braun, actor and Bushmaster veteran (Company B commander), never has severed ties with the colorful outfit, “the first regimental combat team” whose core was the Arizona National Guard. “Thirty percent were Mexican-Americans and 22 Indian tribes were represented, as well as a number of Nisei (Japanese-Americans). The rest of the regiment was filled in with miners, cowboys, guys who’d make ‘From Here to Eternity’ look like Boy Scouts.”
Since mustering out, Braun has been influential in erection of a Bushmasters monument in Phoenix, the naming of a peak after the unit, and is negotiating a movie contract based on the Bushmasters.
Just from more honors, Braun is forever on the lookout for Bushmaster veterans from Southern California.
“Just remind them,” he said, “of when we took the island of Noemfoor in Dutch New Guinea, on July 4, 1944. . . . We lost seven men. They lost 2,000.”
