Refugee Boy Finds Safe Harbor After Tragic Voyage

--It was a poignant ending to a tragic story. A 10-year-old Vietnamese boat refugee was reunited with his grandmother and aunt in Little Rock, Ark., after a harrowing, 36-day voyage at sea during which his parents and older brother died and starving shipmates reportedly resorted to cannibalism. Huong Nguyen fell sobbing to her knees on the airport concourse when she caught sight of her grandson, Hung Quoc Tran, who was put in a United Nations camp in the Philippines before being granted refugee status by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. “We are happy, but we are missing my brother and his family,” said Hung’s aunt, Tong Nguyen, who fled Saigon in 1975 and now runs a diner in El Dorado, Ark. Hung was aboard a crowded junk found drifting without food or water in the South China Sea in June by the U.S. Navy transport ship Dubuque, which gave the passengers some supplies but left without taking any of the 100 refugees aboard. More than half of them later died. The Dubuque’s commander, Capt. Alexander G. Balian, was relieved of duty after the incident and charged with failing to render assistance.

--Harold Washington was remembered as a “liberal in the best sense” by Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) at a memorial service commemorating Chicago’s first black mayor a year after his death of a massive heart attack. Others who paid tribute to him included the Rev. Jesse Jackson, writer Studs Terkel and television talk show host Oprah Winfrey. Terkel spoke of Washington’s unifying vision: “He saw the block as part of a neighborhood. He saw the neighborhood as part of a city. He saw the city as part of a country. He saw the country as part of a world. They were inseparable. And that’s what made him a mayor with the possibility of being the best.” The affable, articulate Washington, 65, died the day before Thanksgiving, 1987, seven months into his second term. Alderman Eugene Sawyer was named acting mayor.

--Zeke Zzzyzus has come in last again--which is exactly the way he wants it. A year ago he was just plain Zeke Zzyzus, the last entry in the Montreal, Canada, telephone book, edging out Sunta Zzymox. This year he decided to add another z to his name to fend off challenges from Zzyzyx (no first name), Pol Zzyzzo and Zzzap Distribution. And he vowed to add as many as it takes in the future to zap any other z zealots.