A Funny Thing Happened to the Haverhill Class of ’40

--Captured forever young in the pages of the “Archie” comics, graduates of the class of 1940 of Haverhill High School in Massachusetts gathered to reminisce and speculate on just who was the inspiration for the beloved teen-agers Betty, Veronica, Jughead and others who populated classmate Bob Montana’s hugely popular comics. Rita Walker, who lived two streets away from Montana, said she recognized the school almost immediately when freckle-faced Archie Andrews and his friends burst on the American comic scene in 1941, driving high school principal Mr. Weatherbee crazy and hanging out at The Chok’lit Shop. “The Chocolate Shop--we all knew darn well where the Chocolate Shop was. He (Montana) used to go there all the time and draw cartoons on napkins,” Walker said. Then there was a blushing Arnold Daggett, whose white crew cut and square-jawed face looked a lot like Moose, the comic football hero. Montana’s widow, Peggy Bertholet, recalled Archie’s friend Jughead was a composite of some of Montana’s close friends in high school, and Veronica Lodge was all the blue-blooded girls he met in Boston.

--The influential and the uncelebrated walked side by side through the streets of Boston, Brookline, Newton and Cambridge to raise $3.5 million in pledges in the 20th annual Walk for Hunger. Among the 35,000 participating were Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis, Lt. Gov. Evelyn Murphy, Boston Mayor Raymond Flynn and Cardinal Bernard Law, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Boston. Also among the marchers was Granton Dowse, 78, of Weston, who was attempting to retain his title as the top individual fund-raiser. Last year, he collected nearly $20,000 in pledges. “I find it is much easier to get people to give if they have given before,” said Dowse, who counts folk singer Livingston Taylor among his donors. “One man nine years ago gave me $20, a dollar a mile. He kept (raising) it . . . . This year, he sent me a check for $400.”

--Romance took a back seat to revolution in his youth, Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi revealed in an interview with Abu Dhabi television in the United Arab Emirates. Kadafi overthrew the Libyan monarchy in 1969 at age 27, expelling U.S. and British troops. “I did not have any love affair then. I imposed a strict regime on myself and kept away from anything that might interfere with the planned revolution,” said Kadafi, who is now the father of seven.