Dukakis Unmistakenly Sure About His ’88 Mistakes

--The late Fiorello H. La Guardia, who cut a colorful swath as mayor of New York for a decade ending in 1945, was quick to quip: “When I make a mistake, it’s a beaut.” Invoking La Guardia on Saturday, Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis admitted: “Well, I made some beauts in the campaign.” Addressing about 4,000 Massachusetts Democrats at their state convention in Boston, Dukakis offered his most extensive discussion of last fall’s presidential campaign, when he was criticized for not responding to President Bush’s attacks over the Pledge of Allegiance, Boston Harbor pollution and prison furloughs. “I let him get away with that, and I shouldn’t have,” Dukakis said. He returned to his desk the day after the Nov. 8 loss and has avoided talking about the defeat. “These have been difficult months,” he said, “some of the most difficult I’ve ever encountered.”

--Stefan Szwarnowski, 76, representing the new wave of ancient mariner, is heading back to England the way he came--alone, aboard his 24-foot sailboat, the Tawny Pipit. The Polish-born sailor left Avalon, N.J., near where he landed last August after sailing into the Guinness Book of World Records with a 12-week voyage that made him the oldest person ever to cross the Atlantic alone in a sailboat. Food and water ran low on that crossing, and Szwarnowski lost weight. Jack Hamann, a marina owner, offered to buy Szwarnowski a plane ticket but was turned down. Isn’t the trip dangerous? “If something happens you’re going (to die),” Szwarnowski said, “and if not, you’re still going to.”

--”Just Married” read the big sign on the back of the Portland, Me., city bus that also was festooned with paper bells and tin cans tied to the bumper. A parade of honking cars followed the bus to a luncheon reception for Claude Methot and his new bride, Jan Cole, who had just been married aboard. “There are some very nice people on the bus, but I never thought I’d get married on a bus,” said the bride, 41. She and her husband met on the bus while riding to work and became friends. When they decided to marry, the bus seemed a natural. They plan to spend their honeymoon in Bermuda where, Methot said, “they’ve got a good bus system.”