Paraders Plunge Right Into Fight Against City Hall

--About 150 people snaked their way down Main Street in Oberlin, Ohio, with majorettes twirling plungers, some marchers banging bedpans and others dressed as rats. Residents were relieving their frustration over sewer construction that has meant months of bumpy motoring and long, complicated bypasses. Marion B. Kelly, one of hundreds watching the SewerFest celebration, said: “Didn’t you love the noises? It was wonderful.” Some of the marchers blasted kazoos; some wore overalls and plumbers’ tools; many wore plungers as hats, and dump trucks blasted their horns. Among the parade floats was a wooden outhouse with its door flapping open and shut. Some drivers brushed up on their writing skills for an essay contest about their experiences on the demolished roads. The winner was promised a front-end alignment. Yvonne Hazlett, a marcher from Elyria who wore a rubber rat on her shirt, said of the sewer work: “Oh, it’s terrible. You can’t go east, you can’t go west. The streets are all banged up.” Karen Smith, assistant public works director, said: “It’s kind of getting there. We’ve got a target completion of Aug. 31 for the bulk of the sewer work on the streets.”

--More than 40 members of the Kennedy clan gathered at Hyannis Port, Mass., to celebrate the 99th birthday of matriarch Rose Kennedy. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) gave his mother 99 roses, and the family serenaded her and shared dinner, Mass and birthday cake. Before the gathering, Rep. Joseph Kennedy, also a Massachusetts Democrat, said Mrs. Kennedy has been the center of a family that suffered through two assassinations--those of his father, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, and President John F. Kennedy. “Through all the family’s happy times and sad times, the one person we could always turn to was my grandmother,” he said. Among others joining in the celebration were Michael Kennedy, another son of R.F.K.; Ethel Kennedy, R.F.K.’s widow, and Sargent and Eunice Shriver. Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, daughter of J.F.K., took along her year-old daughter, a budding Rose.

--Ronald Reagan joined other former presidents and other former entertainers in the National Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City. Reagan, 78, who has a ranch near Santa Barbara and acted in some Westerns, was named by the museum as a “great Westerner” and a “great Western performer.” Other members include Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Theodore Roosevelt, and performers John Wayne, Tom Mix and Gene Autry.