* Edsel thoughts: Former President Gerald Ford...

* Edsel thoughts: Former President Gerald Ford predicted that once the first woman becomes President, men will have trouble even getting the party nomination. Speaking with 100 school children in West Branch, Iowa, Ford said he thought a woman would be elected vice president soon on either the Republican or Democrat ticket. “The President will die and the woman will become President,” said Ford. “I think it will probably come some time in the next four to eight years. . . . Once that barrier is broken, men had better be careful because they will have a hard time even getting the nomination.”

* Right notes: William F. Buckley Jr.--columnist, television host, espionage author and sailing aficionado--also will be known hereafter as a harpsichordist. Buckley made his solo debut this week with the Phoenix Symphony Orchestra after only a year of practice. The audience of 550 at the Scottsdale Center for the Arts gave him a standing ovation for his performance of Bach’s Concerto in F Minor. But he still came off stage agonizing over a miscue, saying, “How could I have screwed those three bars up?”

* Marriage of necessity: Britain’s Prince Philip, the husband of Queen Elizabeth II, wants to see a marriage of religion and ecology. Philip, president of the Worldwide Fund for Nature, spoke on a cruise ship off the coast of Thailand, saying organized religions have not been sufficiently involved with the environment. “Most religions believe that this world is a divine creation,” he said, “so I have been trying to challenge the religions to say what is their attitude toward the conservation of nature today when it is being destroyed.”