(YOUR ACTION LINE SOLVES PROBLEMS, ANSWERS QUESTIONS, CUTS RED TAPE, STANDS UP FOR RIGHTS. YOUR ACTION LINE WANTS TO HELP!)
Q—I have a 1966 Roosevelt dime that has turned brown. A guy in the office told me it was worth $750 and I now have it hidden in a pretty good place. Where can I sell it?
A—Benny Mann of Benny’s Stamp and Coin Nook informs Action Line that the “1966 Brown” is not as valuable as many people seem to think. In fact, he tells us that some shops and restaurants will not even accept it at face value. But if you take your dime by the Coin Nook, in the Lark Avenue Arcade, Benny will be glad to examine it under his Numismascope and give you a free appraisal.
Q—Last May I ordered a four-record album called “Boogie Hits of the Sixties” from Birtco Sales in Nome, N.J. They cashed my check fast enough, but I got no records. I tried to call the place and the operator said the phone had been disconnected. I wrote and threatened legal action and they finally sent me a one-record album of Hawaiian music. Now they won’t even answer my letters.
A—Your boogie tunes are on the way. Action Line tracked down the president of Birtco, Al Birt, to Grand Bahama Island, where he moved after the settlement of the Birtco bankruptcy case (the company’s inventory and good will are going to Zodiac Studios, of Nash, N.J.), and Mr. Birt explained that your misorder was probably attributable to an “anarchy” condition in the shipping room. Zodiac has knocked the bugs out of the system, he assures Action Line, and all orders will be processed within seven months or he’ll “know the reason why!”
Q—We have just moved into the Scales Estates. The house is O.K., but we can’t get a television picture at all, and we can’t pick up anything on our radio except for American Legion baseball games and rodeo news. We can’t even tell where these broadcasts are coming from, what town or what state, because the announcers never say.
A—Developer Zane Scales tells Action Line that part of the Scales Estates lies on top of the old Gumbo No. 2 mercury mine. This cinnabar deposit, in combination with the 30-story, all-aluminum Zane Scales Building, makes for a “bimetallic wave-inversion squeeze,” he says, and that sometimes causes freakish reception. Scales hastens to add that the condition is nothing to worry about, and that only about 400 houses are affected.
Q—There is a beer joint called Hester’s Red Door Lounge in the 9300 block of Lark Avenue. It doesn’t look like much from the outside, but I have heard some very curious and interesting discussions there at the bar. I am told that you can send off somewhere and get transcripts of what is said there and who said it. I can’t stop at the lounge every day, you see, and even when I do I forget most of the stuff as soon as I leave.
A—Only weekly summaries of the conversation at the Red Door Lounge are available at this time. Send one dollar and a stamped, self-addressed envelope to Box 202, Five Points Station, and ask for Hester’s White Letter. Hester Willis tells Action Line that complete daily transcripts (Hester’s Red Letter) have been discontinued because of soaring stenographic and printing costs. Many subscribers actually prefer the summary, she says, particularly during football season, when there is necessarily a lot of repetitive matter. Hester hastened to assure Action Line that all the major points of all the discussions are included in the White Letter, as well as many of the humorous sallies. Sorry, no names. The speaking parties cannot be identified beyond such tags as “fat lawyer,” “the old guy from Texarkana,” and “retired nurse.”
Q—Can you put me in touch with a Japanese napkin-folding club?
A—Not with a club as such, but you might try calling Meg Sparks at 696-2440. Meg holds a brown belt in the sushi school of folding, and she takes a few students along as her time permits. Beginner napkin kits ($15.95) are available at the International House of Napkins, on Victory Street, across from Barling Park.
Q—What happened with the Salute to Youth thing this year? We drove out there Saturday night and the place was dark. If they are going to cancel these things at the last minute, the least they can do is let somebody know about it. We had a busload of very disappointed kids, some of them crying.
A—Drove out where? The Salute to Youth rally was held Saturday night at Five Points Stadium, where it has always been held. The program lasted seven hours and the stadium lights could be seen for thirteen miles. There were eighty-one marching bands in attendance, and when they played the finale the ground shook and windows were broken almost a mile away in the Town and Country Shopping Center.
Q—I joined the Apollo Health Spa on June 21st, signing a thirty-year contract. It was their “Let’s Get Acquainted” deal. I have attended four sessions at the place and I am not satisfied with either their beef-up program or their weight-loss program, which seem to be identical, by the way. The equipment is mostly just elastic straps that you pull. No matter how early you get there, the lead shoes are always in use. I want out, but they say they will have to “spank” me if I don’t meet all the terms of the contract. Those people are not from around here and I don’t know what they mean exactly, whether it is just their way of talking or what. That’s all they will say.
A—Action Line will say it once again: Never sign any document until you have read it carefully! Don’t be pushed! So much for the scolding. You will be interested to learn that the Attorney General’s office is currently investigating a number of spanking threats alleged to have been made by the sales staff at Apollo. Ron Rambo, the Apollo Spa’s prexy and a former Mr. Arizona, tells Action Line that he, too, is looking into the matter and that he has his eye on “one or two bad apples.” As for the equipment, he says your cut-rate membership plan does not entitle you to the use of the Hell Boots, the Rambo Bars, the Olympic Tubs, or the Squirrel Cage except by appointment.
Q—Help! I live on Railroad Street and I have been driving to work for many years by way of Lark Avenue. Now they have put up a “NO LEFT TURN” sign at the intersection of Railroad and Lark and I have to turn right and go all the way to the airport before I can make a U-turn and double back. This means I have to get up in the dark every morning to allow for the long drive.
A—You don’t say where you work. If it’s downtown, then why not forget Lark and stay on Railroad until you reach Gully, which has a protected left turn. You may not know it, but Gully is now one-way going east all the way to Five Points, where you can take the dogleg around Barling Park (watch for slowpokes in the old people’s crossing) and onto Victory. Bear right over the viaduct to twenty-seventh and then hang a left at the second stoplight and go four blocks to the dead end at Lagrange. Take Lagrange as far as the zoo (stay in the right lane), and from there it’s a straight shot to the Hopper Expressway and the Rotifer Bridge.
Q—My science teacher told me to write a paper on the “detective ants” of Ceylon, and I can’t find out anything about these ants. Don’t tell me to go to the library, because I’ve already been there.
A—There are no ants in Ceylon. Your teacher may be thinking of the “journalist ants” of central Burma. These bright-red insects grow to a maximum length of one-quarter inch, and they are tireless workers, scurrying about on the forest floor and gathering tiny facts, which they store in their abdominal sacs. When the sacs are filled, they coat these facts with a kind of nacreous glaze and exchange them for bits of yellow wax manufactured by the smaller and slower “wax ants.” The journalist ants burrow extensive tunnels and galleries beneath Burmese villages, and the villagers, reclining at night on their straw mats, can often hear a steady hum from the earth. This hum is believed to be the ants sifting fine particles of information with their feelers in the dark. Diminutive grunts can sometimes be heard, too, but these are thought to come not from the journalist ants but from their albino slaves, the “butting dwarf ants,” who spend their entire lives tamping wax into tiny storage chambers with their heads.
The New Yorker, December 12, 1977