New pattern pieces for the new crazy quilt of U.S. life in wartime:
In Wichita, Kans., two ambitious boys sold a filling-station attendant a rubber garden hose loaded with lead, received the rubber-salvage price of 1¢ per Ib. for their weighted goods. Their salvage price for lead itself would have been 5¢ per Ib.
Off New Jersey, since 1764, Atlantic coastwise mariners have navigated by the gleam of the Sandy Hook lighthouse. Once in 1776 a U.S. Army captain smashed the light to hamper the movements of British ships. Last week, for the second time in 178 years, the dimout regulations doused the light again.
In Cambridge, Mass., a couple dressed in traditional wedding finery (the bride complete with veil, bouquet, and toe-length gown) took a trolley car to their wedding at St. Anthony's Church and back again, gave their autographs to the astonished passengers.
In Nashville, Tenn., an ardent prohibitionist wrote a letter of protest to his local editors last week, denouncing tires made out of alcoholic rubber.
In Utah, section hands of the Southern Pacific will begin next week to tear up the stretch of track between Corinne and Lucin. There in 1869 the Gold Spike* (now in a San Francisco bank vault) was driven to mark the completion of the first transcontinental railroad. The track will be sold to the Navy as scrap, add to the 1,000 miles of rail tracks torn up for scrap in the U.S. in the last six months.
*For news of another gold spike, see p. 40.