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She describes the yoga influence in her new exercise book as "when East meets Welch." But Raquel Welch, 42, had a close encounter of a different sort when she posed with the four gold medalists from the U.S. 4 X 200-meter freestyle relay team for the October issue of Vanity Fair. She was "thrilled to meet these wonderful athletes," and describes Bruce Hayes, 21, Mike Heath, 20, David Larson, 25, and Jeff Float, 24, as "shy and awfully nice." Yes, but not that shy. The photo session was going swimmingly when a water hose was turned on in the studio, and —surprise!—"the boys had dropped their swim trunks." Welch, like any other good sport, just grinned while they bared it. "They were very discreet, but it was still pretty funny for me when I realized what was happening," says Welch. "I was afraid to look down." Oh, what cheeky devils.
Almost six years after she left the public whirl of politics for the more private pursuits of a professorship at the University of Texas, former Congresswoman Barbara Jordan, 48, is anything but forgotten. In the past year Jordan has been honored repeatedly: Houston's main post office was named for her, she was inducted into the Texas Women's Hall of Fame, and the International Platform Association named her the U.S.'s greatest living orator. But the honor the eloquent Democrat liked most came last week, when Texas Governor Mark White and his wife were hosts to a $1,000-a-plate picnic dinner to benefit the newly created Barbara Jordan Student Fund. The evening's proceeds are expected to be $500,000, all earmarked for student scholarships and summer internships, which Teacher Jordan applauds. She was applauded too when Author James Michener presented her with the 1984 Eleanor Roosevelt Humanities Award. Jokes Jordan of her honors roll: "I wonder if people know something that I don't know. I don't plan to check out any time soon."
Six others had tried and failed, two of them losing their lives in the endeavor. But the danger involved made the remarkable voyage all the more appealing to Joe Kittinger, 56. Last week, after more than three days of drifting through the clouds, Kittinger became the first to make a solo balloon flight across the Atlantic, setting a new long-distance record of more than 3,500 miles in the process. A three-tour Viet Nam War pilot who was a P.O.W. for eleven months, the former Air Force colonel and longtime adventurer once jumped out of a balloon at 102,000 ft. to free fall 16 miles, the highest parachute jump and the longest free fall ever. For his transatlantic antic, Kittinger took off from Caribou, Me., in a ten-story-tall helium-filled balloon named Rosie O'Grady's. He made landfall three nights later at Capbreton, France, but decided against a descent in the dark. The following afternoon, with ballast low and a storm approaching, he and Rosie were finally ready to settle down near Savona, Italy. "I knew it was going to be an interesting landing," recalls Kittinger, who was thrown from the basket as Rosie hit some trees. Jubilant despite a broken foot, he had just one regret. "I wanted to land in Moscow," he announced. "Not for political reasons, but because it would have been the longest possible trip." Already, of course, he's dreaming about the Pacific.