dead," bullt to size, rose to full height at 30-second intervals.

The only trouble was that the Women's City Club dining room, then in the Bulkley Building, overlooked the Allen marquee.

I'm told that the sight of the "living dead" rising from their coffins frequently was enough to give some of the ladies the heaves.

An anecdote which refutes the theory that journalists have photographic memories may be deduced from my encounter with an Ohioan who once ran for the vice presidency of the United States.

It happened during World War II at a giant war bond rally at Public Hall at which the stars were Fred Astaire, the late and beautiful Ilona Massey and comedian F. Hugh Herbert.

As I was chatting with the three stars, I was approached by a most familar, handsome man with irongray hair, who greeted me by name and asked for my mother and father by name.

After chatting with me for a few minutes, he asked if I would introduce him to Miss Massey, Astaire and Herbert.

With a hideous sinking feeling, I replied that I would be delighted to do so, but that I couldn't remember his

name.

"Think nothing of it, my boy," he replied urbanely. "I'm John W. Bricker, the governor of the state of Ohio."

It has been interesting to note over the years how the drama department of a newspaper can lock horns with its sports department.

or years the late Gordon Cobbledick, the witty, wise and deliciously ironic sports editor

of The Plain Dealer, contended with tongue in cheek that the drama department should cover wrestling matches.

It was his contention that all wrestling matches were, phonies and that the participants were magnificent actors worthy of Academy Awards and therefore should be covered by the drama critic.

To go along with the gag, I covered a wrestling match at the Arena from the standpoint of a theater critic.

My final conclusion was that if the drama critic was made to cover wrestling matches then Cobbledick should be required to cover burlesque shows on the grounds that they attracted all the "sports" in town.

My most serious head-on collision with a sports department came in 1944 when I wrote a column which pointed out that the movies had replaced baseball as the national pastime.

To bolster my argument I cited the fact that the film, "Going My Way," starring Bing Crosby, had been seen in Greater Cleveland by more people in two months than had seen the Cleveland Indians in its just ended

season.

One would have thought that I had profaned the Holy Grail and committed a public indecency on Public Square from the reactions of the News sportswriters.

They couldn't refute the figures. They just took the attitude I shouldn't have published them.

But sportswriters aren't all bad and some of them have been among my best friends.

Indeed, I think one of the best critical reviews ever written was penned by the rare humorist and superb punster, Jimmy Doyle, who for years delighted readers of The Plain Dealer with his Sports Trail column.

At the suggestion of Paul Bellamy, then the editor of The Plain Dealer, Jimmy Doyle'was assigned to cover a performance of the Metropolitan Opera at Public Hall from the standpoint of a boxing writer.

he next day there appeared on Page One of The Plain Dealer a one-paragraph review by Doyle, which read as follows:

"Last night I saw a performance of the opera, 'Rigoletto' at Public Hall. As far as I'm concerned, the leading lady lost the bout on a foul. She went down twice without being hit."

Then there was that lovely line of Jimmy's, much quoted by those in watering places after the theater, which read: "I'm getting stiff in the joints from getting stiff in the joints."

Speaking of sportswriters, one of the most beloved and nationally known of the tribe was the late Ed Bang, who for many years was the sports editor of the old Cleveland News.

Ed was a faithful friend in good times and in bad times and did a million favors in his lifetime, but a grammarian he was not.

He once wrote a lead sentence which I treasure as the ungrammatical sentence to end all ungrammatical sentences.

It read: "It don't make no difference to fellows like you and I."

Ed would have been heartened several years ago to see a letter addressed to me by two suburban high school English teachers.

It complained bitterly of an error of identification by one of my colleagues and suggested he should be fired.

In my letter of reply I mildly asked the two teachers how they would like to have me reveal that they had committed two errors of spelling and one in grammar in their letter to me. I never heard from them again.

But to return to the theater. In 1945 I was temporarily persona non grata with the Cleveland Public Library for a column I wrote about a forthcoming movie based on James Cain's violent and sordid novel. "The Postman Always Rings Twice."

My column, which stated that much unbridled lust would have to be

ALLEN

"WHAT DO YOU FELLOWS DO FOR AN ENCORE?"

· .

censored for the screen, so inflamed several of my readers that they promptly stole two copies of the book from the library.

As a critic, the most horrifying moments I ever spent at a place of amusement took place during a Grotto Circus at Public Hall on Feb. 14, 1970.

They came when Joseph Bauer, a sway-pole artist who appeared with his wife Elizabeth under the billing of "The Fearless Bauers," fell 90 feet to the arena floor when his pole snapped.

I'll never forget the sickening sound of the impact of his body as he landed near the center ring and lay motionless as though dead.

After being paralyzed with shock with the rest of the audience for a few moments, my police reporter instincts took over and I jumped over the metal fence which separated my front row seat from the arena.

y the time I got to Bauer's prone figure, his wife had come down her sway-pole at a speed of 110 miles an hour to cradle her unconscious husband's head in her lap.

Fortunately, he suffered only a broken leg and arm, facial injuries and a knee injury which required a seven-hour operation to correct.

I must have been quite upset and excited when I phoned the story in for Page One of the next day's Plain Dealer.

When I asked the city editor if hecould hear me, he replied "You are yelling so loud, we could hear you from Public Hall without a phone."

Two other sway-pole artists have been fatally injured in falls. but none

ever fell as far as Bauer and lived.

A year earlier he had fallen into an animal cage and suffered a broken leg and arm, shattered kneecap and broken bones in the hands.

To show how fearless he really was, he came back in 1971 to do his sway-pole act again at the Grotto Circus but that time I couldn't stand to look.

It's odd how people remember things that a critic has written in play reviews.

Years ago, I was in the office of the late Abe Dudnik, one of the most charming, dynamic and magnetic lawyers ever to appear on the Cleveland scene, when suddenly I noted a framed copy of one of my reviews on his wall.

When I asked him why he had framed one of my reviews, he replied: "Because your review of Tea and Sympathy,' which played at the Hanna in 1954, represents to me that we still have freedom of the press. Read your last paragraph.”

"Tea and Sympathy." incidentally, was a play by Robert Anderson about a teen-age youth who is seduced by a much older woman to prove to him that he is not a homosexual as he had been led to believe.

My last paragraph in the review read: "And what a pity it is that all young men cannot be introduced to the joys and responsibilities of sex by a lady as lovely and charming as Deborah Kerr."

I can see now why I had the idea, but what possessed me to write it or why it went through all editions of the old Cleveland News, I'll never know. However, Miss Kerr was by no means displeased.