/ nother McLemore Peeve

pike * fee

hue m % ike
By H ey Mi bicmbyt a

*

NE of my many New Year’s ue
" was to never again write another word
about Admiral Gene Tunney... a
You know who the Admiral is, of course.
Strictly a career. man, After years of
experience on the storm-tossed waters of
the prize ring, and the high seas of National
Distilleries, Inc., he has reached a point
where he is in charge of the Atlantic,

Pacific and Central Park Lake’ land-based ©

fleets. I gave him up.on New Year’s.Day
along with Fletcherizing my food, bobbing
for apples on Hallowe’en, opium and serv-
ing as lookout for mashers in Grand
Central Station.

But. I find’ it impossible to stick to my‘
pledge. It is impossible to ignore Admiral
Tunney. He won’t let you. He is the talk-
ingest naval officer in history. He makes

John Paul Jones a sphinx, Admiral Dewey .

a mummy and Commodore Perry a mute.
Just stop and think how few words such
officers as. Admiral Nimitz or Admiral
Halsey have said since the war began, as
compared to the vocal output of Admiral
Tunney. :

HE Admiral now is speaking, writing

and gesticulating against. competitive
sports for men in the armed forces. He
feels that such things as boxing, wrestling,
football, baseball, basketball and, as far as
I know, hand foque, curlin
fencing, rope cli d tennis.
are_silly. It is his contention that mass
exercise is much better and that this
Nation would have a tougher, meaner
Army if something on the order of.a wand

 

’ sort of al ‘fresco torture did to me.

drill: were saan for the hareeuine of the
2 troops.

Lined up with Admiral Tunney, and
applauding his every move, are the physical
culture instructors of the country. Lined
up against him, nd. hooting his every
effort to have competitive sports removed
from the soldiers’ cals are the coaches
of the country. *On one side.are men (the
coaches) who feel that sports where. rough,
hard body. contact is involved, offer the
best training for fighting men, and on the
other side are men (the physical culturists,
or “muscle jerks” as Dr. Mal Stevens chose
to term them) who feel that a sort of mass
squat tag is the ideal training for combat

against the enemy.
e

QPEAKING for myself, I am ‘against the

‘Admiral (you couldn’t have possibly
guessed that by now, could you?) and the
physica] culturists. ‘I am ‘against . them
because I know what wand drills and that
“-T -wwasl
a wand driller in the third, fourth, fifth
and sixth grades in grammar school. Wand
drilling was part of the curriculum in the
grammar schools of Georgia at the time,
and the daily routine’ with the slivers of
wood left us so worn out and. bored and
generally disgusted that many of us could
not. eat our peanut butter sandwiches,
which our mothers had carefully packed
for us, when recess timie came around,

“One-two-three-four.” I can hear Miss
Wheeler calling the numbers now, and feel
the dust of the schoolyard, as scores of. us
swung the confounded wands about in an
effort to develop muscles and graces.

If Admiral Tunney succeeds in having