4
Thursday, July 7, 1977
University Daily Kansan
Noble Lathrom Sr. and his wrecker
Brett slugs Royals to 8-7 victory
BY DENNIS MINICH Staff Writer
KANAS S CITY, Mo.-Third baseman George Brett, after missing five games because of an infection in the left elbow, singled to right field in the bottom of the nth score to Frank White with the winning run as the Royals defeated the Milwaukee Brewers 8 to 7 last night at Royals Stadium. The Brewers held Bill Castro, 17, the Brewers fourth righthitter.
The Royals, trailing by five runs going into the sixth innings, exploded in the next two innings to make up the defeat. Leading the Royals attack were Al Cowans and Amos Otis, who both contributed two-run homers.
Cowans's home run came in the seventh innning with John Mayberry on base. The home run was Cowans's 13th of the season, and he went for a third in the seventh with Frank White on base.
The Brewers scored three runs in the first innning tagging Royals' starter Andy Hassler for three hits and a walk. Milwaukee's Cecil Cooper had an RBI double, and Siko Leccano smashed a two-run single.
The Royals shortstop, Fred Patek, received his second standing ovation in the last three home games when he stole his first pitch in a game in which the Royals ovalated stalled the game just as one did
June 22 when Patek got his 1000th career hit against Seattle.
Patick's ovation was surpassed only by brett's when he appeared in the on-deck line.
"I was determined to get a hit, and the
middle finger on a slam down the
middle and I got out."
Royal manager Whitey Herzog said he was extremely pleased with Brett. Herzog said that Brett would probably start at third base tonight.
Teammate Hal McTae said that when he
brawt Betre.com out of the dugout, he knew
Towing cars is all day job
The sign on his truck promises 23 1/2-hour wrecker service. He says the extra 30 minutes give him a chance to catch his vehicle in a day that can mundane, grim or funny.
Noble Lathom Mr. Sr. is one of those invisible people whom drivers alternately curse and stare at.
The victory lifts the Royals to seven games over 500 at 43-36.
However, several times Lathrom has spent as much as three days and nights driving his truck. The longest runs are the first 10 miles, followed by the recent flooding in Lawrence he said.
At the height of the flood, Lathrum crawled in bumper-deep water to hook a tow bar to stalled cars. That night he towed 23 cars from 23rd Street to dry ground.
"Half of the time on a deal like that you get paid. You just try to help out," Larry said. [LOA]
HE WAS CALLED after the flood to tow a car out of the drainage ditch on Naimsim Drive and later discovered that what he thought were sticks falling from the car were really snakes. Water moeccasin had sought refuge on the car during the storm.
"I thought my cable was hung up on the wheel, and I started to reach down to see if it was" he said. "It turned out to be a snake and the car was sitting on it."
Lathrom hasn't always been a wrecker driver. After he was married in 1938, he spent most of World War II in the Pacific and fought with the Japanese during Lawrence from Indiana after the 1933 food.
He began as a mechanic about 20 years ago and worked as an apprentice mechanic for three years. He earned $1.10 per hour. When he started driving a wrecker part-time.
HE SAID HE had been told that a good wrecker driver should like his job. Although he admitted that he didn't drive a truck, he paid the pay and could be a good driver anyway.
When he's not driving his wrecker, he works in the stockroom at Kaw Motor and Salvage Co., Route 3. He receives a salary for any towing he does from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. He is on call 18 hours a day and keeps 50 per cent of the tow bill for his efforts.
reserved for the handicapped. But, he said,
he responded only to calls from the
University Parking Service. He refuses to
touch people without a permit. It can't do
without damage to the car.
The cab of his truck often serves as a second home. It contains, on an average day, a carton of cigarettes, coffee, a padded seat cushion and a tube of denture adhesive. He said he needed these for long hauis to places like Wichita.
A LOT OF his work involves routine short hauls to garages or towing ilegally parked cars for the police. He said he towed a lot of trucks especially during home football games.
"I try to treat any vehicle I tow as if it were my own and that I'd have to pay for the repairs if I damaged it." Lathrom said. "Vehicles are too expensive for that."
He said the company had insurance to cover damage to any car he towed, but he was not given that option.
LIKE ANYONE IN public service, Lathrom said he faces his share of trafie people. This is especially true because the city has the contract to tow cars for the city.
"I just tell them I'm sorry and to talk to the police because the police have to sign a release before I can turn over the car," Lathrone said.
He said that people sometimes tried to outsmt him by turning their wheels
He said the majority of the cars he bowed from campus were parked in spaces
toward the curb and locking the steering column. He said, however, that it caused only minor delays in removing the car and cost the owner extra money.
The job can sometimes be grim, he said,
and added that turnip accidents usually
result from overloading.
"I've worked lots of them out there, and none of them are a pleasure," he said. "I've got the idea that I can help, and I'm always willing to do what I can."
NOT ALL OF his work is mundane or grim, however; sometimes it's funny. He said that one time he was called to a wreck that bushels of grapefruit was trapped under five bushels of grapefruit.
He said, "She was screaming, I thought, My God, that woman must be dying." But she didn't even have a scratch. She was just pinned under all that grapefruit. Every time I'd get around the car to get her out, 'I step on a grapefruit and down it go.'
Letters
Meditation article has some faults
To the editor:
Robert Mackey the "Mediators say they are able to reach new heights," which appeared in last Thursday's Kansan was really good but included two factual errors.
Frank Wintrob and Terry Bauer said that these siddis, or supernormal abilities (not only levitation, but invisibility, seeing and hearing), were the mastery over the fundamental laws of nature, were based on the ability of every practitioner of the TM technique to reach the highest possible level of consciousness, or consciousness as Mackey stated in his article.
These abilities become possible because TM enables one to experience the state of least excitation of consciousness, the state that physicists call the vacuum state. This state gives rise to the improved mind-body coordination, which all people who practice the TM technique experience immediately. This ability that expands the availability of one's mental and physical potential, hence raising one's level of consciousness.
Secondly, the claim that Maharishi Moghul college imposes an immediate ban of public demonstration abilities Maharishi has been teaching these abilities to advanced mediators for the past two years at Maharishi European Research Centre and they have been investigating these abilities.
Our purpose for not allowing many public demonstrations (there was one at Maharishi International University, in New Delhi, and two in newly developing, and we want to present the research when we are more familiar with it ourselves, not prematurely and turn this discovery into a circus. We candidly note that these abilities are not fully explored.
Martin B. Azarnoff Kansas City junior
Letters Policy
Letters to the editor are welcomed but should be typewritten, double-spaced and no longer than 400 words. All letters are edited and may be condensed according to space limitations and the editor's judgment. Letters must be signed; KU students must provide their academic standing and hometown; faculty must provide their position; others must provide their address.
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