RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32210, 31 January 1970, Page 18

RANDOM REMINDER

THE MODERN IDIOM

There is no question that the famous Harlem Globetrotters present excellent entertainment and, in their own special sphere, are probably without rivals. They are a fastmoving, fast-talking lot, and it was our especial pleasure a few- days ago to read some advance publicity about their visit which was just as fastmoving and fast-talking

“Something like 2000 years ago, which doesn’t exactly qualify it as spot news, a gent named Publilius Syrus, who went around thinking up things to say, uttered these words: ‘A rolling stone gathers no moss.’ It has been quoted by millions of deep thinkers since then, and has come to be accepted as a maxim of unquestioned truth. “Now, old Publilius was a wordy wight who whipped up many a wise and witty wheeze. But in this particular crack, he was a good nine miles off base. That is, insofar as it concerns the rollingest stone in the whole, wide world Abe Saperstein, the guiding light of the fabulous Harlem Globe-

trotters, which is a basketball team dedicated to one-night stands. “Abe and his touring basket shooters haven't stopped rolling since the day the idea was born away back in 1927—the year Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic, Tunney and Dempsey got hooked up for their famous long count, and Al Jolson starred in the ‘Jazz Singer,’ one of the first movies that talked back at the audience. “So rolling stones gather no moss. Moss is green stuff, isn’t it? And green stuff is simply another label for legal tender, rnazuma, moola and wampum. It is my personal opinion that the rolling stones in the Saperstein troop have gathered more moss than all the trees in Oregon. “Apparently, that rolling stone gathers no moss business pertains to earlier specimens. Some of them didn't fare too well. “Christopher Columbus, for one. Greatest of them all, he died in poverty and obscurity 14 years after he discovered the New World. .Got a town in Ohio named after him, though. And there was Marco Polo who crossed the Gobi Desert and dis-

covered Kublai Khan. Anyhow, upon his return to civilisation, Marco was clapped in the village bucket at Genoa and that’s where he wrote his celebrated book. “Vasco Nunez de Balboa, another guy with an itchy foot, crossed the Isthmus of Panama and discovered the Pacific Ocean. Lot of good it did him. Four years later, Balboa was accused of sedition by a local gumshoe and his head chopped off. Over the years he had developed a strong attachment for it, and felt so low that he up and died. “Take also the case of Hernando De Soto, who discovered the Mississippi. He became water-logged and passed away. He was buried in the river. Not to be overlooked on our list is Ferdinand de Magellan, who first laid eyes on the Philippine Islands in 1521. He was killed by a treacherous native king in Cebu* a few months later. His last words were: ‘I should have- stayed in bed.’

“Take all these rolling stones and it is doubtful if all together they covered 100,000 miles. Abe Saperstein does better than that in a single year.”