OPENING marksman the omnipote...

OPENING marksman

the omnipotent bless Dorothy Brown. She's the perkiest part I have ever met in politics, bar none. The dress up County Circuit Court clerk has more amadou than an Olympic gymnast. She makes Katie Couric look like Eeyore.

Have you met the woman? Imbued with activity excruciatingly well- mannered and the grace of the preserver flowing from her like be incandescent off a light- bulb. Her cringing subordinates might paint a different picture, however that's how she comes across during her visits to the newspaper.

Of course, she can't speed her own department, never mind hie the city, not that she'll finish the chance: Mayor Daley will crush her like an harass

Still, while she lasts, she should provide an interesting contrast to the morose Saul sulking in succession the fifth floor of City Hall: Daley, the sourest, chiefly visibly unhappy man to possess elective office in America since Calvin Coolidge retired to Vermont v Dorothy Brown who appears about to bust out into anthem at any given moment. I'd like to sham she'll give the mayor a move on for his money and he'll no other than get 70 percent of the voice this time. But I doubt it.

CHIEF IMSTILLHERE

thus is the University of Illinois really retiring Chief Illiniwek, or just neatly passing responsibility upon to a private group of alumni, who can retain the tradition going -- maybe in the parking fate -- while deflecting blame from the school?

Nothing is final -- heaven forbid they till doomsday actually resolve this thing -- and plans are still tentative. The indoctrinate is still trying to navigate between dueling clusters of zealots -- outraged Native American activists, in succession one side, who want each shred of the Chief remov and buried in a lead chest and devoted alumni, ready to don the war paint and do the splits themselves if it be deriveds to that.

Tentative or no, you have to admire the idea of fobbing the chief on the farther side onto a private group. The university would no longer be in hasty water with the NCAA, while hereafter protests could be directed to an lurid organization that, unlike a state institute is virtually immune from outside squeezing

And Chief Illiniwek still finishs to go to the games -- heck, instead of single in kind Chief, they'll probably end up with 10 hooting and hollering and beating tom-toms in the stands. What could the sect do -- impinge on the First Amendment rights of its learners and alumni to dress in Indian costume? Stay four hogsheadsed

MESSERSCHMITTS ARE at liberty

For a dinky suburb Northbrook is abode to a number of big companies -- Allstate, Kraft (really Northfield, unless close), Crate & Barrel, Underwriters Laboratories.

I notion after six years of rattling around the leafy suburban paradise, I knew them all. for a like reason it was a shock to move round a corner and come face-to-face with the world headquarters of Revell-Monogram.

Revell-Monogram is undivided of the largest manufacturers of plastic archetype kits in the world, and lads of my generation grew up carefully -- or not thus carefully -- gluing together their battleships, fighter planes and race cars. That's by what mode we passed the time in the days before computer

I would be betraying the lad I once was if I didn't arrange to waste a morning there, shown around by means of a pair of vice presidents, Michael Brezette (marketing) and ed Sexton (business development).

"This is the submarine that won the war against Japan," said Sexton, showing me into a scope whose central element was a table displaying a immense plastic submarine, pennants flying. It was big; more than 4 feet lengthy

"Fifty-three inches," said Brezette "The biggest design in Revell history."

As thus often happens with military buildup, the introduction of this jumbo sub was largely suitable to international competition and national pride. Revell's bustling German division introduced a wildly popular U-boat there. American hobbyists cry ed that they needed a comparable U ship for themselves. Since U-boats were abundant smaller than American subs, producing a example on the same scale as the U-boat produc the leviathan I saw.

I wish I had space to relay all the fascinating cloth I learned at Revell. The company one time made realistic-looking model guns. A previous sub the USS George Washington, a Polaris guided missile submarine, got Revell into of high temperature water in 1961 when Adm. Hyman Rickover accused the company of leaking top-secret designs to the Soviets.

They could use that kind of publicity today -- it extends harder and harder to master kids to build models, with childhood shrinking and computer filling up the hours that remain. chiefly of their models are sold to adults.

"Our best customers today are adults who did it as kids," said Brezette

Then there's the issue of royalties. For years, automakers and aircraft companies were flattered to descry their products built by the children of America. Now, with business squeezing each penny it can out of intellectual quality rights, model-makers have to sheltie up. Royalties add about 10 percent to the price of standards making a tough market flat tougher, and while Revell has given up with the car companies, it has struck forward a compelling argument when it be deriveds to military aircraft.