When Milton Eisenhower was president of Johns Hopkins he spoke at the University of Pittsburgh. Introduced as president of "John" Hopkins, he began by saying how happy he was to be speaking in "Pittburgh."
* Burial Inscription: "Here I lie between two of the best women in the world, my wives. But I requested my relatives to tip me a little toward Tillie."
* Notice on the front page of the New York Times: "You obviously prefer to be eternally pursued. I'll be enjoying a chilled martini and the warm company of another."
* Searching a trash can, a homeless N.Y. man found some tossed-out love letters which contained the writer's phone number. He telephoned the former boyfriend and asked how such a love could end. "I would have called sooner," he apologized, "but this was the first quarter I was given today."
* Psychiatric Ward Dialog: "Oh, Reverend, you've come to take me home!"
"You know, Mary, you have to be discharged first."
"You mean you haven't been discharged yet?"
* Joseph Heller has finally published a sequel to "Catch-22," which was meant to be "Catch-18." But Leon Uris was about to publish "Mila 18," so Heller's title was changed to avoid confusion.
* When Janet Evanovich's agent phoned at midnight to tell her that Tri-Star paid $250,000 for the movie option to her new book, she chided him: "How could you tell me at this hour! All the stores are closed!"
* A British racing pigeon, missing for two years and carrying an ID ring, ended up in China.
* James Herriot, author of "All Creatures Great and Small," was hospitalized after being attacked by a flock of sheep on his lawn.
* James Garner retells the story of The Three Little Pigs in his "Politically Correct Bedtime Stories." He adds a reassuring note: "No actual wolves were harmed in the writing of this story."
* The Shedding Game: Lassie is really a guy (actually, several guys over the movie years). A female collie's coat sheds significantly in winter. In movie work you need a dog that looks the same all year round.
* Juries Stories: This year a Mississippi jury contributed $55 to buy bus fare home for a defendant acquitted of carrying marijuana in the confiscated van she was transporting for a friend.
An Oklahoma jury that found a man guilty of killing a two-year-old child raised $300 to buy a headstone for the child's unmarked grave.
And three British jurors used a Ouija board to contact a murder victim. The ghost said his murderer was the defendant, who was then unanimously found guilty.
* A Brazilian congressman with a yearly salary of $84,000 explained how he could have deposited $51 million in his bank since 1989. Stretching his luck, he claimed he had won 24,000 lotteries.
* The Seattle freeway lane was restricted to cars with at least two people aboard. A judge fined a woman driver $47, saying that being pregnant was no excuse.
Father Gallagher is a priest of the Baltimore archdiocese.