THE MOOD: Of Roosters and Rumblings

The state of Illinois has a new champion rooster. He is a large black and brown Araucana called Hawkeye, and he is owned by John Lynch, 12, of Mount Pulaski, Ill. After a lot of urging and grimacing, John last week persuaded Hawkeye to crow 69 times within a half-hour, 26 times more than his nearest rival at the state fair in Springfield. In Georgia, meanwhile, they are still talking about the new tobacco-spitting champion, Mrs. Marie Davidek by name. “You wouldn’t believe it,” said Bob Anderson, manager of the 25th annual Georgia Mountain Fair. “Here was this nice little old lady from Flint, Mich., all dressed up like a grandmother from the garden-club set. She’d never chewed any tobacco in all her born days, and she winds up and wins by spitting 9½ ft. Whooee, it was really something!”

Off Duty. It was that time of year again—state-fair time, vacation time, take-it-easy and picnic time. Official Washington was practically closed down and, in the cool, clear air of the Colorado mountains. Gerald Ford golfed, swam, dined with old friends and danced cheek-to-cheek with his wife in a Vail nightclub. He was briefed daily on international developments, including Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s efforts to work out a peace accord between Israel and Egypt (see THE WORLD). He called together his top aides for a conference on oil prices, and met with White House Chief of Staff Donald Rumsfeld to affix the presidential signature to routine bills and appointments. But for the most part. Ford kept himself a chip shot away from the world’s problems.

To ease the transition back to his official duties in Washington, he planned a two-day side trip to the Middle West this week to visit his heartland supporters. In Des Moines, he was to attend the Iowa State Fair (setting for the book and two movies called State Fair), where farmers were celebrating impending record harvests of corn and wheat. After touring 4-H exhibits, cattle barns and hog pens. Ford was to outline his farm policy to fairgoers in the main grandstand. His speech was to be wedged in among the regular acts, including country musicians, hog callers and the Joie Chitwood Thrill Show.

On the surface, the President’s holiday mood appeared to reflect the tranquillity of much of the country. A year ago, the nation was in a turmoil over the Watergate scandals and Richard Nixon’s resignation as President. This August most Americans seemed determined to make the best of the season. In California alone, crowds at parks and campgrounds will hit 50 million this year, an increase of almost 20% over last year. Similarly, attendance at major-league baseball games already approaches the 1973 record of 30,108,926.

Political activity, by contrast, was desultory. In San Francisco, a demonstration against alleged police harassment of the White Panther Party drew fewer than 100 protesters, while some 5,000 people turned out to watch a city police team beat a Gay Liberation team at softball, 19-15. In New York, where officials are still struggling to avoid bankruptcy, the endurance act of the week was won by Michael Boodley, 17, of Trenton, N.J., who rode the famous Coney Island Cyclone roller coaster 1,000 bone-rattling times to break the old record by 228. And on a hill above a pasture near Macon, Ga., about 150 Ku Klux Klansmen, many of them mightily fortified by swigs of whisky, caused no alarm at all when they burned a huge cross for the first time in eight years.

But the nation’s outward appearance of relative calm was to some extent deceiving. Beneath the surface, TIME correspondents in interviews across the country found considerable disquiet, particularly about unemployment and inflation. Said West Los Angeles Art Historian Aimee Price: “People are happy that nothing’s happening, but they’re also worried.” In Los Angeles’ Watts section, for example, last week’s tenth anniversary of the 1965 riots was celebrated with the traditional music and soul food, but the festival committee is in debt this year, and just a mile down the road from the music, long lines of unemployed people wait to get their food stamps. Elsewhere, similar frustrations contributed to racial clashes. The most serious were in Boston, which has been racked for a year by disturbances over court-ordered busing to desegregate public schools. Last week some 800 blacks, trying to assert their right to use public beaches, fought twice as many whites with fists, rocks and bottles on Carson Beach in lower-middle-class, mostly white South Boston. There were also racial incidents on a lesser scale in a number of other cities, notably in Atlanta and Newark.

Turning Away. Outside the nation’s ghettos, however, most Americans were intent on taking a respite from the problems of the U.S. and the world. Internal strife in Portugal, movement toward an agreement in the Middle East, the kidnaping and rescue of Sam Bronfman—such matters dominated the front pages. But the vast majority of Americans temporarily turned away as best they could to enjoy the few days remaining before Labor Day. America was on vacation.