President Turns to Abby for Help in Greenback Shower

--President Reagan faces towering problems every day, but only one prompted him to write Dear Abby: mail. How much mail? Twenty sacks of it have piled up, and he gets 2,000 letters a day--all because advice columnist Abigail Van Buren urged her readers to send $1 to the President for his birthday, to be forwarded to the March of Dimes. In a letter due to be published Monday, Reagan urges Abby’s readers to send the contributions directly to the charity. “This will alleviate any delay in those contributions reaching the March of Dimes, and it will also solve the tremendous logistical problems that arise when monetary items of any kind are sent to my attention at the White House,” Reagan wrote. “Your readers’ cooperation in this request will make my staff much happier, and it will also allow the March of Dimes to get to work immediately on the vital activities your readers are supporting.” Reagan said the White House has collected more than $41,000 since Abby used her column Jan. 30 to urge that contributions for the March of Dimes be sent to Reagan on his 74th birthday Feb. 6. The fund-raising campaign was patterned after a 1934 appeal by comedian Eddie Cantor for Americans to send a dime to President Franklin D. Roosevelt on his birthday to finance the fight against polio, which had left Roosevelt paralyzed. As a result of Cantor’s suggestion, more than 2.6 million dimes were sent to the White House--$268,000--and the March of Dimes was created.

--John Deacon, bass guitarist with the British rock group Queen, lost his license and was fined the equivalent of $160 for drunk driving. Deacon, who pleaded guilty, was arrested while driving his Porsche in London.

--The Lone Ranger rides again, mask and all. Actor Clayton Moore donned the mask he wore during his 30 years as the Western hero for the first time since a 1979 court order forbade him from using it. “I’m so glad I have my mask back,” Moore, 70, said in Fairhaven, Mass., where he was appearing in a promotion for a sporting goods company. “It’s my symbol, it’s the Lone Ranger, and if I may say, it’s Americana.” In 1979, the Wrather Corp., owner of rights to the character, won a restraining order prohibiting Moore from wearing it in public. The company wanted to make another Lone Ranger movie, using a younger actor. But the 1981 film was a flop, and Wrather agreed to drop the restraining order last December. So Moore put away the sunglasses he has used in the interim, donned his white hat, pearl-handled six-shooters, a belt of silver bullets and, of course, the mask. “I guess when I go up to the big ranch in the sky, I’ll still have it on,” he said.