Abbie Hoffman's son was named 'america' at birth but his mother, Anita, took to calling him Alan when the police were looking for Abbie in the 1970s. Now Alan Hoffman, 14, a freshman at Garfield High School in Seattle, would like to go back to america. 'But I'll capitalize it,' he says. 'I guess I better bring my birth certificate to school to prove that's my real name.' Anita says she and Abbie, now divorced, chose the lower case 'a' for their son's name 'because we didn't want to be pretentious.' Alan has pictures of his father in his radical days on the walls of his room and has an activist streak of his own. He is a member of a school group protesting Selective Service registration and is critical of the U.S.-Central America policy. Asked what his father will be remembered for, Alan said, 'For the Chicago trial and that shirt he wore made out of the flag, because that changed the flag-desecration laws, and he helped in desegregation ...' His mother had to remind him that Abbie wasn't involved in the desegregation movement.
WOODY'S NEW YORK: Woody Allen says he films his movies in New York because he's madly in love with the city and doesn't want to leave it even to go on location. 'I like to sleep in my own bed,' he says in Gentleman's Quarterly. '... I don't think I could live beyond a 30-mile radius of the Russian Tea Room.' Allen says the works of Damon Runyon and Cole Porter shaped his romantic view of New York. 'I really wanted to be a part of that Times Square world, the gamblers and entertainers who'd go out nightclubbing every night with showgirls and trade them around,' he says. 'From the very first time I came here from Brooklyn with my father I wanted to live in New York and I wanted to live in the elegant Cole Porter part of New York, which is why I live on the East Side.' Allen says he look out his apartment window and see across Central Park to girlfriend Mia Farrow's apartment on Central Park West.
THE FAMILY NEWS: ABC News Washington correspondent Ann Compton relates the births of her children to news events. 'Billy was born between the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary in 1980,' she said. 'Teddy was born right after Reagan's inauguration in 1981. Just after the Grenada invasion, I had Annie. Michael was born right between Gramm-Rudman passing the Senate and Gramm-Rudman passing the House.' Compton, 39, in Gainesville, Fla., last week for the opening of ABC affiliate WCJB-TV's new studios, says flexibility has helped her balance motherhood and a demanding career. 'Luckily, working for a big network, there is always someone who can watch your beat while you take an hour off to do something with your kids,' she said. 'If I were a secretary or a clerical worker who punched the clock, it would be a lot more difficult to balance the two roles.'
BACK TO THE FUTURE IN DESIGN: Mario Buatta, who is redecorating Blair House in Washington for first lady Nancy Reagan, has seen the future of decorating and it carries him back to the 1800s. Buatta, chairman of the 32nd annual Winter Antiques Show at New York's Seventh Regiment Armory, says 1986 will bring 'more opulent and gutsy' decor. People are going to be using furnishings that will create warm, rich-looking interiors,' Buatta says of coming trends. 'That means we'll be seeing lots more pattern on pattern -- chintzes on walls, very elaborate draperies, using carpet to upholster furniture and lots of old fabric and textiles.' He sees the English Regency and Victorian periods and the late 19th century as the most popular periods in antiques and decorating. 'Botanical prints and porcelains ... and painted furniture of all kinds, and all the textiles and fabrics used in the late 1800s are going to be very big this year,' he said.
