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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (March 2, 1983)
etc. Battalion/Page March 2,1 Job corps center reforms gang chief United Press International NEW YORK — Misael Perez is a short compact man who used to dress all in black, wear chains and studs for jewelry, spoke lit tle and was called “Master” by the 175 members of his teenage gang, the Masterminds. That was in 1980. Tooday Perez, 20, is a gradu ate of a South Bronx Job Corps center, wears farmerstyle jeans and a plaid shirt, has a wispy moustache and goatee and talks incessantly about his job — car pentry. Perez works 10 hours a day, making $11 an hour straight time and double time after seven hours. He works six days a week and on weekends visits building superintendents in his South Bronx neighborhood, looking for work. He does not see his old gang members of ten these days. They shun him. He has gone straight, got a high school equivalency di ploma, ajob, an apartment and a new set of values. “1 lost a lady because of Job Corps,” Perez said while discus sing the changes in his life. “I lost a lot of friends. But I’m going to go for it.” It was that determination that provided Perez with his first career, a petty czar of a violent teenage world in the South Bronx. He still talks with pride of those days, and has kept the his last insignia of his rank black hat. “They called me Black Sheep because I wore all black: black sneakers, black pants, black shirt and my black hat. I was a man of very few words and lots of ac tion,” he says. He lived on his tough reputa tion, taking over an abandoned building at Clay and 173rd streets where he ran the build ing s boiler and hooked up elec trical lines. The pack of young teenagers who crammed in with him paid for his beer, his food and whatever else he wanted. “In a day I would have young girls get jobs and bring me money. I'd make the guys get jobs and they’d give me a cut or bring me food. I’d tell them, ‘You’re lucky I’m helping you,”’ he said. Perez had been on the South Bronx streets since he was 14 and knew how to survive there, and he believed he was helping them. But in 1980 he came across another group being put together a live-in Job Corps program at one of 109 federal centers set up to give skills to uneducated and unskilled youths. It was the first and still is the only center set up in a pover ty area. Although it is still the onlv Job Corps center in an inner city neighborhood, it has proved to “I didn’t trust anyone,” he recalls. “I had to go out and get a dictionary so I could talk like them.” He credits the change to the people who taught him there. “They’re the ones who put me through the channels, taught me to finish my work, taught me my skills. They got involved personally,” he says. The corps got him a job through the National Associa tion of Home Builders, and he currently is employed building offices for Manufacturers Hanover’s headquarters on Park Avenue, a world away from the abandoned building his gang lived in. Intercity bus systems serve traveling poor United Press International DALLAS — The Good Book itself guarantees the continued success of intercity bus service, James Kerrigan says. “The Bible assures us of our market,” the head of Trailways Inc. says. “It says the poor will always be with us.” The remark is typical of Ker rigan — an outspoken, innova tive and articulate Boston Irish man who has headed both of America’s two major intercity bus lines, Greyound Lines Inc. and Trailways Inc. In 1978 Kerrigan left Greyhound and got out of the intercity bus business for one year. Although he does not com ment directly on his reasons for leaving, apparently there were many dif f erences of opinion be tween Kerrigan and others. Exactly one year later, Kerri gan and a group of investors formed New Trails Inc., which bought Trailways Inc. from Holiday Inns of Memphis. Under his leadership as chairman and chief executive officer, New Trails bought Eagle International Inc. of Brownsville, Texas, the maker of the big Eagle buses used by Trailways Inc., and most other bus lines which make up the Na tional Trailways Bus System. In March, Dallas-based New Trails will open a new 250,000 square foot manufacturing facil ity at Harlingen, Texas, just 25 miles from the Brownsville fac tory, that will make two-axle Eagle buses designed for com muter bus routes. Kerrigan, 52, is quick to point out that the travelers served by his bus system come from the lowest part of the economic spectrum. That is one reason, he says, why intercity bus service gets no federal or local help. “The people who are movers and shakers in society don’t get on a bus,” Kerrigan argues. “The people who make the deci sions tend to fly and they’re not. concerned about the quality of intercity bus service. They are concerned about the quality of air service.” So airlines and airports get tax dollars, n.qt buses, he says. Kerrigan does not want tax subsidies to run his bus line. What he does vigorously advo cate are big-city transportation centers that will be terminals for commuter bus systems, intercity buses, intracity buses and even rail transportation. As Kerrigan sees it, airport buses also would carry passengers between these downtown transportation cen ters and the airports. Such centers would encour age commuters to travel by pub lic transporation' rather than highway-clogging private cars, he said. “No one is going to take any transportation service seriously if he or she has to stand on a street corner in the heat or in the rain and darkness to wait for it,” Kerrigan says. Under Kerrigan’s leadership, Trailways is prepared to sell sub urban bus service to any com munity that wants to tie such a system to its own intracity trans portation system. Most urban areas now have regional trans portation authorities and Trail- ways is making the pitch at this level. Trailways would provide the service, which it describes as “turn-key park-and-ride trans- portaton " under contract. Money collected would go to the regional authority. DELIVERS! For a Hot Steaming Pizza — or anything on our Menu. CALL Shiloh Place 693-0035 University Square 846-3421 (after 5 p.m.) ($1 OFF Campus Delivery After 9 p.m. with this Ad.) Wednesday Night is 50° Margarita Night at YUM&b&WgSfc J Margaritas by the glass 50* Margaritas by the pitcher s 6 00 Buy a pitcher & we*li throw in an order of nachos for $1.00 * S" VERYTHING W75C7- W- Warped by Scott McCulhi STE-VE, WHERE ARE YOU bOING? YOU’RE TOO DRUNK TO &0 HOME ) BULL FEATHERS. IF I CAN GET TO MY CAR I’VE GOT NOTHING ! ^T0 WORRY ABOUT. \ BUT YOU'RE IN NO SHAPE TO DRIVE. WHAT F THE POLICE CATCH YOU? YOU'RE RIGHT. THEY MIGHT EVEN REVOKE 8Y LICENSE. J be successf ul, she says. Of the 50 youths who started the prog ram, 35 completed enough training to be placed in jobs. The center has expanded into a $3 million a year opera tion and currently has 250 youths enrolled. When Perez, one of the ori ginal 50, asked for work as a car penter at the budding center, he was turned down because he was not licensed. Lured by his in terest in carpentry, Perez was drawn into the program, dis carded his gang “colors,” and gradually lost his gang manners. He looks back at his begin ning with the Job Gorps with some embarrassment now. I UH... YEAH...S£l THERE YOU'll S ALL GOOD ANt DRUNK AND HI PLACE TO 60. 7 T/TT / v r Premarital testing advised United United Press International “What would you advise a couple planning marriage?” Dr. William Y. Rial, president of the American Medical Association, was asked. Should each have a head-to- toe physical examination or just a blood test for one kind of venereal disease, as required in many states? Rial, a family physician from Swarthmore, Pa., took the crack er barrel route in replying. “Rather than have a pre marital physical to discover pathology, it is far more impor tant for a couple to have pre marital psychological counsel ing,” he said. “Psychological counseling can tell you a lot that you might not know about yourself and this person you are going to spend the rest of your life with — and vice versa. “People need this kind of counseling if they are to survive the time that comes after hugs and kisses and Cupid washing the dishes,” Rial said. “You also need to know how to solve conflict,” he said. “The first one, and I can guarantee this, is: where are you going to spend the first Christmas — at her house or yours.” The second important thing is knowing how you each handle differences. “Do you each know how to say, ‘I’m sorry,’ and mean it?” Rial asked. Rial said the biggest problem in marriage has two parts. “One part is how to learn to get along. The other part is how to bring up the kids.” Rial said the about-to-be mar ried should think about how they will be called on to deal lov ingly with their children, caring for needs that don't show the way skinned knees or bruised shins do. It helps to try keeping a light hearted approach to going through the conflicts that are a natural part of marriage, the physician said. “I tell about-to-be marrieds and the newly married to put a doghouse up in the kitchen —a picture or drawing of one on the refrigerator or wall. Keep stick figures or even pictures of one another nearby.” When one person makes a mistake or does something that hurts the other, it is Rial’s idea that that person — husband or wife — should move his figure or picture into the doghouse. “It’s a way hf saying, ‘I’m sor ry, forgive me,” he said. “Pinning notes along those lines to light switches or the pil low helps keep a marriage vi able, even working miracles sometimes,” he said. Such things relieve stress that ■ST IN la" s on d is normal in conflict, RalHt’y’re p adding that stress hasbtlftibcom plicated in all kinds ofalmromist including asthma, utccnBl sent* cardiovascular disorders. “1 can't a,' Sen. I ef sports Senate, ' ' —■——■we've g< DOUGLAS JEWELR _|he bill. Vet by th< m i 9, af irii elle I 15% STUDENT DISCOUNT ft ^ link Drive WITH CURREHT AStM ID (REPAIRS riOT IHCLUDED) “(Iverall, in' said. Brpalius Senate t lAlg but s: H to dele Keepsake Registered Diamond Rings PULSAR SEIKO, BULOVA St CROm WATCHES AGGIE JEWELR) USE YOUR STUDENT DISCOUNT TO PURCHAS1 DIAMOND FOR YOUR CLASS RING (ANE LET US SET Ilf! YOU) 212 PI. 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