X
Opinion
Page 2/The Battalion/Thursday, August 30, 1984
Texas behind
in aid to elderly
A legislative committee studying hunger announced
Tuesday that thousands of elderly Texans are having to
scavenge through garbage dumpsters for food because
they are forced to choose between shelter and nutrition.
And Ed Meese says there aren’t hungry people in
America. Maybe the ones he sees choose to be homeless.
Texas currently ranks 49th in the nation in funding
programs for the elderly. Many of these aging Americans
are below the poverty level. They’re the ones rummaging
through the trash dumpsters in search of edible garbage.
And they’re the ones who depend on the free meals
now offered by the Department of the Aged. Seventy per
cent of those who were served the meals said the lunches
were their only complete meals of the day.
Those meals may go a long way for tnem, but don’t we
have more to offer?
A state in the rapidly expanding and increasing profit
able Sun Belt should be able to pass along some of the
benefits to its poor. And yet, our state still lags behind.
Not something to be proud of.
This is one area where the usually progressive Texans
are behind. They need to slow down and look into the
faces and cupboards of the less fortunate, particularly the
elderly.
— The Battalion Editorial Board
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ALBUQUER
QUE,New Mexico
— He came to the
Albuquerque air
port in a cage.
From his confine
ment he stared out
at me.
I stood listen
ing, my backpack
slung over my
shoulder, my
name 20 down on
the standby list.
The 3:15 flight
preboarding. The
Donn
Friedman
to Houston began
old, the young and
the handicapped took their positions at
the front.
The attendant went down the roll
call, announcing the lucky standbys who
had a seat. I watched the man charge up
to the check-in counter to claim the
spots for his f amily of three.
My brother started out to the car to
tell the rest of my family that my
chances to make this flight were slim;
it’d be the 9:58 to Houston and then the
two-hour drive to College Station for
me. “I’ll see you in 10 minutes,” I said as
he exited the terminal.
“Freedman,” echoed through the red
pueblo interior of the airport —once
again they had mispelled my name. I
pushed my way across the line waiting
for the 3:20 flight to Los Angeles.
Reaching the desk, I handed the atten
dant my pre-paid ticket; she rewarded
me with a boarding pass. A man at the
counter asked “Last one?” as I turned
and headed for the gate.
I vaulted — or more like I sat on the
metal bar and lifted one leg at a time up
and over — a small metal fence, and ran
into the bellowed tunnel leading to the
plane. I handed the plastic boarding
pass to the gate attendant and took the
first seat I could find.
A few seconds later a man pounced
through the oblong hatch and gave me
an I-made-it smile.
The stewardess went through the re
quired spiel, the one that they give every
time you get on a commercial airliner,
and just as regularly you never listen to.
The one about buckle your safety belt,
your seat can be used for flotation, and
you’re in a pressurized cabin, but just in
case here’s how to use the oxygen masks
that drop from somewhere overhead,
but not where your luggage is, all lug
gage must be checked or placed com
pletely under the seat in front of you.
Please put your seat in an upright posi
tion. Thank You.
The stewardess turned and walked
up to a little cowboy — dressed to travel
with scuffed boots and gray flannel
pants — and asked, “Do you under
stand,” as she unraveled the oxygen
mask, “what you’re supposed to do with
this?”
GOP can't resist Ferraro issue
By ART BUCHWALD
Columnist for The Los Angeles Times Syndicate
What I admire about the Republi
cans is how reluctant they are to make
political hay out of Geraldine Ferraro’s
financial disclosures.
It’s impossible to get a Reagan sup
porter to discuss them.
I met Lance Worthington, a White
House political strategist, for lunch,
and the first thing he said to me was, “I
hope you’re not going to ask me ques
tions about Geraldine Ferraro’s tax re
turns, because if you do I’ll walk out of
the restaurant.”
“I promise I won’t.”
“We consider Ferraro Mondale’s
problem, not ours.”
I said, “I’m glad you people are tak
ing the high road.”
“Of course there are a lot of ques
tions the American people are entitled
to have answers to concerning the loan
her husband made to her in 1978.”
“I thought you didn’t want to talk
about it,” I said.
“I don’t. But isn’t it peculiar that af
ter John Zaccaro discovered he had
made an illegal contribution to his
wife’s congressional campaign in 1978,
she repaid it with $100,000 she re
ceived from the sale of a building she
only had a $25,000 interest in four
months previously?”
“It does seem rather wierd,” I said.
“What’s your theory on it?”
“I told you 1 didn’t want to discuss
it,” he said angrily.
“I’m sorry. Let’s talk about the Rea
gan campaign.”
“We were right on schedule until the
Ferraro business interrupted it. How
do you suppose she and her husband
wound up with a net worth of $4 mil
lion?”
“I’d rather not say.”
“That’s the trouble with the media.
You make a big deal over a lousy
$50,000 loan to Ed Meese, but you re
fuse to discuss the finances of one of
your own.”
“I will. But you said you didn’t want
to talk about it.”
“1 don’t. But that doesn’t mean
where there is smoke, there isn’t a
smoking gun. I have nothing against
Geraldine Ferraro because she’s a wo
man.
“Neither do I.”
“But when a person runs for vice
president the public should knowev
erything there is to know about her
husband.”
“That doesn’t seem to be a
any more,” I said, “I know more about
John Zaccaro’s finances than I know
about my own son’s.”
“I suppose you think the White
House is happy about all this investiga
live reporting into the Zaccaros’finan
cial affairs.”
“I had a secret feeling you were.”
“Well, you’re wrong. It only detracts
from our campaign. Frankly we wish
the issue would go away so we could
campaign on the Republican platform,
President Reagan and Vice President
Bush are sick and tired of being asked
questns about Geralding Ferraro.”
“What would they rather be asked
questions on?”
“Walter Mondale and his inability to
pick a vice president who isn’t undera
cloud.”
“That makes good political sense,”
said.
The boy giggled, newly missing teeth
left gaps in his smile. Holding a stuffed
bunny in his lap, he nodded and softly
repeated the orders. The stewardess
winked and smiled.
For one hour and 30 minutes the hus
tle and bustle of commercial airfare con
tinued. People fought their way up the
narrow aisle to relieve their bladders af
ter feeling the pfessure of 25,000 feet,
and the stewardesses dispensed bever
ages to insure a constant flow to the
bathrooms — excuse me, they’re always
called lavatories.
The plane set down at Dallas Love
Field and the little cowboy prepared to
disembark.
He took Whiskers, his brown bunny,
from his lap and pulled a plastic con
tainer from under his seat. Whiskers left
the airplane in a white plastic cage.
This hometown not on asset
by D e n a Broivn
Much like “name, rank, and serial
number,” one of the standard series of
questions asked at Texas A&M is the
ever-popular “name, major, and home
town.”
Invariably, some wise guy says, “Aw,
you wouldn’t know where I’m from.”
Falling for the bait you say, “Oh, tell
me, I might know where it is.”
To which he replies, “Well, it’s a little
of town called Houston.”
Ha, ha.
Well, I can say that a lot of people
really don’t know where my hometown
is. The conversation usually goes some
thing like this:
“Where are you from?”
“Lake Jackson.”
“ Jackson, Texas?”
“No, Lake Jackson.”
“Fort Jackson. In Louisiana?”
“No! Lake Jackson, near Freeport.”
“Oh. Shreveport, Louisiana!”
“No!! Freeport!”
“Freeport, Maine?”
About this time I just smile sickly and
say, “Yeah, that’s right.”
Actually, Lake Jackson is a town
south of Houston where about 20,000
people live.
It has a short history dating back to
the ’40s when Dow Ghemical Go.
needed a place for employees to live.
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They began developing a large piece
of swamp about 10 miles down the road.
As the story goes, the man who
planned the streets didn’t want to cut
down any trees, so all of them wind and
twist (actually, my grandfather says the
man came into the office drunk that
day).
I live on Sycamore, one of the tree
streets. All the flower streets run paral
lel to each other and perpendicular to
the tree streets which also run parallel to
each other. Confused?
As new subdivisions were built, the
people who name streets really began to
dig deep. Can’t you imagine a football
player saying, “Yeah, I live on Pansy
Path.”
Then, there are all the “way” streets.
This Way, That Way, His Way, Her
Way, Center Way, Circle Way. All “way”
streets lead downtown — except His
Way, which leads to a church.
Downtown, if you can call it that, is a
circle. In fact, the whole town is rather
circular.
All I can say in defense of Lake Jack-
son is, at least I wasn’t born there. One
of my f riends was. And lived in the same
house for 20 years.
Humble beginnings, maybe. But
that’s not my idea of the road to fame.
The Battalion
CISPS 045 360
Member of
Texas Press Association
Southwest Journalism Conference
The Battalion Editorial Board
In memorium
Bill Robinson, 1962-1984, Editor
Stephanie Ross, Managing Editor
Shelley Hoekstra, City Editor
Brigid Brockman, News Editor
Kathy Wiesepape, Editorial Page Editor
Kelley Smith, News Editor
Ed Cassavoy, Sports Editor
The Battalion Staff
Assistant City Editors |.
Melissa Adair, Michelle Powe
Assistant News Editors
Bonnie Langford, Kellie Dworaczyk
Assistant Sports Editor
Travis Tingle
Entertainment Editor
Bill Hughes
Assistant Entertainment Editor
Angel Stokes
Senior Reporters t
Patrice Koranek, Robin Black
Staff Writers Shawn Mien,
Dena Brown, Dainah Bullard,
Leigh-Ellen Clark, Tony Cornell,
Suzy Fisk, Patti Flim
Kari Fluegel, Donn Friedman,
Bob McGlohon, Karla Martin
Sarah Oates
Jan Perry, Lynn Rae Povec,James R. Walker
Copy Writer Karen Block
Copy Editors Kathy Breard, Kaye I’ahmeier
Photographers Peter Rocha,
John Ryan, Dean Sait 1
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