Page 2/The Battalion/Wednesday, May 28, 1986
Classified ad reading
becoming a fine art
Thanks to the
uncertainty
abroad, m a ny
Americans have
put their overseas
travel plans on
hold. Instead they
are desperately
trying to rent
houses in the U.S.
mountains and at
the seashore.
Art Buchwald
Newspapers are chockfull of classifieds
for summer rentals. The problem is the
properties are not necessarily what they
are cracked up to be. Because people
rarely get to see the summer homes they
rent in advance they have to take the de
scription in the advertisement on faith.
Sometimes this could be a mistake.
It took me seven months to break the
code for summer rentals but it was
worth it.
For example, when you read,
“Charming two-bedroom, one-bath
ranch house in forested area. Sleeps
twelve, 20-minute drive to town,”
they’re really talking about a matchbox
in the woods that sleeps twelve, if every
body takes turns sleeping through the
day and night. The house is indeed 20
minutes from town — if you drive 100
miles an hour.
Here’s one: “Magic cottage overlook
ing the sea. Always a cool breeze blow
ing. Five thousand dollars for season. A
steal due to minor work going on this
summer.” The minor work is an addi
tion to the breakfast room and a new
kitchen. The breeze is blowing through
a hole in the side of the house.
This is one of my favorites. “House
for rent by owner. Completely redone,
f ive bedrooms and playroom in base-
ment. Color TV in family room. Swings,
wading pool and sandbox on lawn.
Fenced in back yard. No children of any
kind.”
Copyright 1986, Los Angeles Times
Syndicate
A real moving experience
The end of the
school year marks
a time of change.
A change of
weather. A change
of classes. A
change of friends.
A change of loca
tion.
Those students
who have grad
uated get to go out
Karl
Pallmeyer
into the “Real World.” Some students
are fortunate enough to get to travel to
exotic places. Some students are less for
tunate and get to go home or other
equally non-exOtic places. Other stu
dents, myself included, are not fortu
nate at all and have to go to summer
school.
Summer school in itself is not too bad,
especially since it doesn’t start for an
other week, but there other factors that
tend to add up to a bad time. The worst
thing about the end of a semester is hav
ing to move.
The biggest hassle of moving is furni
ture. Beds, couches, tables, desks,
chairs, dressers, bookcases and chairs
seem to have put on some weight in the
past year. It is impossible to move these
items by yourself and the fact that my
apartment is on the second floor doesn’t
help matters. Friends become suspi
ciously absent when it comes time to
move. I’ve been moving for a week now
and I still haven’t dealt with most of the
furniture.
You don’t realize how much junk you
have until you have to move it. When it
came time to move my books and mag
azines I was suprised to discover I had
enough to start my own library. Unfor
tunately the books aren’t worth any
thing. Most of them are textbooks from
the past four years that the bookstores
won’t buy back. For some reason profes
sors always decide to change texts after I
take their class.
Moving is time consuming. I had to
thumb through all the record reviews in
back issues of Rolling Stone. That took a
long time.
Moving is also a time of discovery. I
discovered a shirt I thought I had lost,
several dozen pens and pencils, a couple
of beer cans left over from a party some
time ago and a few other things that
defy identification.' One of the most
startling discoveries had to do with the
coffee maker.
During the winter I am a coffee fa
natic. During the summer I become a
tea fanatic. Since the weather has been
pretty warm since February the coffee
maker hasn’t gotten much use. It is easy
to forget to empty the coffee grounds
out of the coffee maker when you are
not using it everyday. It’s amazing how
many shades of purple, green and white
coffee grounds become if they are left
on their own for four months.
As long as I’m on the subject of mold,
cleaning out the frig was a new experi
ence in slime. Eggs, tomatoes, lettuce,
cheese, oranges, pears and strawberries
begin to look like something out of a
bad Japanese horror movie after a few
weeks of neglect. My roommate and I
had fun getting rid of the stuff though.
Our apartment faces a wooded area so
we had a pitching contest against some
of the trees. This is not pollution since
everything we threw was biodegradable
and had degraded somewhat already.
We have to be out of the apartment at
the end of the month. If we keep going
at this pace we might just make it.
Karl Pallmeyer is a senior journalism
and a columnist forPhe Battalion.
The Battalion
(USPS 045 360)
Member of
Texas Press Association
Southwest Journalism Conference
The Battalion Editorial Board
l-'.ditoi
Opinion I’nge Editor
t'ii\ Editor
Yen s Editor
Sports Editor
Michelle Powe
Loren Stef fy
.Scott Sutherland
Kay Mallett
Ken Sury
ci vice to I cy
.\J(:M mid Hi \ nn-Cnl-
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Opinion
People, when advertising homes, use
the word “dramatic” quite a bit. “Dra
matic four-bedroom house in town, few
minutes from beach.” What makes this
house dramatic is in order to get to the
beach you have to run by a Hell’s Angels
clubhouse on the corner.
Beware of an advertisement which
claims the house is “on the water” be
cause that’s very likely where it is.
A property that has the word “seclu
ded” in the ad means no one will be able
to find it.
I am not sure what a “sparkling”
home means, but the word is usually
used when an owner has little else to
brag about.
“Spectacular” is the same as “spark
ling.” The only difference is “spectacu
lar” has one-and-a-half baths instead of
one.
A “new contemporary” is a house that
was built in the early Sixties. An “old
contemporary” could mean anything
and usually does.
If you see an advertisement which re
ads, “Unusual house built by owner,” it
means the dining room is in the base
ment and the washer and dryer are lo
cated in the bedroom.
Some people prefer the word
“quaint.” Now quaint could mean hav
ing to stoop to get into the front door or
a climb up to a two-room apartment
over the garage.
Here’s one to look for: “nestled,” as in
“Nestled in the forest by a stream.”
Houses like these always have plumbing
problems, and because they are “nest
led” no one will come out from town to
fix them.
Even if you’re not renting a summer
place it’s worth reading the real estate
ads, because some of the best fiction in
the country is now being printed there.
!g a pi
artment oi
y $125.9 n
J rally at
lepanment
ew appro
ors, most <
hat said, “I'
H'lie
Joard of 1
)n propose
witnesses h;
Hrn. Clr
Rep. Lena '
others add
ooiis popp
^cial airl
Bie rema
Burn oi <
exte
Marriage to a state the most 0ec
' ^ H<eo. Io<
binding form of matrimony
_ e P- _
the I exas
MOSCOW —In
the evening I went
to a party. The
guests were jour
nalists, diplomats
and a woman who
was neither. She
was young and
slight, with dark
hair cut short. She
spoke English with
an American ac
Richard
Cohen
cent. As she drank wine, her V’s became
W’s and vice versa. It became apparent
that she was Russian.
A diplomat, diplomatically excusing
himself for prying, asked her who she
was and she said, “Maybe you have
heard of me. I am the Russian wife of an
American who is trying to divorce me
because I can not leave the country.”
Of course. Like a newsreel in the
mind, the stories ran across my screen
and I recalled — did I see it on TV? —
the California courtroom where an
American had come to ask for a divorce.
After seven years of marriage, seven
years of separation, he apparently had
enough and wanted out.
A letter from his wife arrived from
Moscow begging the judge not to grant
the divorce. Her argument was plain
tive: “My life will be in danger . . . di
vorce will leave me helpless and without
protection.” The U.S. Embassy could no
longer intercede on her behalf. She
signed the letter with her married name
— Elena V. Kaplan.
With that, Kaplan’s husband, a ski in
structor who for some reason changed
his last name to Talanov, retreated from
the courtroom. That was August and
since then Kaplan herself has not heard
from him. The letters that used to come
three times a week have ceased, the tele
phone calls, too. With a freedom that is
unheard of here, Gary Talanov, 31, has
disappeared — a free man shackled
only to his conscience.
But Elena Kaplan is shackled to the
state which, for its own reasons, will not
let her go. The bureaucracy says that
her parents oppose her emigration and
the law requires their approval. It says
that her parents, both mathematicians,
know state secrets. If so, the secrets are
now seven years old. Kaplan says she
has not seen her parents since her mar
riage.
Elena Kaplan, having been refused
permission to emigrate, is a refusenik —
a rare non-Jewish one at that. By either
relative or absolute standards, there are
few rufuseniks of any kind —Jews who
are supposed to be able to rejoin rela
tives in Israel, spouses seeking to re
unite a marriage. Numbers aside, they
define the character of the Soviet
Union. In some ways, the revolution re
stored the status quo and democratized:
Now everyone is a serf tied to the land.
“What would you do if you were my
husband?” Kaplan asked me. I tried to
duck the question. “What would you
do?” she persisted. I said I was glad not
to be him and have to make such a deci
sion. She eyed me coldly. “You know
nothing about this country.” There was
no “decision” to be made. The question
was not of only love or separation, but
survival. Without her American hus
band, she would be lost.
Immediately after her marriage,
Kaplan had to leave Moscow University
where she had met her husband. For a
time, she said, she could find no work
and the government — the only land
lord there is — would not give her an
Sh
apartment. She
she lost weight
She found work in a
distant Kalinin. Now,
m trams 1 ,
was hospii
textile faci
hack in M
gents anc
Tuesday d
runway ex
terwood A
! gHai ton
that resul
runway ex
the A me i
she had crossed the line, become
blown refusenik. She works wb
can as a translator and rese;
sometimes for American publican
In two of my talks with refm
there was a moment when tki
seemed to water and they apf
overwhelmed by their own pi
thought that happened with Vli
Feltsman, the celebrated pianisK
been a Jewish ref usenik for seven'!
For most of the interview he wasii!
of the authorities. “I am notate
them,” he said.
runway w
type comrr
B'A flrsi
means a t
the Bryan
to attract
Barton sar
g Lie said
suLmitted
an additic
provemen
eluding a i
But when asked if hewasevei
come with depression, he saidTH
mood seen# (
Se
of
mes” and then
change. His wife
ms —'‘/TKLALYI
encouraged him ties receiv
more. “ I alk about it,” she said,I are;i
really would not. “The (list yean for a T<
dif ficult,” was about all he woulfbloodied <
His eyes seemed to moisten andi! Wa y-
slant 1 left, Feltsman mirst
to the piano. Music seeped throiiJw,j n( | nv
door and spilled down the stairwell |
Something similar seemed to to
with Kaplan. She was strong andi j
nant, often able to laugh atthesid ■ I
life had played on her. But forij
ment she seemed overwhelmed!!
plight and here eyes appeared to* Stones h . n
The reality, afterall, is awful. Hei fit concert
riage had turned out to be a shat football st;
loved a man. But she was ahead' Tuesday,
ried to the state. ; Luitaris
<>fa show t
Copyright 1986, Washington about 14 1
Writers Group recording
■i‘They s
for Mick n
/
MJSTI
“■'lead
United Feature Syndicate
M&R6UUES
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