Monday, November 30, 1987/The Battalion/Page 7
Older students say adjustments
to college life not hard to make
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By Jackie Feldman
Reporter
Of the 39,079 Texas A&M stu
dents, 642 students are more than
40 years old, Registrar Don Carter
said.
Middle-age students return to col
lege for a variety of reasons.
Some decide to raise a family be
fore returning or starting college.
Others return because they want
to change their careers.
Ruth Moore, in her 40s, is a senior
history major from College Station.
She decided to begin college after
her children left home.
Moore earned 42 hours at Blinn
Community College and transferred
to A&M.
“Education is one of my highest
priorities,” Moore said. “No matter
if I had to take one course at a time,
I was willing to do it.”
Fifty-year-old Patricia Childress, a
junior history major from College
Station, returned to college after de
ciding she wanted a change from be
ing a real estate agent.
“After the real estate business be
gan to get bad,” Childress said, “I
decided I needed an education.”
Both Moore and Childress said it
wasn’t difficult to settle into the col
lege routine of studying and going
to class.
Childress said the biggest problem
she faces is the loneliness caused by
the lack of peers. Despite this, she
gets along well with the younger stu
dents and has formed lasting
friendships.
Moore said she hasn’t noticed any
barriers between herself and the
younger students.
“Your attitudes, vitality and the
way you handle problems influence
the way people perceive you,”
Moore said.
Although Moore and Childress
would like to be involved in degree-
related clubs, they are not because of
other commitments — Moore is
married and Childress works.
Moore and Childress agree col
lege has changed their views about
lim.
“Learning has opened my eyes to
preconceived notions,” Childress
said, “and increased my self-esteem.
School has strengthened my views
on some subjects and changed my
views on others.”
Moore said, “The wide range of
cultures allows me to develop my
world views of many subjects.”
Moore and Childress agree their
lives have changed since they’ve
been in college. College has made
time scarce for both social and daily
activities.
Moore has found that college has
forced her to organize her time bet
ter.
“I am more polished at getting
things done,” Moore said. “The
more I do, the better I get at finding
time to do them.
“Although I get frustrated at
times because so many interests pull
me in different directions, college is
definitely an enriching experience.”
Housing glut
hinders selling
in Dallas area
DALLAS (AP) — An increase
in the number of houses for sale
in Dallas is making it harder to
sell homes, with sellers facing
competition from foreclosures in
an already-glutted market.
“Any time supply is generally
exceeding demand, you have to
say it’s a buyers’ market,” Benny
McMahon, executive director for
the Greater Dallas Board of Real
tors, said.
But McMahon cautions against
painting the market with “a broad
brush,” saying there are too many
individual factors at work.
At the end of October, there
were 25,866 active listings in the
board’s cooperative listing serv
ice, up from 25,165 for the same
period last year.
That increase has helped add
to the amount of time it takes to
sell a home.
In the first 10 months of this
year, it took 101 days to sell the
saverage pre-owned home in the
Dallas area — up 21 days, or 26
percent, from the average 80
days on the market for the same
time last year.
In most neighborhoods, it
takes an average 140 to 145 days
for a home to sell.
Realtors say sellers this year are
starting at a lower list price, but
the average sale price is up.
That, they say, is because some
of the more expensive homes are
being sold and not because of an
increase in overall prices.
In 1987, the average home sold
for $125,900, or 12.75 percent
below the current average list
price of $ 144,300.
Some of the major factors af
fecting the Dallas-area housing
market this fall and winter in
clude a glut in foreclosures, fewer
single-family home being built,
higher mortgage rates and the
shock of last month’s stock mar
ket crash.
Restaurant’s ‘grand closing’
draws crowd with offerings
FORT WORTH (AP) —Sam Al
len and Bobby Platt wanted to do
something grand to mark the closing
of Sammie’s Bar-B-Que after 42
years of operation.
Nickel beer and 25-cent sand
wiches should have been enough to
draw a crowd, but they advertised
that Boots, a popular former car
hop, and Big Red, a well-known for
mer waitress, would also be there.
The restaurant closed down after
the “grand closing” festivities Satur
day at the site where it has served
Fort Worth residents since the end
of World War II and will reopen
next Thursday in a new location.
The restaurant had to be moved
because the old building can no
longer meet safety codes.
Allen and Platt stocked the restau
rant with 2,500 pounds of beef, 500
pounds of ribs and set up three beer
stations outside the building to pre
pare for the eight-hour bash.
Customers began lining up an
hour before the “grand closing.” By
7 p.m., manager Frank Tyler said
customers had consumed nine kegs
of beer and the line to get in the res
taurant wound around the corner.
Platt said he never expected such
a crowd.
“Down through 40 years, there’ve
been so many good, steady custom
ers, we just wanted to do something
where they could get a meal almost
free,” he said. “We got them and a
lot more.”
Allen said, “We wanted to give
them one last chance to come here
and eat and look around. But with
this crowd I don’t guess they had
much chance to look around. Some
of’em got to eat.”
Charlotte Chatman, who was
known as “Big Red” when she
worked at Sammie’s as a waitress,
came from her East Texas home in
Lindale for the closing.
“Boots,” a carhop for 15 years un
til she left in 1969, wouldn’t give her
real name.
“It’s just ‘Boots’ Hall,”’ she said.
“Besides, if you put ‘Beulah Fay’ in
the paper no one would recognize
it.”
State legislator says attending UT
bolstered support for education
AUSTIN (AP) — University of Texas officials can
rest assured that higher education funding is not just
another issue to some state legislators.
Especially reassuring is the fact that one representa
tive thinks enough of the university to commute there
weekly from Laredo, about 250 miles southwest of Aus
tin.
After completing his first legislative session, which
ended this summer, Rep. Henry Cuellar began doctor
ate-level government studies at the university.
Cuellar, D-Laredo, said UT instructors and the class
room experience reinforced his vote for higher educa
tion funding.
“Now I know why it’s important that those (faculty)
salary increases were given,” he said.
Having a 32-year-old state representative in class
does not intimidate Cuellar’s instructors.
“I have lots of different people in my class with dif
ferent backgrounds, and he’s just one of them,” govern
ment instructor Gavan Duffy said. “There’s also a guy
who works in a record store — it’s no different.”
But Cuellar’s experience is sometimes useful in the
classroom, government instructor Mark Graber said.
“It’s come in handy a couple of times when discussing
issues about the relationships between local and state
governments,” Graber said.
Back home in Laredo, Cuellar is his city’s connection
between state and local government. Cuellar represents
a new class of South Texas politicians, replacing the old
“patron,” — Spanish for boss or chief — politicians in
Laredo and other areas of South Texas.
Cuellar said, “Now, in Laredo there is no single entity
that can deliver the votes.”
So far, Cuellar said, his position as state legislator
permits him to change Laredo more than if he were a
politician in his city. His legislation influencing the La
redo district “is easier to pass over here, but politically
not always popular,” he said.
Those new laws passed during Cuellar’s first term in
cluded measures that created a public defender posi
tion in Laredo’s Webb County, prohibited the Webb
County district attorney from participating in private
practice and increased the penalty for removing ballots
from a ballot box.
Raul Vasquez, Webb County court-at-law judge, said
Cuellar’s efforts to update the political structure should
go smoothly.
“I don’t even think he’s (Cuellar) going to get opposi
tion” in the next election, Vasquez said.
Texas’ mentally retarded adults suffer
from shortage of community services
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AUSTIN (AP) — Slowly and re
luctantly, Darryl Gottschalk is disap
pearing from society.
Day after day, the young man sits
alone in idleness, a captive in his own
home because of circumstances be
yond his control.
Gottschalk, 22, is mentally re
tarded and has no job at which to re
port, no school to attend and no one
to share the loneliness while his
mother works two jobs.
The only things to help pass the
time for Gottschalk are television,
the music of Willie Nelson, George
Strait and other country singers, and
a few household chores. Although
his mind is like that of a 5-year-old,
he takes care of himself and keeps
out of mischief.
Gottschalk is fading from the pub
lic’s eye because there are few op
portunities for retarded adults in
Texas. He is one of hundreds, prob
ably thousands, of retarded people
in Austin who have finished school
and now spend day after day inside
their homes because there is no
where else to go.
“He’s just sort of down in the
dumps,” said Barbara Gottschalk,
Darryl’s mother. “He doesn’t want to
go anywhere or do anything. What
does he have to look forward to?
That’s what I think all the time. It’s
pretty dim.
“But he’s not the only one. That’s
the sad part.”
A recent state-by-state survey
found Texas has the biggest short
age of services for the retarded.
Gottschalk is one of nearly 22,000
retarded Texans trying to get help,
according to the survey by the Asso
ciation for Retarded Citizens of the
United States.
Many of the retarded people
awaiting services never have been in
an institution. Instead, they grew up
in the community, attended public
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schools and are searching for a way
to make a contribution to society. It
never has been easy for a retarded
adult to find employment, but par
ents say it is even harder since the re
cent decision by the Texas Depart
ment of Mental Health and Mental
Retardation to move large numbers
of retarded people out of institu
tions and into community programs.
Competition for community services
is keen.
The Association for Retarded Cit
izens’ study found that the system of
public services for retarded people
“has not been able to cope with in
creased numbers of people leaving
institutions, a new generation exit
ing school special-education pro
grams and the growing number of
older families who have kept family
members at home for years but who
now need services.”
Many parents of retarded adults
in Austin say they willingly provide
room and board for their children at
home but would like to see more jobs
and supervised activities available
during the day for retarded adults.
“We didn’t burden the state with
raising our kids,” said Barbara
Gottschalk, who is divorced and
makes ends meet by working full
time as a receptionist for a state
agency and part time as a sales clerk
at Foley’s. “We’re not asking the
state to feed and clothe them now,
but just to give them something so
they don’t have to sit at home.”
Jackie Roberts’ 22-year-old
daughter, Donna, is set to graduate
in the spring from the Jerry Mac
Clifton Center, an Austin Indepen
dent School District training center
for retarded students aged 16-22.
“We who have kept our children at
home feel discriminated against,”
Roberts said. She doubts that her
daughter will find a job.
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