Redlands Daily Facts from Redlands, California • Page 12

With a Grain of Salt Itv FRANK MOORE Redlands, Calif. Tuesday, September 12 Reagan should sign auto inspection bill Smog control devices on automobiles do not help to diminish air pollution if they are not in good working order. They require periodic attention by a mechanic, just as many other parts of an automobile do. When they fail, they must be replaced. Yet, we are lacking in a fully effective program to make sure that people are taking proper care of their cars.

The road-block checks by the California Highway Patrol do catch some cars and they do put into people's minds that they should have their air pollution equipment checked. Our own Senator, Craig Biddle has managed with great difficulty and effort to get through the Legislature a bill to start us moving in the right direction. This would lead to a mandatory inspection program, but only on the condition that a pilot experiment demonstrated that it would be workable and would achieve the necessary results. These would be the steps: A test inspection program would be conducted in all, or parts, of Riverside, San Bernardino and Orange counties in 1974-75. In 1976 the program would be expanded to include Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties, covering all cars when resold.

In 1977 all 7 million cars in the region would have to be checked prior to annual license renewal. Inspections would determine if all anti-smog equipment required by state and federal laws was installed and functioning properly, and that exhaust emissions are within legal standards. Nothing is so idle as mere anti-smog talk. Improvement in air quality comes with definite, action programs. This one could bring the greatest improvement yet in improving the performance of cars that are on the road.

The catch is that the Governor hasn't signed this bill and he may not. Mr. Reagan's own cabinet is split on it. This is the time to write the Governor and tell him that you really do mean all of those things you say about smog. Of course, that implies that you realize that you, along with everyone else, would have to have an annual inspection of your car and would have to pay the cost of the work and whatever materials are required.

The safety feature in Senator Biddle's bill is that the program must be validated by a test. If the results are unsatisfactory, then there will be no general mandatory program resulting from this measure. That is fair Enough. Surely the smog that the inland cities are experiencing this year is a strong argument for favorable action by Governor Reagan. What recession? Hemet News Since the first of the year we have seen the major banks nearly double their prime interest rate to a new high of per cent amid predictions it will go even higher before it moves back down.

Businessmen and consumers seem to be facing still another shortage this time of money. However, most economists believe this is one shortage we need to put up with for a time if our economy is to avoid the inflationary pressures of too- rapid growth. That makes sense, and it is disturbing that the advent of a period of tighter money should immediately raise fears in some quarters that we are heading into a recession. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, a "recession" is occurring any time the gross national product declines for two successive calendar quarters. That is a neat definition, but we would be reluctant to ring a recession alarm on the basis of it at a time when economists are having a falling out over whether the once-hallowed GNP is really an accurate measure of what is going on in the country from an economic stand-point.

Over a period of years Americans have watched the Dow Jones stock averages as an indicator of our business health. Stock prices, however, have generally remained low during a period of record earnings and profits by the companies whose fortunes they are supposed to represent. We are left with the explanation that "psychological" the way from Watergate to the gyrations of the price of gold in Zurich are to blame. The psychological factor may well be the reason so many economists cannot agree on what cause produces what effect in our economic life. That leads back to the interpretation of the slowdown in economic growth which may result from the surge in interest rates.

We hope that our economic movers and shakers, especially the architects of government fiscal and monetary policy, are cautious in diagnosing this economic development. The psychology of fear of a "recession" that may exist only in a clouded crystal ball should not lead to a tinkering with the money supply which in the end could refuel inflationary fires. The Newsreel Anthologies of the wisdom of the people demonstrate that if an old joke can hold on long enough, it becomes folklore. Photographic tip: Those great vacation snapshots you made are likely to remain that way, unless you make the mistake of having them developed. The office cynic says that the good thing about Watergate is that it is keeping the government too busy to get into any mischief.

Map, pictures on page 7 When my friend Don Bauer, the head ranger, sent me the new Forest Service map of our mountains I knew that I had to make a pilgrimage. Printed on the north slope of the Mt. San Bernardino massif were two new words: "John's Meadow." "Thus a new 'official name' has been born," Don explained. "This is the first one to be approved for a feature of the San Gorgonio Wilderness since the enactment of the Wilderness Act in 1964." "John" was John B. San Bernardino attorney, Redlands resident, and a mountain-loving man.

While climbing Mt. San Bernardino by the Forsee creek ridge trail on October 6, 1971 with Dr. Gordon Witter of Redlands and Al Spencer of Camp Angelus, he died of a heart attack. His meadow, "John's Meadow," is not on that trail but, rather, approximately two miles west. Sunday morning Gordon and I drove up Route 38 to Forsee miles from Redlands and four miles beyond Camp Angelus.

Descending from the road to the canyon bottom we were walking through great clumps of red monkey flowers. Almost instantly the canyon shut in on either side and this was the true Forsee a deep, narrow chute for the waters draining the central and westerly summits of Mt. San Bernardino. (That peak is the great pyramid that dominates the eastern skyline of Redlands.) We picked our way through waist-high currant thickets, climbed over dozens of logs that lie like jackstraws across the stream, and frequently climbed up on the steep sides because there was no other way. Where a great cedar log fell across the bottom, forming a high, natural bridge, we passed a yellow, backpacker's tent.

A smiling young man, bare from the waist up, and with shoulder length hair, emerged to chat for a minute. The bot'tom grew steadily steeper until the canyon made a sharp turn. Ahead of us was a waterfall about 20 feet high, and beyond, another of perhaps 40 feet. From there on we- scrambled up and along the canyon sides, finally mounting a high ridge. Suddenly Gordon said: "There is John's Meadow." We were looking across Forsee creek at the junction of its west fork.

There was a bench between the two forks, openly forested with Jeffrey pine, white fir and incense cedar. The meadow is not flat and grassy, but is on the slope between the bench and the creek. The wet ground is covered with rank growth- waist high grass, ferns, yarrow and some passe lupine. On the bench we found two places where people had camped this summer. One party, we judged from the sleeping bag sites, might have had a dozen people in it.

If they climbed the 1,200 feet of rise up Forsee creek they had quite a scramble. But they may have hiked cross country, following a "track" which is indicated on the Defenders map of the San Gorgonio Wilderness area. "How did John's Meadow gets its name?" "Well," Gordon explained, "it started as a sort of a joke. John took a bunch of us from Camp Angelus on a hike one day a number of years ago. Fran (Mrs.

Surr) and Newt Williams were in the party and they weren't used to hard going. "Fran and Newt were getting bushed and John kept telling them about this meadow that was just a little ways just over the ridge a thousand feet more." By the time they reached the meadow, the credibility of the guide was at low ebb. Ever after when the hike was recalled, Newt would grin, and with mock scorn allude to "John's Meadow." When John died on Mt. San Bernardino, his son, John V. Surr of Washington D.C.

took to the idea of making "John's Meadow" official. Since John B. Surr had played an influential role in establishing the keeping it that way in the face of attack, Don Bauer and others joined the movement. The U.S. Board of Geographic Names made it official.

So there it intimate bit of meadow and benchland a tiny Shangri La of the mountains, a reward for those who are willing to climb "just over the ridge a thousand feet more." Little man makes it big By NORTON MOCKRIDGE There's a Texas professional football player who gets put upon more than most because he's pretty small for a pro. He takes a lot of kidding from the guys on the field "C'mon, man, get up outta that hole!" and so on and that's a torment he has to endure. But he doesn't like it when he's brushed a bit off the field. He generally does something about it. Recently, he came to New York and decided to take his date for cocktails in a beautiful, candlelit lounge with a magnificent view, high up in one of our tallest skyscrapers.

He phoned for a reservation, but was told: "None is necessary. Just see the maitre d' when you come in." When he and the girl arrived, the maitre d' disdainfully looked down upon him and then led him and the gal past a long row of empty tables to a small one more or less behind a pillar. There was hardly any view. He was sore, but he accepted it. Two weeks later, however, he and the girl went to the same place again, and he said to the maitre d': "Do you remember me? I was here two weeks ago." "No, sir," said the tuxedoed one, with a slight curl of the lip.

"Are you SURE you don't remember me?" asked the Texan, taking out a big roll of bills, and flicking the 50 that was on the outside. "Oh, of course, rnonsieur, of course, I remember you!" cried the maitre d'. "How could I forget you? One of our finest guests. Please, come right this way." And he seated the two at the best table in the lounge. The Texan still flicking the roll of bills surreptitiously pulled one from the inside a dollar bill and folded it and slipped it into the maitre d's hand.

"Oh thank you, sir!" cried the maitre who thought he'd, been slipped the 50. "Thank you SO much!" He bowed and started to walk fit away. He looked at the bill in his hand. There was horror on his face as he turned back to the Texan. "Thank YOU!" said the Texan.

"And I think you'll remember me NOW!" Readers keep sending me little Audrey stories, for which I'm most grateful. I'll do another batch of them one of these days. Today, however, how about just one sample from Emil Jacquin, of Union, N.J.: "Little Audrey was unmarried but she was going to have a baby. She wasn't depressed, however. She just laughed and laughed because she knew that some vanishing cream would take the little chap away!" A friend of mine with American Airlines tells me that not every stewardess is as smart as she looks.

One of them, on the job just a short time, was questioned by a worried passenger shortly before a brand-new DC-10 was about to take off from Syracuse. "This is a new plane, I understand," said the elderly lady. "I do hope they've got all the bugs out of it." "Oh, don't worry," said the stewardess, with a tinkling laugh. "They clean and spray these planes before they leave the factory!" Walter Matthau tells me that he and Jack Lemmon appeared at a big gathering to raise funds for a worthy cause. They worked the microphones and began getting pledges from the audience.

Big $5,000, $7,500, $10,000. Then a man they recognized as an actor raised his hand and said: "I'll give $25." "TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS!" cried Matthau. "Only 25 bucks?" "Yes," said the actor, calmly. "But not as a pledge. I'll pay CASH!" Redlands Yesterdays FIVE YEARS AGO Temperatures Highest 86, lowest 51.

Patchy early morning fog enveloped areas of Redlands this morning after the overnight minimum had slipped to a new season low of 51 degrees near daybreak. Area residents of Big Bear Lake voice concern over the recent withdrawal of water from the lake by Bear Valley Mutual Water Company. Congressman Jerry L. Pettis will speak to members of the Lockheed Propulsion company management club tomorrow. TEN YEARSAGO Temperatures Highest 71, lowest B3.

Rate schedule establishing fees for Universal Rubbish Collection adopted by the City Council last night as the last step to launch the program on Oct. 1. Collection service, to cost from $2.10 to $2.95 per month for residents. Surprise storm which spread over all of Southern California yesterday and today talk of the town in Redlands where official storm total is now 1.59 inches. No damage reported from storm.

Mrs. H. Fred Heisner elected as YWCA representative to the Community Chest Board of directors succeeding Mrs. Howard C. Ranney.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO Temperatures Highest 101, lowest 58. Grand Central announces immediate expenditure of $300,000 for high priority expansion plans as part of a $1.3 million program for facilities to emphasize research and development. Dr. Robert L. West, former elementary school principal in the Palo Alto school district, assumes new role as director of the school of education at the University of Redlands, succeeding Dr.

Vernon Tolle. Howard Prescott elected to succeed A. Ernest Berkheimer as president of the Redlands Insurance Agents association. Minute Pulpit "Take courage, and' acquit yourselves like men, Philistines, lest you become slaves to the Hebrews as they have' been to you; acquit yourselves like men and fight." I Samuel 4:9. I mean to make myself a man, and if I succeed in that, I shall succeed in everything.

James A. Garfield, 20th U.S. President. the absolute certainties which will be turned up in any study of the American middle class is the mortgage on the house and the willingness of the man who holds it to tell you all about it. For example: "The agent said if we offered $5,000 less, he thought we could get it, and, boy was he right.

They snapped at it. So I only had to put $2,000 down and, like I told you, we cleared $7,000 on the old house. Then, during the escrow. It goes on and on. What man has not heard his neighbor tell some such tale and what man has not told a similar tale to his neighbor? There is almost nothing about which Americans are more honest and outgoing with each other.

They may not tell their neighbor what they earn or spend; they will not tell him the serious problems they are having with their children; they may not confide their politics. But just ask your neighbor about his mortgage. The details pour out like those offered by the small boy reciting the plot of his first movie. And that is another reason why the story of Mr. Nixon and his mortgages is so It has taken the President two years to tell us the facts and there still seems to be something missing somewhere in the story or, at least, something that doesn't sound quite But let us review what Mr.

Nixon has said about his houses. On May 12, 1969, he issued a statement saying he had an equity of $71,800 in two houses he had just purchased at Key Biscayne. Now he has issued an auditor's report showing that he bought those two houses with promissory notes, and that at the time he told us about his equity, he had no equity at all. Again, in 1969, the President reported that he was buying the San Clemente property for $340,000 with $100,000 down and the balance over five years. Now, the auditor's statement reveals that he did no such thing.

He bought the entire just the house and land on which it and paid $1.5 million for it. He borrowed this amount from Robert Abplanalp, and when the first payment plus interest Berry's World The odd neighbor By TOM BR ADEN came due he borrowed $175,000 more. Finally, he says now, he sold most of the land back to Abplanalp and to another friend, Bebe Rebozo, presumably at a substantial profit. This leaves us still in the dark about a number of things: much of his own Mr. Nixon put into the San Clemente property? he pay an income tax on the profit he realized in the sale of adjoining acreage to Abplanalp and Rebozo? the Key Biscayne houses cost him any money of his own and, if so, how much? did he issue false statements about all the houses? Of these questions, the last may not be the most important, but it goes to the difference between Richard Nixon and the great American middle class which he claims to represent.

The President could argue that notwithstanding the sums which the taxpayers have spent on repairing, remodeling and securing his houses, it is simply nobody's business how he got them. It would be a difficult argument to make because Americans might think they have a right to know to whom their President is indebted and whether or not he pays his taxes. But Mr. Nixon has not made the argument. He has not even suggested that the public doesn't have a right to the facts.

Instead, he has given the public false facts, not once, but repeatedly over two years. If he were the next-door neighbor he claims to be, the neighborhood gossips would be saying, "There's something funny about that guy." Timely Quotes Unrequited justice doesn't go away. The residue of the tragedy is still there on the campus. My hope is that anything that is done by the Justice Department will be cleansing and redemptive. Glenn Olds of Kent State University, on the reopening of the investigation into the 1970 shootings.

1973 by NEA, Inc. "My idea is to form a special staff team to run down under judicial kickoffs and punts, like the 'Kamikaze units'in pro football." Beat Watergate crisis, Nixon's aim By BRUCE BIOSSAT WASHINGTON (NEA) It becomes increasingly clear with each passing day that President Nixon believes he can fight his way out of his "Watergate crisis" as he has told the nation he did six times before, in his own well known book. His return to the press conference format in what at least has the surface look of a fighting posture, his radio speech to the nation and his new "state of the union" message calling for a turning of the spotlight back to other problems, these and other presidential stirrings all suggest the "comeback" tactic he has made virtually a lifetime trademark. Yet these things may be self-deceptive. The Ervin Senate committee's hearings still have weeks to go, though the pressures on it to wind up quickly are growing stronger.

The pressures appear to have been buttressed by returning lawmakers who say their soundings "back home" indicate many Americans think the hearings have gone on long enough. Since Watergate may hurt all politicians, some of these "findings" may in fact be self-serving. Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox is moving doggedly into the indictment stage against several Watergate figures, even as he waits anxiously for court rulings he hopes will give him personal access and decision power over presidential tapes he deems applicable to Watergate. Former Nixon Cabinet members John Mitchell and Maurice Stans are accused in New York in the so-called "influence" case involving Robert Vesco. Four administration aides, including former top helper John Ehrlichman, have been indicted in California in connection with burglary of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office.

The resumed Senate hearings, and the open testimony in trials that may stretch out over many months if not years, will keep Watergate alive and very likely compel the President to respond to it again and again, no matter how much he would like to put it behind him. It is undoubtedly true that most Americans are more concerned about the economy and, as it affects their gasoline tanks and their home-heating oil, the energy crisis. But the inescapable drumming away on Watergate is unlikely to restore their badly weakened confidence in Richard Nixon as the man of high judgment capable of dealing with these dilemmas with impressive success. Whether he was directly involved in Watergate or merely blind to what was going on (a notion many voters find hard to swallow), Mr. Nixon's star has been dimmed by the events of 1973 and before.

There is a serious chance he may never recover stature, that, if he hangs on through 1976, he will limp and stumble much of the way. What such an eventuality would do to the President as a man and public figure is difficult to guess. In his book, "Six Crises," he spoke of his major troubles as a kind of catharsis which in the end left him strengthened. He wrote: "Crisis can indeed be agony. But it is the exquisite agony which a man might not want to experience again yet would not for the world have missed." But none of the earlier crises of which he wrote had the magnitude or enduring quality of Watergate.

This, his seventh crisis, may be the one where the agony never really ends, the one which puts the stamp of tragedy upon the career of the man who never dreamed the presidency could be anything but triumph. If the agony lingers, the presidency may be his prison..