Star Tribune from Minneapolis, Minnesota • Page 27

I "JF Sl 'GaHleo' bends to compromise, falls flat2C 5 vTirrnc Yu can becme a trendy W-1U i7 VJ for Natural sweets are best when on a diet7C E-' summer hfe Clothes 3C Comics4, 5C Crossword puzzl7C 1 1 TV, radio6C Sholnwold on brida7C Ink Erma Dombeck Field trips nearing end of the road 'V Nilf A few years ago, some enterprising educator discovered "Man does not live by the three R's alone," so he added a fourth Recreational Education. It is commonly referred to as the Field Trip. The way it worked was simple. You joined 30 or 40 inquiring little minds to one another by weaving their hands together, getting a few mothers to chaperon and taking them to the inner city where they learned about life firsthand. At first, it was a march through museums, public buildings and zoos.

Then it got down to tours of power stations, fast food kitchens, watching paint dry on park benches and any place owned by a brother-in-law who would open his doors to kids for a learning experience. As a front-line chaperon (Ret.) I once dragged through a steel oundry where my earrings melted down. Afterwards I asked one of the kids what he learned about life and he said. "I learned you can lock the re8troom door and crawl out under it and everyone else will think there's someone in there." One begins to question the wisdom of the trips when you ride a train for 20 miles with 40 5-year-olds to a place no bigger than your coffee table and hear a child say the best part of the trip was the soft-drink machine. What brought this up was the other day I was waiting for a plane at the airport and between people running an O.J.

Simpson foot race to Gate 87, somber faces dragging luggage like pack mules, and a few people sleeping with their mouths open came a "learning experience" stumbling through the terminal. There were about 20 wee people with their names pinned to their coats, and they formed a human chain that snaked through the crush of Staff Photo by Art Hager Pete Wagner presented a variety of blackboard faces to his cartooning class at Open U. Open classes are chosen by customers By Kim OdeStaff Writer says, "The Battle of the Sexes." "What people really want what I wish I could offer double or triple the number of courses on is anything to do with nature or adventure or just telling people more about the Twin Cities," said Bob Walling, a former restaurateur, pastry chef and policy adviser for the U.S. Department of Education who founded this private enterprise late last year. "We take a bunch of people on a Whitewater rafting trip and they get out and before they're dry, they're saying, 'When do we go parachute I haven't even thought about parachute jumping." It's aH vastly different from the catalog from a similar venture in Washington "where all the courses deal "We take a bunch of people on a Whitewater rafting trip and they get out and before they're dry, they're saying, do we go parachute "I haven't even thought about parachute jumping." Bob Walling, who founded Open in the Twin Cities Dt's not just for singles anymore.

It never was, of course, but the Open (partly thanks to its flashier cousins in Washington, Denver and New York City) got saddled early on with a reputation as the new meet market, what with courses about The Joy of Flirting, Twin Cities Pub Crawl, Wholistic Sexuality and 100 Romantic Unusual Things To Do Around the Twin Cities. Now, nearing its first birthday, Open finds that while these courses are consistent successes, they don't dominate the catalog. Just 14 of the 147 offerings in the current catalog deal with, as the subject heading Nickelodeon's 'Double Dare' is a game show strictly for kids Most men give cold shoulder to male friendship Noel Holston 1 mwmmmvwmi-'w'i'immtiimma Ak II i 1 1 -J. i I I. Television the Nickelodeon cable channel's new game show "Double Dare, the pre- teen contestants knew By Larry Stains My old college friend Dan recently pulled off something extraordinary.

He moved out of the state without anyone at his office finding out. Three months after he first put the house up for sale, he went to work and quit. At that point, he had sold the house and was living out of a suitcase. When people at work asked him questions like, "What are you doing to do with the house?" he just made jokes. He could pud this off because he had never made a friend at work.

Not by accident, but by design. Dan hasn't made a friend at any of his Jobs since he left school a decade ago. "People at work are the competition," he says. "You can't go opening yourself up to them because you never know when they might use it against you. It's every man for himself out there, and you'd be naive to think otherwise." Dan sounds extreme.

I think he is. He's also normal. Most men, whether or not they're interested in moving up, don't reach out. They do not have a close male friend while most women have a close female friend. That is the conclusion of virtually all surveys and studies of friendship.

No, male friendship is not alive and well, ft Is rare and tentative. Despite al the beer commercials, despite a recent spate of books about male friendship, despite the formation of men's groups across the nation, despite the trendy cultural messages that it's OK for men to hug, cry and bare their souls, there are not more guys getting together. Indeed, there may be fewer. I have a gut feeling that the men of my baby-boom generation make fewer and flimsier friendships than the men of our fathers' and grandfathers' generations. I have bounced this notion off some experts on the subject.

They say it's an impossible notion to prove. But they agree. If we, as a generation, do not hold friendship in Nickelodeon dares Its viewers to tuna In to "Doubls Dare," a game show for kids that combines physical dar-rlng-do with knowledge. who wrote the novel "Superfudge," what state is nicknamed the Pelican State and what galaxy the Earth is in. They did not know the name of Don Johnson's TV character or what rock star married model Julianne Phillips.

Kids! What's the matter with kids today? Don't they know their priorities are supposed to be all screwed up? Apparently not. And for one, am delighted by the evidence to the contrary on "Double Dare" weekdays at 4:30 p.m. Kids and game shows, when you think about it, go together like hot fudge and ice cream. Kids love competition, they love riddles and puzzles and they love the opportunity to act silly. Their enthusiasm may even explain why TV game shows have captivated adults for more than three decades.

Forget the oft-cited greed factor; game shows bring out the kid in everybody leastways, everybody who's willing. Considering this and that, in the Twin Cities alone, there are nearly 40,000 "Wheel of Fortune" viewers younger than 17 it's surprising that so few game shows have been aimed at youngsters. This tele-baby, who grew up playing along with everything from "Feather Your Nest" to "Concentration" to "G.E. College Bowl," can remember only one game show for kids. In July 1960, CBS introduced "Video Village," which was built around a huge game board reminiscent of Monopoly or the Game of Life.

The contestants traversed the board's byways, acting as their own markers. So successful was "Video Village" that two months later CBS launched a Saturday-morning edition, "Video Village Junior," also known as "Kiddeo Village." (Attention trivia buffs: The host of "Video Village" later became a big deal on TV. Who was he? The answer appears at the end of this column.) Except for a short-lived and rather self-serving Disney-oriented quiz show on the Disney Channel, there's been nothing like "Video Village.