Star Tribune from Minneapolis, Minnesota • Page 19

Star The columnists: Doug Jim Klobuchar Listen to an authority on being self-reliant and disabled One speech that rarely impresses me is the one from high-octane CEOs who preach self-reliance and make boxcar money stripping their payrolls of loyal employees. But I do listen to a self-reliance speech when it's made by Steve Larson, who has no arms. Almost everybody in America preaches the creed of self-reliance. It's: a guaranteed applause line. People get elected, enshrined and subsidized while they're talking about -reliance.

It's a beautiful idea, making yourself personally accountable for what you do and how you live. Farmers talk about it all the time. So do bankers, politicians, homeowners, jobholders and potential hockey-team owners. Most people I know believe ardently in the idea and practice it whenever it doesn't get in the way of every American's inalienable right to carve out a piece of the welfare pie. I listen to most of those preachments on sell- with a mixture of (a) respect, because it defines a principle most of us observe most of the time, and (b) amusement, because not PEOPLE On second thought, he's pretty peeved Jim Klobuchar many of us make it from the maternity ward to the mortuary without somebody's charity or kindness.

But the ones I listen to the most seriously are the Steve Larsons. Larson is a bundle to deal with. Some of the targets of his baldest language are people whom society calls disabled. "Some disabled people are whiners," he said. not? There are a lot more able whiners than the other kind.

I tell disabled people I don't want to hear whining. I want "If I could talk give me my dog Sellers. "'We've One of those Tuesday's The governor medium-sized, roamed the "The governor woman Elizabeth some time He got him at rant where the Sellers family frequent patron Deanna Sellers, son offered matter. "I see body loves governor has Elton John Elton John vich shared a of the world's Polar Music established in managed the Busey Actor Gary cocaine drug overdose Busey, 50, ter in Rancho them to be what they can be. Most of them want that.

It's never been easy, but I want to tell you it's getting harder today because they're being lumped in with people they can't compete with." Larson is what society calls disabled. Because he's no sentimentalist about this stuff, it's the same thing he calls himself. He was born armless in the small Todd County town of Eagle Bend. His father, a dentist, died when Larson was 12 after the family had moved to Brainerd, leaving Steve's mother to raise 12 children, including the kid with no arms. That kid is 35 today, married, a father and a jobs-and-life counselor with a state rehabilitation agency in Moose Lake, Minn.

He drives a car with his feet, baits a hook with his feet, drives his motorboat with his feet and changes diapers with his feet. He's got artificial arms and clamps, but they're mostly cosmetic. "If I didn't wear them and somebody came into my office and saw me with no appendages from the waist up, they'd probably fall off their chairs," he said. to the governor, I'd tell him to please back," said fourth-grader Jarrett got proof. We've got pictures." pictures ran on the front page of Nashville Banner.

apparently isn't sure he'll return the golden setter-retriever that has executive residence for two months. certainly loves the dog," said spokesCarden. "'He's had him for quite now." Mama Mia's, a neighborhood restauSundquists occasionally dine. The lives a block away, and Bailey was a at the back door. Jarrett's mother, said the governor's the family a puppy if they would drop the why the governor wants him.

EveryBailey," she said. "But the story is: The my son's dog." shares music award and cellist-conductor Mstislav Rostropostage in Stockholm, Sweden, and one biggest music awards Tuesday. The Prize, worth $274,000 this year, was 1992 by Stikkan Anderson, who once Swedish rock band ABBA. faces drug charges Busey was charged Tuesday with felony possession in connection with an apparent that hospitalized him for four days. checked himself into the Betty Ford CenMirage, said his publicist.

There are a few other cogent entries in Larson's that may give him some authority to talk about the damaging direction this country might be going in dealing with both the problems and the resources embodied in its disabled. As he was moving through a formative part of his life, Larson got important direction not only from his family but also from counselors for the disabled and from public agencies. He got interested in psychology. He was able to attend a private college as a result of the rehab assistance he got, although it might just as well have been a public college. He developed communication skills and teaching skills.

He learned something indelible, in other words, about self-reliance. As a result, he became a full-time productive member of the work force instead of finding himself in the welfare lines the rest of his life, which could have happened unless somebody focused him on the potential of Steve Larson and the realities of facing barriers. And as a result of that, the United States of America has achieved nearly $100,000 in taxes directly provided by Steve Larson as citizen, worker, consumer and cabin owner. That's right. He owns a cabin on Sand Lake, south of Moose Lake.

His place Down South. Things sometimes get turned around for guys born without arms. His cause: "We're moving toward block grants to states, shrinking federal government. What that means is cutting down services. I'm not arguing that savings can't be made.

What's scary are the implications this has for people who are disabled. What's threatened are their chances for achieving a quality of life that is within their potential. "We're being told that a lot of these training services ought to be consolidated. But what happens when you throw everybody into the same pool, the disabled with the able-bodied? "It means that when you cut disabled people out of the special training and special access they have now for rehab or for training or counseling, you penalize them even more. Why? Because they can't compete Sometimes it's physical.

When you're in a wheelchair, you have trouble getting through the door, literally. Sometimes it's mental. Many of the disabled don't think as fast or as well as the able-bodied. That's why, they're disabled. Being able to live independently is one of the most precious things I know.

But you don't have to be rich. You don't need a great job. You can be mentally retarded and still live independently, if you get the right direction and motivation and chance and find out who you are and what you can do. "Sometimes it's a wonderful feeling being independent enough to pay taxes. It's win-win for the country and the taxpayer." That is a speech you're not going to hear very often.

When we hear it, it's OK to turn up the volume. Last week, Mike Schneider said he had no hard feelings when he was stopped at gunpoint on a highway near the Mall of America and questioned by FBI agents who thought he could be the second main suspect in the Oklahoma City bombing. But Tuesday night on the TV program "Dateline NBC," the Apple Valley man said he now thinks law enforcement authorities were too heavy-handed. "I feel that they could have stopped me without all the circus on the freeway and everything, and done it in a different manner," he said. appears to me like it was something for the press to make it look as though they were trying to get" John Doe No.

2. Schneider, 45, said he found out later that police had been staking out his car in a Holiday Inn parking lot in Bloomington all day. He said that that should have given them enough time to check his background or figure out a better way to stop him "without the exposure for me and the stress of being handcuffed in public." According to Dateline NBC correspondent Stone Phillips, the FBI said stopping Schneider on the freeway, where traffic could be blocked, was safer than approaching him in the parking lot. Kevin Duchschere Bailey come home The dog that Nashville Gov. Don Sundquist brought home after dinner at an Italian restaurant was no stray, says a 10-year-old boy who wants his Bailey back.

Too-young couple is now old enough Jail time served, he marries her Associated Press Truman, Minn. Seventeen months ago, Jeremy Giefer and Susan Hall were celebrating the birth of their daughter, Cassandra, and planning to marry. Their trip to the altar was jeopardized, however, when Giefer, then 20, was sentenced last May to 45 days in jail for statutory rape. Hall was 14 when Cassandra was conceived in February 1993; Minnesota law says a person under age 15 cannot consent to sex. Jail time served and no longer too young, Giefer, now 21, Hall, 16, were married Saturday.

"Usually a couple doesn't go through jail and all that we've gone through together and make it last," Giefer said. "But here we are." The couple's troubles attracted national attention. The TV show Journal" told their story and Giefer did a satellite interview from jail on the "Sally Jessy Raphael" show. When Blue Earth County District Judge John Moonan sentenced Giefer last year, he told Giefer that he should have known better than to have sex with a 14-year-old. "The reason you are doing jail time In is because it's astounding to me that a man who was 19 would not Staff Photo by Mike Zerby Graves' mission is helping veterans Peter Graves talked with Sterling Rafshol, a class- paying tribute to hospitalized veterans and encourmate from Southwest High, Tuesday at the VA aging people to visit them and to become VA Medical Center in Minneapolis.

Graves, 1994 chair- volunteers. The Minneapolis-born actor is in his man of the National Hospitalized Veterans third season hosting the cable Arts Entertainment and star of the TV series "Mission Impossible," was Network's "Biography" series. Judge Anne Simonett is remembered by family and friends at service By Donna Halvorsen Staff Writer At a memorial service Tuesday for Anne Simonett, Gov. Arne Carlson recalled how she came to his office in February and outlined her reasons for resigning her judgeship as if she were presenting a legal brief. Carlson said he interrupted her presentation by saying, "I don't know about you, Anne, but I'm a basket case." He said they laughed and cried together after that, and 1 Simonett told him of her plans to take a trip with her family.

When she said she wanted to go to Duluth, Carlson said it was typical of her: She was more interested in the journey than in the destination. He closed Tuesday by saying, "Thank you, Anne, for taking us on the journey." Carlson was among 750 people who packed Nativity of Our Lord Catholic their Church last in respects St. Paul to Tuesday Simonett, to pay. who died Saturday. of a brain tumor.

She had been chief judge of the Minnesota Court of Appeals the first woman to hold the post for only eight weeks when she collapsed in her office Aug. 30. She returned to work briefly after undergoing chemotherapy and radiation, but resigned March 31 to devote time to her family and her treatment. The memorial service included speeches by people from every aspect of Simonett's life: her husband, Henry Shea, an assistant U.S. attorney; her sister, Martha Simonett; Phebe Saunders Haugen, who taught at the William Mitchell College of Law in St.

Paul when Simonett taught there; James Loken. a judge on the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals who was a colleague of Simonett's at Faegre Benson, a Minneapolis law, firm; Edward Toussaint who succeeded Simonett as chief judge, and U.S. Attorney David Lillehaug. Opera singer Elisabeth Van Ingen Steward, who knew Simonett when Simonett was studying to be a classical pianist, sang "Ave Maria." Martha Simonett, of Rosemount, said her sister had a pure spirit and wasn't interested in gossip or people's foibles.

Loken said she had common sense, good judgment and people skills all the ingredients of an excellent lawyer and judge. Simonett was a judge on the Hennepin County District Court for a year before Carlson appointed her as chief judge of the 16-member Appeals Court. Shea directed his comments to the couple's children, Claire, 7, and Henry, 9, telling them that the service was for them, to let them know who their mother was. He said she was excited by challenges and always chose the hardest course, but only after analyzing the risks. Although she was very bright, he said, she never used her intelligence to intimidate people or to put them down.

Shea said Simonett left each of the children two gifts engraved with these words: "I will always be with you." He told her parents, Doris and John Simonett, that if his children love, admire and respect him as much as his wife did her parents, his life will have been a success. Associated Press Jeremy Giefer and Susan Hall posed with their 17-month-old daughter, Cassandra, in Mankato, Minn. The couple married Saturday. Their trip to the altar was jeopardized when he was jailed for statutory rape. difference like nancial responsibility for Cas- tural mechanics classes and internthis," Moonan said.

sandra. ing with a trucking firm. recognize an age In his next breath, however, Hall is now in the 11th grade and Moonan commended Giefer for expecting the couple's second child staying with Hall and assuming fi- in August. Giefer is taking agricul- John Simonett, who served 14 years on the Minnesota Supreme Court, retired on the day his daughter was sworn in last July. Anne Simonett, who lived in St.

Louis Park, also is survived by another sister, Mary, of Shoreview, and three brothers, Paul, of Plymouth; John, of Columbia Heights, and Luke, of Oakdale..