Pensacola News Journal from Pensacola, Florida • 36

Poge 6D VtnuttU journal Wednesdoy, November 5, 1 980 i him i .1.1 9 vwn Reta rded learn currency counts Hcaiutifp! I Holidays J. hi cgm with. us es, and that breaking the rules leads to fines. There is even a form of "welfare" for those who don't earn enough money. The center was created by the state Legislature in 1976 and operates under the state Department of Mental Health.

Woodruff said the center, originally a tuberculosis hospital with cottages, apartments and a community atmosphere, offered a perfect setting for instructing the retarded in basic living skills. A resident's success in mastering housekeeping chores nd other aspects of the program is rewarded under a point system that results in a salary each week. Before receiving a "paycheck," part of the money is withdrawn for taxes and rent. The center operates a country store, where the residents use their token money to buy groceries, clothing and other items, a commercial style laundry, a recreation center, and other facilities to give them a taste of the outside world. By RON HARRIST Associated Press Writer MAGEE, Miss.

George Washington's face wrinkled slightly on the slips of yellow paper as the woman holding them tightened her grip and complained about "how much they're taking out of my money." The slips were play dollars. But to the middle-aged woman and 109 of her fellow residents at the Boswell Retardation Center near Magee, that play money must be earned. It is subject to taxes and provides the only legal tender for buying food, clothing and shelter. "You might say we're giving these people a slice of life, something many of. them have never expert-, enced," said Clyde Woodruff, director of the center.

The play money is part of an unusual program the center offers to help mildly or moderately retarded people move from the highly supervised environment of a retardation center to the more independent life of a group home or supervised apartment. In this program, residents leam that achievement brings financial rewards, that everyone must pay tax- 5 216Ckurch St Seville Square. 433-1527 Jtf 1 or if i Associated Press photo Members of Kidco: president Dickie Cessna, right, and sisters Bette, left, June, center, and Ne Ne, top. Teen-agers' investment is a laid-back old town I' "t-x, 4 -rA Oass A i I By NAOMI KAUFMAN Associated Press Writer GORDA, Calif. A rumbling "lea-thunk" shakes the restaurant.

Customers look up from their pancakes with alarm. Mike, the cook, and Dee Oee, the assistant manager, step outside to investigate. A minute later, Joanne, the waitress, meanders out the door marked "y2-way out." Little Sequoia, Dee Dee's daughter, also wanders away. Two customers get up to leave. They wait by the counter.

And wait. And wait. No one comes forward to take their money because the entire staff is outside. "One time a waitress got so loaded that she just talked to the coffee machine. She wouldn't wait on any customers," says Town Manager Roger "King Schmuck" May with a sigh any long-suffering city administrator could understand.

Welcome to Gorda, where "laid back" is a way of life. One other thing it just happens to be owned by a company whose president is 16 years old and whose other executives all are in their teens. Gorda, from the road, looks like a typical picturesque Big Sur community, nestled into the cliffs above the rolling aquamarine waters and undulating kelp beds of the Pacific. It has a general store, gas station, a few small houses and the restaurant. But its 43 residents "I don't count the dogs in there," says May are a little flaky, to put it charitably.

that fog?" ask the tourists as they watch the floating mists. "No, the ocean's on fire," Gordites reply.) In the 1970s, Gorda became a haven for remnants of the flower-child generation. It was, and is, a company town the store, restaurant, gas station and houses all are in the hands of one owner, Kidco Ltd. Ventures. In 1978, the four Cessna kids from Ramona, a suburb of San Diego, were looking for a way to invest half a million dollars or so.

They had made a bunch of money selling horse manure for fertilizer, killing gophers and cleaning streets your typical en trepreneurs, except that they range in age from 12 to 16. Then Warner Brothers bought their story for a reported $500,000. A newspaper ad led them to Gorda, and, presto, Kidco became an absentee landlord. Reaction among Gordites was immediate and angry. But in the mellow ways of Gorda, the anger doesn't seem to have lingered.

"It's a community that's kind of a throwback to the '60s and early '70s," says May, himself long-haired and bearded. "They just came to live in the country and be left alone." May bemoans the lack of ambition of most residents. He's paid by Kidco to keep the locals in line and takes his responsibilities seriously. "Sometimes I feel like I have 40 children," he confides. "Everybody here wanted to be far out and groovy.

I worked on that, made them not offend the public." Kidco, and their father, Richard Cessna, want to make money on Gorda. They want it to be a tourist attraction, although Gorda really is just a wide space in the road. "He's got visions of grandeur," says May of Cessna. "You need something to attract them other than a Mexican restaurant." Dickie Cessna, 16 and Kidco's president, says Kidco bought Gorda as a tax shelter and tourist attraction. He and his siblings Ne Ne, 12; June, 17, and Bette, 14, all come to Gorda occasionally to work, planting flowers, painting and generally being industrious.

"It's kind of a strange deal," says Richard Cessna of the contrast between his budding capitalist brood and the residents. "The people who live here and work for us are, well, not hippies or anything, but they enjoy the leisurely lifestyle. They are not highly motivated," he says. All the adult residents work for Kidco, but it's hardly a sweatshop. Mike, the cook, tries to recruit a longhaired customer in the restaurant to join the community by telling him about his work hours.

"Couple of long days, couple short days, couple no days," he says. "That's my schedule." wmmi. Radio personality collects the voices of inhumanity 100s Jf, r. i 'English for Greek-Speaking Pec- and pie." 11 1 "rrLs5i--r In "Train Your Bird in Stereo," a deep voice, accompanied by Hawaiian steel-guitar music, tells budgie owners: "It is true that many birds will learn to talk, even though they were not properly trained, but this is a terrible waste of pet potential." Josephson who has a weekly talk show on New York's WBAI and submits commentaries to "All Things Considered," National Public Radio's daily news program is also collecting tapes of talking toys, like computer chess, a spelling machine calf. K-A-T.

Wrong. Try and the Executive Teddy Bear a born leader! You're a winner! Teddy Vox Inhumana also includes "Dial-A's." There's "Dial-An-Atheist," II By JERRY SCHWARTZ Associated Press Writer NEW YORK It galls Larry Joseph-son to watch transistors, tapes and Taiwanese circuitry try to talk to human beings. Yet the bearded, rotund, 41-year-old local radio personality is also fascinated, and he has set out to collect the sounds of the '70s and '80s the mouthings of machines that answer telephones, play games, teach and tutor. "It was sort of a perception of mine that we were spending more and more time talking to, or with, or at, or being talked to by machines of one kind or another," he said. "I found more and more of my friends were getting those machines, and I couldn't talk to them I could near their messages." His project, "Vox Inhumana," is being funded with $25,000 in grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts.

The idea, Josephson said, is to chronicle the times the way Works Progress Administration photographers did in the 1930s. "I think we're entering an age where we're going to be using machines of all sorts to communicate with us satellites, computers that you work on in your home. I don't like to think that, but it seems to be the way we're going," he said. Part of "Vox Inhumana" consists of what Josephson calls "didactic records" recordings like "How to Pachanga," "How to Plan the Perfect Dinner Party" "Mount St. Helens Hotline" and "Egg Basket," a project of a St.

Louis woman who has rigged a machine so it can collect callers' answers to a list of off-the-wall questions. The heart of the collection, though, is the answering machine recordings. The use of these machines, Josephson suggests, is a measure of "technology and alienation, people living alone. There's nobody in anybody's house to answer the phone. Warning: The Surgeon General Has Determined That Cigarette Smoking Is Dangerous to Your Health.

Anyone interested in adding to Josephson's collection can write him at the Radio Foundation, Box 884, Anso-nia Station, New York, N.Y., 10023..