Hartford Courant from Hartford, Connecticut • 9

7th cd. Djt Jtortforti jfouftmt CONNECTICUT IVING SECTION MONDAY OCTOBER 22, 1990 1-i Local stations offer new looks; WFSB's stiU tops How to balance a heart's desire and a home? Rita B. Srugis, 33, wants to be a doctor. On her good days, she wants to be a surgeon. On average days, she thinks about pediatrics.

On bad days, she'd choose dermatology. Dermatologists have regular office hours. Rita, a nurse, wants autonomy in her job. This is important to her. But this fall, Rita entered med school.

She was not home to wave to her daughters when they eft for their first day of school, and she felt lousy. If James 1 Endrst ON TV -mi here's never a day off in the Hartford-New Haven television market because the Nielsen meters are always running. "Because the story is rwt fiction at all, and became I witnessed too many stories like that, this is thereamlam king in the UnM States." Jan Triska Friend of Czech playwright Vaclav Havel -V iY But some days are more important than others. And with the November sweeps approaching the first major ratings period of the new season it's a good time to start sizing up the local competition. Interviews with local station executives found that the troubled economy is on many minds and is a factor in many agendas.

But a changing cast of players behind the scenes at several stations particularly in news may prove more noteworthy before the 1990-91 season is through. Here's a look inside: WFSB (Channel 3) The market's long-dominant No. 1 station shows no signs of relinquishing its grip on the top spot. In fact, the Channel 3 success story is becoming run-of-the-mill. "It's feeding off itself right now," Vice President and General Manager Chris Rohrs says of the station's winning ways.

"It's almost like there's a certain alignment of the planets." Rohrs says he thinks CBS's 1990- 91 schedule is more news-friendly, with shows at 10 p.m. such as "The Trials of Rosie O'Neill" delivering a solid audience leading into the local 11 p.m. newscast. Meanwhile Vipa President News Station Czech actor bears witness in Havel play. True-life drama New Haven's permanent and visiting theater people.

In an hour, Triska will go back into rehearsal for Havel's "Largo Desolato," in which he plays a troubled character struggling to keep his identity. "The story is actually totally his personal story," Triska says of Havel. "Because the story is not fiction at all, and because I witnessed too many stories like that, this is the reason I am living in the United States." Small, wiry, chestnut-haired and surprisingly youthful for a man in his mid-50s, clad in a Banana Republic lion-backed T-shirt, Lee jeans and white leather Reeboks, the Czech-born Triska says he will be making his first appearance in a Havel play when "Largo (Never mind that her husband, Robert, was there, waving hard. Rita felt lousy. She's the mom.

And while she's chasing her dream, being a good wife, loving her daughters, teaching Sunday school and swimming, volunteering as a church-camp nurse and keeping up with Snapshots Susan Campbell her school work, well, some days the little things can seem pretty daunting.) A few days ago, fleas made her think of quitting. From two indoor cats, she got a houseful of fleas. Where do they come from? Why are they there? It isn't a far leap to: What's the point? But there was Robert, reminding her of how much she's done so far. Deep down, she believes in herself. But then Carissa, 9, or Jaime, look up at her with their big, brown eyes and say, "Will you play with me?" Growing up a poor girl in Hartford, Rita didn't have what you'd call a life goal.

Her parents divorced. Her father died. Her mother, a nurse, tried to support her three daughters in Nel-ton Court Her mother remarried, and the family moved to Waterbury. Her stepfather died soon after. There wasn't a lot of time for dreaming, but in high school something hit Rita, a pretty good student with tendencies to overachieve.

She would be a doctor. About that time, she met Robert, who at 17 was two years her senior. On their first date, Aug. 24, 1972, they saw "The Godfather." Rita doesn't remember much of the movie. They married in 1978, the year Rita earned her nurse's cap.

She had a baby. She had another. Robert took a job as an engineer at Pratt Whitney. They bought a house in Tolland, two houses down from a grandmotherly woman who wanted to care for children while both parents worked. At 29, the dream reared its head.

Robert said, "Do it." Rita enrolled at the University of Connecticut at Storrs. Rita, who graduated 10th in her John F. Kennedy High School class in Waterbury, earned 125 credits in 3tt years and graduated at the top of her chemistry class. She made Phi Beta Kappa. They had a dinner in Boston to give her an award for her chemistry work.

This semester, she was accepted at the university's medical school in Farmington. On her application, she wrote: To guide, share, love and listen together is a challenge set forth for all parents so that we may give to society children who have developed a sense of self-worth, value, pride, and trust. Rita has 81 classmates several of whom are non-traditional students with families and jobs who are returning to college. Almost everyone understands when Rita sometimes takes the girls with her to classes and lectures and appointments with professors. (Carissa once argued with a university calculus professor that there is no such thing as negative numbers.

When you think about it, she could be right.) Carissa and Jaime both like what their mother does. Carissa even wants to learn CPR. Still, sometimes little girls don't understand that Mom needs a little extra quiet time. At times like that, Rita looks to Robert, who distracts the girls, just as Rita distracts them when Robert is working on his own deadlines. But the guilt is there.

"They know ezacUy how to evoke it," Rita says. "I recognize that, and you have to keep going." Just in case, though, she carries a beeper. Rita's taking her finals now cellular and molecular biology. This is the only time she brings homework home. The rest of the year, nights are for her family.

"I will not sacrifice my family for this" Rita says. "I have reached a point where I will not lose sight that my children are at home, waiting to share theiday with Jan Triska, a Czech Immigrant, will be performing at the Yale Repertory Theatre In "Largo Desolato," written by the best man at his wedding, Czechoslovaklan President Vaclav Havel. Richard Mel The Hartford Courant Desolato" opens at Yale Repertory Theatre this week. In all the years he knew Havel in Prague though he was one of Czechoslovakia's leading theater, film and television actors, still widely admired today Triska never acted in a play by the man who was his friend, the best man at his wedding and the godfather of his children. Triska was always one of the first to read Havel's plays.

"To exist in the theater world, he simply gave his plays to his best friends," Triska says. But the Elays were never performed, as all of avel's works were banned by the Communist state. Even so, Havel's arrest came as a shock to Triska. "It was Sunday morning, and although Vaclav and his wife, Olga, lived nearby, I couldn't walk over to his house and to ask what the situation, what was happening. Instead I had to go into my house and to tune Washington, D.C., the Voice of America in the Czech language, and to find out what's happening to my best friend.

And all of a sudden I realized that the situation is totally absurd, that I have Please see Czech, Page B3 Author urges parents to keep glass half full By MARY MAUSHARD Baltimore Evening Sun A mother and daughter are driving along. The young girl suddenly asks: "Mom, where are all the jerks today?" "Oh," says the slightly surprised mother. "They're only on the road when your father drives." Alan McGinnis tells this story, laughs and then, like the preacher he used to be, points out the lesson therein: "If you expect the world to be peopled with idiots and jerks, they start popping up." McGinnis, a Presbyterian pastor turned therapist and author, uses this story to explain optimism, the subject of his book, "The Power of Optimism" (Harper, And although McGinnis spends 150 pages describing optimism and its 12 characteristics and giving examples of optimists, he is reluctant to define the quality. The best he can do is by way of comparison: "Pessimists are overwhelmed by their problems. Optimists are challenged by them.

They think of themselves as problem-solvers, as trouble-shooters," he says. Optimism, to McGinnis, has much to do with attitude. It is both born and bred in a person, he says. Instilling optimism in children is far from a science, McGinnis says: "So much of what we impart to our Please see Parents, Page B3 today Manager Mark Effron points to the station's specialty reporters in business, consumer affairs and the investigative unit as a key edge in the nightly news competition. Please see Can, Page B3 Engtebert Humperdinck will perform In Hartford and Springfield this week.

Humperdinck, new album on way, gives movies a go By ROGER CATLIN Courant Staff Writer At 54, Englebert Humperdinck is on the verge of his biggest career changes since, well, since he changed his name from Arnold George Dorsey a quarter-century ago. The longtime crooner will be taking a bit of time from his 220-concerts-a-year schedule (which brings him to Hartford's Bushnell Memorial Tuesday and the Paramount Performing Arts Center in Springfield Saturday) to star in a feature-length film. And he's excited, too, about an album coming out this month that's so up to date, it will have a hip-hop song on it Longtime fans, he says over the phone from his Malibu, home, are in for a surprise. "I think so," he says in his sultry voice. "It surprised me," Humperdinck, who has appeared on episodes of "Hotel," "Fantasy Island" and "Love Boat," just wrapped up a miniseries in Luxembourg with Christopher Lee and Patrick MacNee.

Next month he flies to Universal Studios in Florida to begin shooting a drama with Morgan Fairchild. And now, he has more chance of being taken seriously than ever before, he says, "because people from our side of the business Please see Humperdinck, Page B3 I By MALCOLM L. JOHNSON Courant Theater Critic pa he reason why I am sitting l' I here, there's a straight I connection with Vaclav 1 Havel. Because on Jan. 6, 1977, when he was first jailed, I was sweeping snow in front of my house in Prague, and a friend of mine came to me and whispered into my ear that Vaclav was taken the night before." Actor Jan Triska, for 35 years a friend of Czech President and playwright Vaclav Havel, is recalling a turning point in his life as he hunches over a back table in Kavanagh's, the favorite watering hole of Ever Girl Scouts, ever enthusiastic, now Evergreens By JOHN LACY Courant Staff Writer Ask "Jeck" Spitzer of Bloomf ield, an 84-year-old who is still a Girl Scout at heart, to compare girls today with those in her youth, and she replies, "They know lots more today than we did." But because girls now have so many activities organizations, sports, hobbies competing for their attention, it is not easy to draw them into Girl Scouting, she says: "It is definitely a matter of choice." Sara Butler like Spitzer a resident of Duncaster retirement homes was a member of Hartford's first Brownie troop, served as a Girl Scout leader at various levels and, at age 76, remains one of the movement's stalwart supporters.

She also says not as many girls today are interested in scouting as when she was young. In the early days, she says, "Your best friend goes in, you go in." Butler recalls how as a Brownie she enjoyed picking wildflowers and studying nature in woods along Girard Avenue in Hartford's West End, where buildings stand today. Because of their longstanding leadership in Girl Scouting, Butler and Spitzer have been invited to join a new regional organization called Evergreens. The group is looking for experienced Girl Scout alumnae to strengthen the movement's visibility and provide moral and financial support. Elaine Lowengard, executive director of Please see Scout, Page B3 Bob Stern Special to The Courant Sara Butler of Bloomfield was a member of Hartford's first Brownie troop.

The Evergreens is a new regional organization looking for experienced Girl Scouts to strengthen the movement's visibility and support. What's going on TV tonight Change in the WORKS Laura Glenn is the new artistic director for a reorganized WORKS dance troupe. Page B3 "All of Me" TV film, 8 p.m., WTXX (Channel 20). "Memphis Belle" Film playing at area theaters; please see Showtimes inside this section. Leningrad Symphony Orchestra 8 p.m., Bushnell Memorial, 166 Capitol Hartford.

Information: 246-6807. Inside Almanac B4 Ann Landers B4 Crossword B5 tAflttS B2at Horoscope B4 luvnMt B5 Showtintts BS Television B2 Words B6 V- "thirtysomething" talents create dark, daring drama of family life, "Extreme Close-Up." Page B2 4-.