The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • 71

VIEW Cos Atujctcs (Times Wednesday, December 2. 1987 Part 7T Jack Smith The Appeal of a Senior Auxiliary Court 'j 4 4 '-1 Its ANACLETO RAPPING Lot Angeles Timet At left, Tomasa Martinez feeds children, Arturo, left, Roberto. Jo Anne Worley, Jeff Bridges, Gerry Cutillo, Katherine Helmond serve food at Los Angeles Mission. On Skid Row, a Glut of Good Will Downtown Missions Welcome Yearly Outpouring of Gifts, but Some Feel Efforts Might Be Better Directed I don't have the expertise in such matters that Dear Abby and Ann Landers have, but a 75-year-old man has written me about what he calls his "three-quarter life crisis." I don't think he wants me to give him advice-, he just wants me to sympathize with him. F.

Edward Little, a lawyer, says his mid-life crisis didn't bother him very much. "But this three-quarter life crisis has me dispirited and discouraged. I am really down." Little is not discouraged by his health or his physical or mental capacity. On the contrary, he says he is in buoyant health, and as mentally sharp as ever. He swims, runs, eats vegetables and makes love.

What troubles him is that there is no market for his energies. "I'm dead in the water with my motor tuned for racing." I have heard from F. Edward Little before. He is the man, you may remember, who wrote to complain about my columns reporting on the difficult time I had after my coronary bypass. "Aren't you coming on a little heavy?" he wrote, evidently referring to my description of my experiences in intensive care, when I had delusions of having been kidnaped and held prisoner, and also my later depression, weakness and frustration.

Little said he had recently had a bypass and that it was a piece of cake. He enclosed an article in which he described his operation in what I called a "relentlessly blithe style." He wrote: "I left my office early, jumped into my little sports car, whizzed over to the hospital, grabbed my overnight bag, ran up the steps and said to the nice lady, 'I'm Mr. Little. I'm here for my I found that a little hard to take. I recall that I was almost as blithe as Little before my operation, but not afterward.

He said that he was out of intensive care in one day, out of the hospital in less than one week both records and was told that he would soon be able to drive, make love, get back in the pool and carry out the rubbish. That was a few years ago. Now Little has reached the three-quarter century mark and is frustrated because nobody seems to value his energy, his experience and his ability. He encloses a letter he has written to Gov. George Deukmejian urging him to consider using senior auxiliary judges to alleviate our congested court calendars and "utilize an untapped well of wisdom and experience." Little cites his own qualifications.

He has practiced law in Los Angeles for 45 years, with "honor, dignity and some considerable success." He has frequently sat pro bono as a judge pro tern in the Municipal Court, and is a senior arbitrator for the American Arbitration Assn. As for fitness, Little states that he weighs the same as he did in high school, he watches his diet, does not drink or smoke, and runs and swims several times a week. He suggests that many other competent septuagenarians would be equally qualified, and proposes "a small corps of senior auxiliary judges with a minimum age of 70." He says, "I would like to see the Senior Auxiliary Judges Corps as an elite group. Selection standards should be at least as high as those for normal judicial appointments. Selection should constitute a highly prized distinction.

We should have status and a mark of respect for having served our profession faithfully over a long period of time. You wouldn't believe what we would give you back." I have no doubt that Little is right in thinking that there must be a large number of lawyers in their 70s who could serve the state as auxiliary judges, and I don't doubt that they are needed. One remembers that the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court often serve not only into their 70s but also into their 80s and 90s. I am reminded of the remark attributed to Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes when he was in his 90s.

Holmes was standing on Pennsylvania Avenue with a colleague when a shapely young government office worker trotted by on her lunch break. Holmes is said to have remarked, "Oh, to be 70 again!" If a corps of senior auxiliary judges could restore that kind of youthful spirit to our municipal courts, it might not be a bad thing. By BOB SIPCHEN, "There were others going on too, but I was trying to digest," he explained with a pained grin. Like wise men going to Bethlehem, churches, charities and individuals come to Los Angeles' Skid Row each holiday season, laden with food and gifts. Celebrities Help Serve This year actors Jeff Bridges, Rosey Grier, Jo Anne Worley, Earl Holliman, Katherine Helmond and Rose Marie, and the Los Angeles Kings hockey team were a few of the celebrities who helped serve Thanksgiving dinners at various Skid Row missions.

But as some of the people who work on Skid Row all year round see it, there's little wisdom behind the orgy of meals and presents that abruptly appears in this David W. Stewart's book examines bal Communication in Advertising" by Hecker and Stewart, published last month. "Nonverbal communication is at least as important and, in many cases, more important than verbal communication in advertising," Stewart believes, pointing out the degree to which it affects whether an ad projects an image that translates into sales. 4 why Half-eaten hunks of pumpkin pie lay in the gutter beside "Night Time Express" bottles; Styrofoam plates caked with stuffing and cranberries littered the sidewalks; pigeons pecked at heaps of discarded turkey bones. It was the day after Thanksgiving and the signs were everywhere America's cornucopia had spilled some of its abundance on Skid Row.

"I was stuffed," said Bruce Young, a 32-year-old who lives in one of the low-rent hotels fronting 5th Street. Moving from the annual turkey-with-alMhe-trimming's feed outside the Fred Jordan Mission to the spread at the Salvation Army's Harbor Light Alcoholic Rehabilitation Center for Men, Young had wolfed down seven free Thanksgiving dinners. TV Ads-Each Little Picture Sells a Story By BEVERLY BEYETTE, Times Staff Writer When David W. Stewart fiddles with his television dial, he's apt to be zipping past prime-time programming in hopes of finding another commercial. "I go home and watch TV for the ads," says Stewart, who for about a dozen years has been researching how advertising affects consumers, first in the '70s as research manager for a major ad agency and currently as professor of marketing at use.

Stewart, who has a Ph.D. in psychology, is intrigued most with "nonverbal communication" in advertising that is, everything except the spoken or written word and the ways in which music, sound effects, artwork and body language help to create images that sell everything from canned peas to designer perfume. He and Sidney Hecker of the Young Rubicam ad agency in Manhattan gathered about 70 industry, advertising and academic types together last year to talk about nonverbal communication as an idea whose time is here. One results a book, "Nonver- Mi ippi 13P PETER DARLEY Times Staff Writer seedy downtown area on Thanksgiving and Christmas. It's not that Southern California's underclass doesn't need help, they say, but rather that the outpouring of money and energy might better be spent in other ways, at other times, and in places other than Skid Row.

"Blind giving can cause crises," explained John Dillon, director of the Chrysalis Center, a Skid Row self-help organization. Last Christmas season, for instance, a church group from the Westside loaded up a truck with the canned goods they'd collected, then drove to Skid Row, Dillon recalled. They found the street corners crowded with eager recipients, and the church volunteers "got so excited, they cared so ELLEN JASKOL Los Angeles Times TV commercials succeed or fail. "One of the classics" of image advertising, Stewart said, was the surreal, science-fiction Macintosh computer commercial created by ChiatDay, a Los Angeles agency, and aired during the 1984 Super Bowl. "There was Very little there about the product," he noted no information Please see STEWART, Page 6 and ran into another writer, who spotted me and shouted, "Oh my God!" "Do you like it?" I asked, nervous, hoping this first response would be a positive one.

"I hate it!" she spat. "I saw that in London in 1980!" I was crushed. "Well," she said, "if you didn't want my honest opinion you shouldn't have asked me." Two days later she called to apologize. "I'm sorry," she said, "but I'll never get used to this." Two days after that, I was on Skid Row downtown covering a story. As I stood on the sidewalk a man sidled up behind me and said in a squirrelly voice, "Hey, blondie.

Hey, blondiel" I looked around to see who he Please see BLONDE, Page 12 Stein, much, they were literally pelting these people with canned goods. It was like getting hit with dollar bills, 'cause the residents could turn around and sell the cans," Dillon said. By the time the truck worked its way down 5th Street, "a riot" had broken out. "We had to call the police to stop them," he said. "The ugliness of poverty came out." Every holiday season, Clancy Imislund, director of the Midnight Mission on Los Angeles Street sees "well-intentioned people" pull up and pop open trunks filled with blankets or sweaters or food to give away.

What they don't know is that "on the street, the strongest predators will get them, use what they need and sell the rest," Imislund said. "Guys come down and pass out $20 bills," Please see MISSIONS, Page 10 Fund-Raising Idea Proves ItCanFly By GARY LIBMAN, Times Staff Writer A campaign begun on the East Coast to raise money for the world's impoverished children is moving West. As early as Dec. 15, Northwest Airlines travelers returning to Los Angeles from Japan with foreign coins in their pockets will be invited to donate that change to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). The Northwest collection program, announced in Washington, D.C., Tuesday, brings to the West Coast a program started by UNICEF with Virgin Atlantic Airways.

The airline, which has two flights a day between London and Newark, has raised $10,000 a month since July by asking passengers to drop foreign coins in envelopes bound into Virgin Atlantic's in-flight magazine. Impressed by the proceeds from Virgin Atlantic, UNICEF officials began to solicit major American airlines for the program. After Northwest announced its participation Tuesday, a Continental Air-Please see UNICEF, Page 3 ANACLETO RAPPINQ Los Angeles Timer the blonde: Look out, Madonna. The Dye Is Cast: My Life as a New Blonde By JEANNINE STEIN, Times Staff Writer "Well?" a friend asked over coffee the other day. "Is it true what they say? Do blondes have more fun?" I had often wondered that myself.

So two weeks ago, I decided to find out. On my 28th birthday I stepped into the beauty salon, delivered my brown tresses to the power of peroxide and emerged 2V4 hours later with hair the color and texture of Malibu Barbie's. I kept my eyebrows brown. Being blonde hasn't changed my life dramatically; my days are not spent in a madcap, zany series of adventures. Being blonde has been I had told oniy two people of my plan, wanting the initial reactions to be fresh.

They were. I drove downtown to The Times that Saturday to pick something up MILLER Inside View ABBY: Smokers can ruin a good holiday. Page 2. ANN LANDERS: "Relish the Moment." Page 11. ASTROLOGY: Carroll Rlghter's column.

Page 4. BOOKS: Richard Eder reviews "A House of Trees." Page 12. BRIDGE: Alfred Sheinwold's column. Page 12. COMICS: Page 13.

Marylouise Oates is taking a day off. Jeannine Stein au naturel, the brunette..