Dayton Daily News from Dayton, Ohio • 9

PAGE LETTERS TO THE EDITOR In our society, appearance means more than reality QuoteAlnquote: To get a credit card, you must be at least 18 years of age, have a body temperature of 98.6 and not be in violation of your parole. Mark Russell rpsign LITERATURE Former British civil servant P.D. James had humble beginnings in Oxford, started writing late 'If I don't start writing pretty soon, I will end up being a grandmother who wished she had been a P.D. JAMES Detective novelist, in 1959, at age 39 She met a medical student, Connor Bantry White; they married when they were both 21. He was a charming person, and their marriage was a She ranks among the most talented novelists writing in English today.

She is one of Britain's best-loved authors. Her books have been translated into a dozen languages and sold millions of copies all over the world 10 million in the United States alone. On the mountain of crime writers in the world, she is sitting right on the summit. What IN Roz Young Sunday Laura Dempsey interviews P.D. James, 1C and wrote until 8 when she had to leave for work.

jv. It took three years to write her first novel, Her Face. It was accepted the first time out by Faber and Faber, which published it in 1962. The, same firm has published all the rest of her books? in the United States her publisher was Scril)Qe at first and is now Alfred A. Knopf.

Life was grim as Connor's mental health A ened. At times Phyllis felt it was almost too much for her to bear, but she plugged along. 4t Sometimes during the night Connor would wake up and say to her, "What have you done with Phyllis?" He did not recognize that the woman beside him was Phyllis. Drugs and liquor" took their toll, and once he threw himself out of 4 window. ,1 One morning in 1964 Phyllis came downstairs -r to find him dead.

His death, which may have been suicide, continues to grieve her to this day. She took the exams to qualify as a hospital administrator, but switched in her mid-forties'' si ill after Connor's death to the civil service in bpth i the police and criminal law departments. She continued her early morning writing She chose the detective novel because she' enjoyed reading them, and she believed the coibv trolled structure demanded would be a goocj apprenticeship for a serious novelist. j'( "The constraints of the genre are liberating pi: my particular creative imagination," she told 4 Katya Melluish of Isis, the Oxford University 1 1 1 magazine, "and although it is perhaps an odd. comparison, I think of it really rather like a' son-'" net.

I would love to write sonnets, and I think it is probably as foolish to say you can't write a good, novel within the constraints of a good story as it would be to say you can't write great poetry in sonnet form." She retired from the Home Office as principal' 1 in charge of the Criminal Policy Department: when she was 59, in 1979. By that time she had is published five more novels, all of which have been made into TV serials and have been shown here on the PBS progran Mystery. Next week: More books, honors and awards, and your chance to meet P.D. at Books Co. ROZ YOUNG is a columnist, author, historian and lifelong Dayton-area resident.

i kmd of woman is she, and how did she get there? You can come and talk to her in the flesh next Saturday afternoon at Books Co. She was born in Oxford, England, in 1920 and named Phyllis Dorothy James. Her father worked in the income-tax office. He moved his family from Oxford to Ludlow in Shropshire and to Cambridge. Phyllis won a scholarship to the Cambridge Girls' High School, where her favorite subject was English; her teacher was Maisie Dalgleish, whose surname Phyllis chose for her detective, Adam Dalgleish.

As a child her home life was all right but nothing to get misty-eyed over. She had a younger brother and sister, and she told them stories she made up about a character named Percy Pig, but she was not particularly close to them. Her parents were somewhat incompatible. Her father was older, a stern person, strict with his children, aloof and undemonstrative. Her mother was warm and loving, generous and religious.

Phyllis wanted to go to the university. If she had been a boy, her father probably would have found the money' to send her, but as it was, he found her a job at 16 in the tax office, where she worked for a year. Then she took a job as assistant stage manager at the Cambridge Arts Festival Theatre, hoping she might in time become a playwright. She always wanted to be a writer from the time she first discovered books in school. delight to them both.

While he was taking his medical training, they had two daughters, Clare in 1942 and Jane in 1944. By then the bombing of London had begun, and when Phyllis was in the hospital with Jane, she could hear the bombs bursting overhead. Connor left to serve with the Royal Army Medical Corps, but in 1945 he returned, mentally ill, and was in and out of hospitals in search of a cure. Phyllis had a sick husband, two children and no income. She moved in with Connor's parents, put her children in boarding school, got a job as a filing clerk in the health-service office and attended evening classes in hospital administration.

For a time she put her ambitions to become a writer on hold because it was wartime. Bombs were dropping everywhere, life was queuing up for articles in short supply, making do and even sometimes going hungry. Even after the war, life was a treadmill that had no button for slowing down. Finally in 1959, when she was 39, she said to herself, "If I don't start writing pretty soon, I will end up being a grandmother who wished she had been a writer." There was no time in her day to write, so, as she says, "I got up with the larks." Every morning at 6 she sat down at her desk I wonder why the Dayton Daily News Editorial Board does not understand that men will do almost anything to restore their hair nightmare question aris-esvDec. 29).

Granted, it seems like a big gamble to risk one's virility in exchange for a head full of hair. But sometimes appearance is more important than "reality just ask the women who are willing to risk their health with breast implants. Or ask the doctors who perform cosmetic procedures and the makers of cosmetics, false nails and eyelashes, breast forms and hosiery. We are a society obsessed with appearance. Of course, I've had women tell me baldness is no big deal; I've overheard some of these same women critique the appearance of other men.

I've seen surveys that indicate that a sizable minority of women is not concerned with a man's hairline; these surveys also showed that a sizable majority of female respondents is not attracted to a balding pate. Truth be told: Short, fat and bald are the worst things to be. I would agree that science has had little to offer balding men. We are still at the "snake oil" stage of remedies, with no permanent, safe and affordable solution yet 6ffered. My suggestion is that cloning techniques be utilized to reproduce unlimited supplies of hair plugs and that the procedure to implant them become as and affordable as a trip to the dentist.

Robert P. Troxell Centerville Dayton must take bold steps tQ.restore city's liveability The Jan. 6 editorial "City's posture on baseball begs question" was, unfortunately, right on target. The editorial writer's foresight was depressing but all too true. Dayton is dying fast and has become a very undesirable place to live in.

We have falling property values and poor basic services in particular, law enforce-ment'fltid code enforcement. We have horrible schools, and there's nothing but hope on the horizon. The city can live again. It will take a few bold and ver. unpopular moves.

Let's start with some very aggressive policing. The city streets are a great place to start, since there's no traffic enforcement. There's a ton of money waiting to be collected. The booming auto stereos also would be a good source of revenue. Let's noffoTget how much all the impounded cars would bring if we had someone enforcing the state insurance I have never lived in a city where the police presence on thastreets is so nonexistent.

People can walk the tat three in the morning or three in the afternoon with their 40-ouncers and go unchecked. We need beat qpps who have the "Not on my beat attitude" and a political system that will support them. If we are going to save Dayton, we have to clean up the, streets. I'm not referring to litter, either. For revenues downtown, open an area designated as a "Combat Zone," Here would be the strip clubs and other controversial forms of entertainment.

Then we would have revenues downtown, and many of the undesirables who, down our neighborhoods would have a place to congregate and sell their wares. The majority of the problems would be in a concentrated area. That would cut down on the manpower requirements for vice squads i and allow the aggressive posture around the rest Of the city that it needs. To get this city liveable again, it's going to take guts and a "show-me-the-money" attitude. Citizens are ready to live with controversial and unpopular moves if it means the neighborhoods and mam thoroughfares would be safe again Chuck A.

Boudrow Dayton "-tin Scientists in 'irrelevant' fields know plenty about climate I must question Rowland Netha way's use of a report by a Washington business group, the Citizens for a Sound Economy Foundation, to attack the credentials of thousands of scientists who recently expressed their concern over global climatic disruption should base its position on facts rather than dogma," Dec. 15). The CSE report judged that only scientists in a hand-ful of fields can legitimately be considered experts on climate change. Almost 100 disciplines, including ecology, forestry, botany and biology, were ruled out as irrelevant. Yet it is researchers in precisely these areas who are most aware of the wide-ranging, day-today impacts of climate change The scientists' statement represents the most significant political statement by a highly qualified and diverse group of scientists since the groundswell of opposition from the scientific community to the nuclear threat.

It demonstrates consensus among diverse interests and makes clear that climate change affects untold aspects of our lives. It is the height of irony that CSS should even write abou the climate-change debate going on within the science community. CSE is funded by a long list of foss0-fuel companies. Many of these companies have underwritten the handful of skeptics in the scientific fieliSho, working largely outside the peer-reviewed have attempted to reposition global warming a a theoretical phenomenon rather than fact. John Passacantando Alexandria, Va.

Mr. Passacantando is executive director of Ozone Action, a rnprbfit environmental organization based In Washington, Sneak rt rii Up c(l KteOp Ws Hdbp Yw i Envy is one of the seven deadly sins. As a child I was guilty of it. So were my two brothers and two sisters. Crowing up in a nice neighborhood where every family had plenty, except ours, we often envied what others had to eat.

-1 1 Have a brief compliment, criticism or comment? Call us and make your point In 30 seconds. Comments on local Issues are especially welcomed. Dial 463-4636, then 1015. I was wondering why the Dayton Police Department can list the names and addresses of men who have solicited prostitutes in the paper and the Montgomery County Auditor's Office can list the 10 worst delinquent real estate tax offenders' names and addresses in the paper, but businessmen can't list the names and addresses of people who give them bad checks. Re the Dec.

28 "Speak Up!" comment that "guns don't kill people; people kill What an utterly asinine statement. Guns were created by people for one reason only to kill. Guns are instruments of death used to kill living things, both animal and human. I wish the state of Ohio would follow California and be sensible and eliminate smoking in all eating establishments. Hurrah for California and its ban on smoking in restaurants and bars throughout the state.

Can Ohio be far behind? It's great to read that Elder Beerman has emerged from bankruptcy and, according to Chairman and CEO Frederick Mershad, will now take the necessary steps to grow its market share in Dayton. Elder Beerman has the perfect opportunity to invest in northwest Dayton by becoming an anchor at the Salem Mall. A solution to Ohio's school-funding problem would be to charge a nominal fee to parents sending their children to public schools. I think that with all the working people and families that are leaving Ohio because of high state and local taxes, making prisoners pay for their stay in jail is a good idea. I'm glad to see that the city of Dayton is giving former city manager Pill Estabrook his money.

From the windows, we watched as our unloaded grocery bag after bag after bag. Our envy sparked imagination. What delicious foods did those bags hold? Cereal? Like Captain Crunch or Lucky Charms, the colorful breakfast candy other kids talked about at school. It seemed much more fun to munch than the lumpy, tasteless grits that were the staple of too many Lyles family meals breakfast, lunch, sometimes even dinner. D.C.

that is dedicated to atmospheric protection. Were there apples and oranges in those bags? And what exactly did graham crackers tastej LEtlIRS TO THE EDITOR should have a signature, address and daytmihone for verification. Letters of fewer than 200 words are preTJIid. all are subject to editing. Due to volume, unpublished letters cannot be acknowledged.

Writers inviting a published response to questions about editorials should note "Print Reply" on letter. For more on the selection process, call NewsLine with a Touch-Tone phone at 463-4636, then 1017. Address: Dayton Dally New, P.O. Box 1287, Dayton, Ohio 45401-1287. Fax 225-7302.

E-mail: EdletterOcoxohlo.com like? -V My brothers and sisters and I have good jobs now, and we eat pretty well. We use our imagination for other things. But for far too many children in the Miami Valley and the world, imagining a good hardy meal is a daily exercise in creativity that they would rather not have. They'd rather have big bowl of cereal, a decent sandwich with crisp lettuce and tomato, a little something sweet. And they deserve it.

Won't you give this year so that they can? DOONESBURY FLASHBACKS By Garry Trudeau Just imagine the grateful smiles on their faces. MAHBMtG. I THINK KXAB geCAUSe 90 1 CAN exzpr A RETURN i1' 0FMW JtWRS -PfVWOlNS MUMJHYI5M! 7DQ4Y VCU CAN SAf ANYTHING YOU llANT-ANYTHING! 4 Dayton Daily News 'jxm mm.