The Mercury from Pottstown, Pennsylvania • Page 6

The Pennsylvania Story Lawmakers Have Work Cut Out for Them Unquestionably it would be just about the understatement of the year to say that lawmakers returning to Capitol Hill are not in very iine fettle! As one legislative stalwart expressed it to this column: in just about the biggest funk ever been The mental posture of lawmaking greats is perhaps understandable. In the first place of course, hopes had been high albeit mostly from a wishful standpoint that legislative leaders would be able to work out some solution to vexing tax problem during the August recess. This however, failed to materialize in fact in general the impost question, or rather the solution thereto, seems to be more distant now than ever before, if this is possible. Conceivably of course, a may come suddenly, at any time, but there are few if any who subscribe to this view a half-billion dollars in new taxes is just too much to swallow in one quick gulp, particularly with one chamber (the House of Representatives) in anti-administration hands, and the other in administration GOP hands. The tax ideologies of the two have been and are as divergent and adamant as two females in a wig shop.

In fact, the general feeling is that even had both House and Senate been in all-Republican or all-Democratic hands, the result would have been just about the same as at present, so strong and divergent are tax increase feelings. However, there's more to this fettle business than just the tax dilemma. For one thing, lawmakers earlier had hopes of being out of session formally and finally by the end of this month but this now seems to be as remote as a hummingbird nest on the polar ice cap. In fact many are resigned, in high irritation of course, to the possibility of being here until the end of the year. It has happened before and it could very easily happen again this year, particularly under the circumstances.

While the tax dilemma remains the prime thorn, there are other sharpies to prick the hides of lawmakers major general legislation which so far has wandered almost nowhere. There is for example, the Shafer Administration legislative program which has been lost almost completely in the tax swamp. By the same token, legislative Democrats have found their prime objectives bogged down in the same swamp all of which leaves neither side much to crow about from the accomplishment standpoint. In other words, the have been anything but sterlingl Aside from all this though, returning lawmakers are in somewhat of a froth over the (indelicate?) manner in which the 14 state-owned institutions of higher learning have been announcing their tuition or fee increases placing the blame right smack on lawmakers themselves. Letters to students announcing the fee increase run the general theme that because the Legislature this year their budget, the fee uppage is necessary.

cut their budget?" queried one lawmaker in close to a frothing rage, who then thundered (or at least spoke quite loudly): heavens, we increased every last one of their budgets over last year. Certainly they receive every penny they requested: who does these are they to be the No, as lawmakers pick up their cudgels once again, it look too good but then again, it rarely does! Pottstoicn Mercuri FOCUS Tuesday, September 9, 1969 Page 6 DRAFT QUOTAS Helen Help Us! What is a Teenage Boy, Reader Asks? By HELEN BOTTEL Dear Helen: Thank you for sending me the copies of Is a Boy and is a Girl Now I have another request. About four years ago (before I was really that interested) you published is a Teen-Age It was quite different from and I wish print it again, so that this time I can clip it out and keep it. Thanks for all the is they're terrific! LUV YA. Dear Luv: I find the exact is a Teen-age you wanted, so I commissioned our daughter, Kathy, to write another one.

(Teen-age daughters come in very handy!) HIM! (With Apologies to Allen Beck) Between the innocence of childhood and the responsibilities of fatherhood, after adolescence but before wrinkles, we find a gangly, irreverent creature called a teen-age boy. He comes in various sizes, shapes, cars, and clothes, the latter usually consisting of either cut-offs or stay-pressed slacks (which an almost-clean T-shirt and ragged tennis-runners, unless he is barefoot. When he wears a tie, it is usually crooked; if he wears a suit, under protest and usually too small. He spends his summer growing two inches of hair around the neckline and an indefinite number of hairs on his chin, all of which are removed, at parental request when he puts on his shoes and starts back to school. A teen-age boy can be found almost anywhere, doing almost nothing.

lie may hustle a few bucks in a pool hall, try to pick up dates on Main Street, or he may be adjusting a faulty transmission in his dune buggy, or raiding the refrigerator. despises homework, housework, and work in general when having fun. He resents being in before midnight. He dreads restrictions and despises authority. However, he likes girls, pizza and Coke; enjoys the drags, working with cars, and the gang, and loves his girl friend when with her.

Only a teen-age boy could fit a student body card, an ID card, a license, fishing, hunting, and girl-chasing licenses, five pictures, two old receipts, a football schedule, 100 trading stamps, and a dollar bill in an old, beat-up wallet. And only this pack rat type could fill one glove compartment with: Three wrenches various sizes, one screwdriver without handle, a pocket knife with broken blade, five can openers, a greasy rag. a bottle of after-shave, two maps of San Francisco, an old you-know-what magazine, a flashlight, a little black telephone book, ten hair ribbons (from various dates), and last week's homework. A teen-age boy is viewed differently by different people. His father calls him irresponsible and lazy, his mother forgives him and feeds him ten meals a day, his kid brother idolizes him, his sister tolerates him, and other girls adore him.

He can have the energy of a dead mouse, the ambition of a sloth, the temperament of a lion, and the determination of a snail. He's the last to get up in the morning, and the last to go to bed at night. Dennis the Menace with a deep voice; Romeo without a ladder. Yet, deep down, beneath the grease stains and despite his doubts, this awkward, raggedy, fun-loving creature is slowly becoming a man. When a time comes for him to be serious, he will be, and when problems arise, he will face them with courage.

Just give him time! KATHY B. This column is dedicated to family living, so if having trouble, let Helen help you. She will also welcome your own amusing experiences. Address Helen Bottel in care of The Mercury. On The Line lou Copyright 1969 Los Times Syndicate "And I'll Reign Until I'm Overthrown Rest Makes Reporters Rusty By BOB CONSIDINE These days, there should be a law against a newsman taking time off from his job.

Would a fireman look at his watch, turn off the hose been squirting on the burning church and go home for lunch? Would the space editor call in the day of the moon landing to say he was laid up with a hangover? A reporter who took a vacation in the summer of 1969 should have been picked up for vagrancy. Rest is bad for the gatherer of news. It makes him as rusty as the reprieved Lazarus, shiftless brother of Mary and Martha. Contemplation of navel for prolonged periods does nothing for a commentator, except perhaps remind him that Bugs Baer once observed that the only sensible functional use is for holding salt while eating celery in bed. A newsman goes back to work diminished in size and self- importance, timid about leaping for his old saddle on a merry- go-round that spins ever faster and faster.

News of late is a hurricane without a passive eye. He muses over what he missed and secretly questions whether he can ever catch up. But he tries to recapture the images of the parade that has just passed and puts words to the emotions its principal players provoked looked on: while he mutely TED KENNEDY The young senior Senator form the Commonwealth of Massachusetts makes it harder every day for the public he felt would one day elect him President to give him his constitutional right to a fair hearing. In all this dreadful business he has consistently remained his own worst enemy, from the moment he walked past the first lighted house after leaving the scene of the accident to his challenge the other day of the inquest system. Richard Nixon came from a surly renunciation of politics to the Presidency in six fleeting years.

But at his lowest ebb, after his loss to Pat Brown for governor of California. Nixon retained that boon which Ted may have lost forever the vote. The deaths of Joe Jack and Bobby have been studied exhaustively by historians for the effect of those tragedies on their respective times. No one seems to have added the now obvious: Their deaths and the evaporation of their discipline deprived their kid brother of his rudder. HO CHI MINH The sinking of the old revolutionary who once worked as a waiter in a New York chop suey joint and lived to throw mighty France out of Southeast Asia and make the mightier U.S.

wonder why it ever got in, caused expected ripples of optimism in America. We as a people, like dogs, drool expectantly at the real or imagined sound of every bell that tinkles in Hanoi, Peking and Moscow. Why would the passing of a Ho Chi Minh affect his nation's attitudes and firm convictions any more than the death of Franklin Roosevelt altered the course of World War II? With or without Ho, the war will be pursued as carefully planned. The reasons are almost alarmingly simple: 1) announced that we win it militarily; 2) President Nixon must find a way out of it before i becomes his political albatross and, 3) at Panmunjon we embarked on a tacit national policy which gives priority to an uneasy draw over a bloody all-out victory. SINO-RUSSIAN FRICTIONS Three decades ago, two huge erstwhile friends, Russia and Germany, fell upon each other.

Many in this country and elsewhere said. Let them destroy each Washington whatever they are, assure us that if the present border troubles erupt into a big war, not lift a finger. Nonsense. been lifting fingers (and have had many of them blown off) for more than half a century. Old Konrad Adenauer once liked to tease his American visitors by saying, in effect.

there is ever a war between the Russians and Chinese, and the Russians turn their faces to the West and cry out for help, you Americans will be the first to respond. You saved them once; do it MUSIC FESTIVALS A generation gap has been filled, that which existed in semantics between and The only rational who could see any charm in the freak-outs of hundreds of thousands of kooks must have been those who profited by their swarming, or police who were relieved not to be burdened with finding enough jails for them. Mary McGrath Children's Letters To God 3 dU'4 zirtchs! OJ King 1969 Tv Cameo Connie Dedhamto Hollywood A city means different things to different people. Ask actress Connie Hines. come from Dedham to Hollywood via Boston, Greensboro, Jacksonville, Miami, and New York.

Connie, who once played the feminine lead opposite Alan Young in the TV series, is also launching on a new direction professionally, going from comedy to drama. Constituting this turning point is her guest starring role as Hilda in on to be colorcast over Sunday, Sept. 21. Coming off the Ponderosa. Connie pondered the meaning of the cities in her life, starting with her home town, Dedham, 28 miles from Boston.

meant said Connie. what my mother wanted for her children, since she had been an actress. Mine was a show business family. My father was a director and actor a complete dreamer. That part of life Dedham has helped me keep my feet on the ground.

As a child, though, I always dreamed of being a star. I felt there were so many I wanted to portray. My friends used to ask, are you where actresses get into trouble they lose sight of who they are. Fantasy is so much fun and reality is so frightening the She still goes home from time to time. I see said Connie.

brothers are married and have children. I envy this, I had to come to grips with it, I wish I could be like that, but I know I be Boston was nearby, but remote. never spent much time said Connie. was always like an enigma. like to know Boston.

I never knew it. My father loved it. It has a special place in my heart like a distant dream. Some time like to go back and get to know Connie got to know Greensboro, N. C.

was very young in Greensboro, almost like a flower that blossomed she said. was first married and very naive. I found Greensboro warm, enveloping. But it was a way of life that didn't make me happy, because I yearned for something else. It was a charming, lovely time in life, but very Connie started to find herself in Jacksonville, Fla.

where I got my divorce and where I began to emerge as a she said. where I first started to take show business She worked as a secretary by day, did commercials at night, joined a theatre group, got her own early morning and evening TV show and accepted an offer to come to Florida, where she stayed eight months doing three plays and several commercials. Then it was New York. stimulating, said Connie of New York, a fantasy world to not my real world. I think I could ever get back to reality -there.

There is no time to sit back and take stock of things. I need time for thought, Connie Hines finds Hollywood right for her. been good to said Connie. a complex city. more what you make it, than what it is.

It can be a fantasy world and it can also be a very stabilizing town where you can pick and choose what you want. You have to learn to pace yourself. what Hollywood has done for A description came to mind. once said that Hollywood is like a piece of black velvet with emeralds, rubies and diamonds shining brightly, while New York is like a piece of black velvet with sparkling pearls. To me, you must pick the gems you want and do with them what you It always easy.

many times you get said Connie, in this business. so easy to listen to people who tell you things you want to hear, and you want to believe them. But you must listen to what you want out of the overall picture, and then pick and choose. very lucky if you can do that. what I'm trying to do.

been through it all. the highs and lows, and now leveled off to what I think I want. That is to be a good actress, with my feet on the Connie now knows also why she has to act. Said she: are so many parts of me that need to be expressed love, anger, beauty, heart, longing, needs asking for fulfillment all these things that encompass a whole human being, things that most people are afraid to show and then I am afraid to show as a human being. But I can show them as an actress.

Thus I fulfill my needs as an actress, as a human being and as a Speaking Frankly Soliloquyby Hugo NOW THAT PRESIDENT NIXON HAS A FOR US IN THE SECRET SERVICE HAS That cool breeze that is fanning the nation in the aftermath of Labor Day is not a hint of fall. It is a giant sigh of relief as the student summer sit-ins leave the living room and head back to break up the campuses. Since there are never enough part-time jobs to go around, and not all students dig volunteering, suburbia has been in a state of siege since the summer vacation began. (In my own household you get a summer job or you eat. It does nothing for the economy, but its great for the nerves!) Blaring stereos have captured the summer silence of entire neighborhoods.

Even when the students slept, they did it to the accompaniment of The Cream or under the spell of the Stones. You naven't lived unless had the back yard mowed to music with the sound turned up to turn on the mower while he turned on the power machine. While no student on summer leave was actually ever accused of holding the home fort captive, and the only real raid was on the refrigerator, there was a definite atmosphere of openhearted hostility among the more establishment-types as their sons and daughters took over the teepees for vacation. Fathers who could be barely counted on to remember their names, kept careful count of every new hair upon their heads as the summer progressed. By -the end of the summer it was no longer clear whether the kids were being sent to college to get an education or just to get lost! In the homes where the alleged were welcome, relations with the fringe neighborhood quickly broke down.

It was as though welcomers had the mind by consorting with the enemy. Among the parental peers, th'se who got along with the kids were labelled odd; those who make it made out fine. Now that the revolutionaires are rested, and their parents are pooped, time for things to get back to normal. For those are supporting the movement by supporting the students, back to the mines to dig up another load of loot. It's up against the wall for everyone else!.