Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 23

18 1 1 1 1 1 1 I fHyvuv 7 5, 5 1 ft i Dear Ann Landers: Will you please allow me to use your column to address my own children as well as others who live by "The New Dear Children: We have tried to give you love, understanding, religious convictions, a good education, discipline, everything we thought was important to help you grow up straight and strong. But something went wrong. Why or how, we do not know. Somewhere along the line you rejected our values and made up your own rules. You decided sex is all right if two people love one another.

Your moral code says marriage is not important. You were of legal age when you made your decision. Your father and 1 were crushed when you and your beloved decided to live together. We expressed our strong disap-, proval but decided to keep our hearts and doors open hoping and praying that your crooked thinking would straighten out in time. Now you have brought a child into the world.

Again you tell us marriage rs not important that if two people are in love nothing else matters. We have done our best to understand your point of view. It is so foreign to us. But you are our children and we cannot stop loving you. So we go along.

But please don't think because we haven't written you off that we approve of your life-style; We are appalled by it. It is heartbreaking to witness our children living in a manner we consider immoral and indecent. And now to friends and rela- dren turn out this way? We have no answers. We are heartsick and bewildered. We did our best, but apparently it wasn't good enough.

Thank you, Ann dear, for letting us say all this in the paper. I know I speak not only for my husband and myself, but for thousands of other parents as well. There are so many of us from New York to California. Some see their children but never talk about them. Others have disowned the rebels because they couldn't tolerate the criticism of their friends.

Everyone's heart aches for the child who goes astray but each one handles his problems in his own way. Who in heaven's name knows what is right any more? Our daily prayer is "God help us all." MY NAME IS LEGION Dear Friend: I do not believe there is a new morality. The life-style you describe is merely a rejection of the old morality. You have written a beautiful letter. My heart and my hand is with you and all other parents who share this problem.

CONFIDENTIAL to Should I Tell The answer is NO. The best way to keep a secret is alone. If you want honest, down-to-earth information on your sei questions, read Ann's new booklet, "High School Sex And How To Deal With It A Guide For Teens And Their Parents." Send 50 cents la coin plus a long, stamped, self-addressed envelope to Ann Landers, Box 1400, Elgin, 111. 60120. tives who keep asking why we condone your behavior: It is one thing to be heartsick, and we are and to disapprove, which we do.

But to blot out 20 years of our lives as if they never happened is impossible. We cannot pretend our children and our grandchild do not exist. What's more, they are flesh of our flesh. Nothing will ever change that. Of course their life-style is upsetting to us but cutting them out of our lives would be infinitely more painful.

We have been asked what happened. Why did our chil a Ann Landers JL' M-r- A ehind the Figures on Senior Drivers Look Continued From Page 1C driver Is very nearly as dangerous as the under-20 driver. For example, state police figures show that once a senior driver is involved in an accident, he is just as likely to kill someone as the young driver. ing, or restricted to certain destinations like the doctor's office or the supermarket. For others, a course In the problems of driving as one gets older might help.

Pastalan developed a model course he expects a number of inter-ested groups to start teaching, probably by next fall. It is designed to show elderly people how age limits their driving ability and what they can do to compensate for these changes. on private automobiles. Pastalan and other experts also agree the older driver by an large is aware of his limitations hence his avoidance of night and rush-hour driving. But some older people refuse to admit the encroachments of age.

For them, the state should intervene, says Pastalan, and limit driving to daylight hours or to the vicinity of home. Currently Michigan has no special requirement for testing the older driver. But there are certain restrictions that can be placed on licenses, requiring people with impairments to drive under safe conditions. For example, one can be limited to daylight driving; prohibited from freeway driv difficult for some to define where sound is coming from. INFORMATION overload older people sometimes have difficulty handling a lot of information coming at them at once.

Because the older driver dislikes crossing traffic lanes, he tends to drive in the left of four lane streets and tends to drive slower than the flow of traffic. On the bright side, drunk driving is far less common among older drivers than among the younger group, probably, Pastalan says, because people who make a habit of drinking and driving rarely live to old age. The state so far has not been able to catch some of these age-related problems with its testing procedures. The state requires an eye test with every renewal application. Pastalan's group sent researchers to take the test wearing the specially clouded lenses which duplicate the sight problems of the elderly.

Not one of them was spotted by the testing process. No one, least of all Pastalan, wants to suggest that be i Zz KV '7 If fcr -l'-xf about the licensing process. So the department started a senior citizens advisory program and asked for assistance from U-M geronologists. It was then, Pastalan said, that everyone realized how little research had been done on the topic. So with funds from several retiree groups, the institute started a research program.

Pastalan's group selected a number of senior drivers and took them over a course specially selected to include a number of typical driving situations. The route was video taped and replayed later so the drivers could be questioned about what they did. One of the devices developed by the program Is the "empa-thic model," a device which duplicates the limitations In sight and hearing experienced by many older people. Researchers wore specially coated lenses, plugs to filter sound and other devices to study the effect of these impairments on the older driver's ability to perform. What Research Turned Up The researchers discovered a number of common difficulties: GLARE FROM natural light and from unbalanced artificial light was the number one problem of the elderly driver.

COLORS especially cool colors like green and blue, tend to fade, leaving the driver unable to read road signs. DEPTH PERCEPTION Is Impared; elderly drivers often misjudge distance. HEARING LOSS makes it gMMg 'II Will you ever finish JacolDSonS WILL BE CLOSED FOR INVENTORY today TUESDAY, FEB. 24 cause of these limitations, older people should be discouraged entirely from driving. Already Too Isolated Gerontologists agree that the elderly are already too isolated from the rest of society.

To take away their cars would be to rob them of virtually all contact with other people. Less than 14 percent of the elderly live within a mile of their doctor; less than 20 percent, that near the church and recreation, and less than 33 percent that near the grocery store. Almost half live In rural areas with no public transportation, and the majority of urban and suburban dwellers say public transportation is inadequate or unsafe. They must, therefore, rely 778-4160 ft HALF-OFF! Jnterivlatic For 1ft Occasion XjMw Dressea Jy moving in? You might not think $0 when the living room's still Jammed with packing crates. But you will and I can help.

As your WELCOME WAGON Hostess I can save you time ano montjf In our area And brighten up your family with my basket of gifts. Take a break and call m. Mrs. Lowe with the new bus she drives for the Ecorse Senior Citizens Lounge Ex-Airman Matlovich 6On Campaign Trail9 t4H mm stop signs and runs headlong Into trouble, said Pastalan. Several years ago the secretary of state's office became concerned about the nervousness older drivers displayed when they came in to take renewal tests and about their apparent lack of knowledge Pnu Photo by IRA R08ENBER9 to Investigators talk about "faggots and queers and how get rid of them." Matlovich taught human relations for four years in the Air Force, but as soon as he announced he was gay, "then was no longer qualified," he said with a cynical smile.

He was reassigned to lesser tasks during his remaining months with the service. SINCE OCTOBER, Matlovich has "been on the campaign trail." He has an agent who books speaking appearances some for money and some for free and tho ex-soldier Is living on donations, speaking fees and his savings. Despite the upheaval of the past year, Matlovich has "no regrets" except "that it saddens me very much that my notoriety comes from human suffering." At the same time, he admits, "it Is exciting to be part of history and to be working for change." Matlovich is in the process founding a Matlovich Foundation for Civil Liberties in Washington, D.C. to lobby for equal rights for gays and other minority groups. ffitifif'ffte made citftf Itj To-iiund (iae ti' M-l eatilnal, rrdft of oid chrry in Cnrn or C'JM Honnv lima.

V'lit our sro' icon or nit (or your "Timeij urnilu' MM by catalog, only S2.0& Caxl Forslund (Paibr rid lbKt Vim) tftfttiKN AMhOMKni ucm tut MipiU1KI 1 For both groups, one out of every 200 accidents results in a fatality. The older driver, Pastalan said, sometimes errs on the side of caution, going too slow rather than too fast, but once he decides to move, he often ignores oncoming traffic and frm tu0 Leonard Matlovich D. C. earlier this month on the grounds that the Air Force law discriminating against gays is unconstiutional. "The government has no right in the bedroom," Matlovich said.

THE SON OF an Air Force sergeant, Matlovich and his older sister were raised on air-bases throughout the U.S. and England. He says he knew he was gay from the time he was 12, but it wasn't until he was 30 that he got up the nerve to even visit a gay bar. It took another full year of soul-searching before Matlovich decided to "go public." "It had to be done. The very nature of my job (he was a human relations Instructor who toured Tactical Air Command bases evaluating each base's human relations program).

"I was teaching equality and justice for all." Matlovich said he watched investigators move quickly to right any complaints of discrimination against women, while listening pregnant Your Reproductive Life Your Decision FREE COUNSELING (no tfct on low msdleal f) FREE PREGNANCY TEST. (or $6 nt lndopndnt lab) 1 3 HOUR CLINIC STAY MEDICAID ACCEPTED I CANADIANS WELCOME Bucaust not non-profit, of tar perionalized attention and a high comfort atmos-phara at tha (am low non profit Call (313) 884-4000 DETROIT ABORTIONS to I a of Get From Stanley Beauty Salon, 2nd level Phone 358-3040 Charge It Reg. $19.77 $15.77 th This Coupon Offer void after I mmmJ Areas 01 Si lr.S m0T W0 1-7750 AO EFFECTIVE TUE. WED. A $2.98 Value! La.

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Then in March, he gave himself another label, and it was one that put T-Sgt. Leonard P. Matlovich on the cover of Time magazine, in court, out "of the Air Force and onto the college lecture circuit. That label was "homosexual." Matlovich had branded himself as such In a letter written on American Civil Liberties Union stationery and handed to his superior officer at Lan-gley Air Force Base, Va. Looking back on the furor of the past 11 months Matlovich, .12, a tall, slender, soft-spoken man who calls Florida home, describes his changing lifestyle with a bewildered shake of the head.

"If I'd been writing a book about what would happen, nobody would have published it. They would have said 'Hey, that's unreal. It's too Matlovich said. MATLOVICH IS still a Catholic "but me and the Pope don't agree" and a registered Republican," but I won't vote for a GOP candidate this year." He's also a major figure in the Gay Liberation Movement, but Matlovich quickly adds that he is working for more rights for all minorities, "the handicapped, women and the rights of a married man and woman to do in bed what they want to do." The ex-soldier still has his war decorations and 12 years of service in the Air Force. He no longer has his rank or his job, however.

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