Amerikai Magyar Szó, 1981. július-december (35. évfolyam, 27-50. szám)

1981-10-22 / 40. szám

AMERIKAI MAGYAR SZÓ

Thursday, Oct. 22. 1981.

2.

1 PRESS DIGEST 1

THE RUNIGS MAKE THEIR LIVES WORTH LIVIHG

After age 60, most Americans are in their first years of retirement, sitting at the throttle of a small pleasure boat or puttering around in the backyard garden.

Sacramento resident, Ted Ruhig wants more than that. At age 64, he has begun a new battle to help himself and other seniors to attain new jobs and a better future.

Ruhig was recently elected to the California Senior Assembly which during a recess at the regular legislature, took its turn at the podium to discuss senior issues.

“You work nine to five to age 65 and then it’s over,” Ruhig said in the living room of his small, comfortable home. ‘In our role, if you don’t work, you are a nobody. That’s not right.”

In an attempt to correct the situation, Ruhig is waiting for the outcome of his court case which fights against age discrimination on the job.

Ruhig spent much of his young years working with governments in Hawaii and California. He now concerns himself with the problem of the California Commission on Aging which he claims has a terrible record for hiring seniors.

“Never in my dreams have I seen people who are so insensitive to the needs of older people,” Ruhig said. According to his figures, the state department staff only includes 6 percent seniors.

“They make all kinds of excuses,” he said. This compares with a 44 % rate of seniors hired in Utah or 42 % in Rhode Island. “I’d settle for that,” he said.

Ruhig believes it is difficult for seniors to accept help from an agency run by younger people.

“It’s patronizing,” he explained. “I think it would be marvelous of they saw gray hairs and wrinkles on the other side of the desk.”

Nan & Ted Ruhig

sembly Speaker pro-tempore Leo T. McCarthy, the seniors addressed their concerns to the local representatives.

“I think the legislature wants to respond”, he said about the current California bodv. “If we just let them know what we want. ”

It is the senior issue that crosscuts both race and party lines in the state. “The senior legislature is a vehicle for 3 million people to express themselves,” he said running his fingers through his gray goatee. “We have no special ax to grind. Our concerns are not narrowly for older people. We are interested in libraries and schools. After all, we don’t want to deprive our grandchildren of their education.-0

Ruhig plans to write a book about the subtle discrimination seniors face in their daily lives.

“For a younger person, to discriminate against the old, is for them to discriminate against the future,” he said. “It is very shortsighted.”

Ruhig himself was forced into an early retirement. “I felt demeaned,” he recalled. “I felt judgements should be made on skills and adequacy of a person, not his or her age. There are those who brush aside people because they are older. Thev tolerate them without giving them any respect as a human being. ”

He gave fast-food franchises as an example of companies who hire young people almost exclusively. “As if an older person can’t make a hamburger?” he asked disgustedly.“ They won’t give an older person a break.”

So for four days this summer, after a morning jog in his back yard, Ruhig made his way through the doors of the state Assembly and took his seat among his peers at the Senior legislature.

While there, he and his colleagues - elected to the posts by other seniors - prioritized issues such as the high cost of housing, transportation, the loss of special rates for seniors, cuts in social security and state benefits and crime.

Crime is a major issue with older citizens, many who feel helpless trying to fight the increasing rate of violence.“Many seniors are imprisoned in their own homes. I belong to a group that couldn’t have a meeting at night because nobody would come.”

After their four-dav session, which was headlined by speakers such as Governor Brown and AsAnna Sandoval, Sacramento Union Staff writer.

Let us learn Hungarian

Hotel. Lodgings 1. Hotel

Here arc your keys.

What time are meals served?

Have you a table d’Mte

here?

How much do you charge a head?

Can I have breakfast in my room?

IWre leaving tomorrow morning.

I’ll leave tomorrow.

Everything is ready /or my departure.

I want to settle mu hotel bill.

Let me have my bill,

please.

Lei me have my bill every week, pleas..

If you like, I can pay in advance.

There’s a mistake in the bill.

Send my luggage to the airport.

I’ll recommend your hotel to my friends.

Szálloda. Lakás 1. Szálloda

Tessék, itt vannak a kulcsai I

Mikor vannak az étkezések?.

Van itt közös étkezi!'

Mennyit számítanak It fejenként?

Reggelizhetem a szobámban?

Holnap reggel (el)mcgyünk.

Holnap (cl)utazom.

Ütrakészen állok.

Rendezni szeretném a hotelszárnláraat.

Kérném a hotelszámlámat.

Hetenként kérem a számlámat.

Ha akarja, fizethetek előre.

Tévedés van a számki ban.

Küldje (külgye) a csórna gomat a repülőtérre:

Ajánlani fogom szálloda jukat a barátaimnak

A COOPERATIVE GALLERY OF WOMAN ARTISTS

386 West Broadway, New York NY.

(212- 226-9215)

Exhibit of Marjorie ApterMcKevitt

Sweeping, colorful, flat brush strokes reflect the artist’s genuine creativity in the oil paintings and strong charcoal drawings using a central theme: scenes from her backyard. An exciting palette of contrasting yellow, red, green dominate the violet, blue and brown to stir the senses and provide pleasure. Her use of the impressionist style provides both beauty and variation of landscape to the flowers and house. With broad area placement of these two; with floral patterns dominant in the foreground, she skillfully uses perspective to create depth in this two-dimensional world. A figure was seen in the background only in one painting. Perhaps the addition of people, birds and other wildlife would add enrichment to composition and content.

This is an exhibit worth viewing and a group to be encouraged.

L.H.

(Ms. Apter-McKevitt is an old-time booster of our paper.)

“UNMITIGATED DISASTER”

(Excerpts from a recent column in the N.Y. Times by W. Safire.)

Pamela Harriman, the elegant, English-born wife of 90-year old Averell Harriman, has been giving a series of dinners at home to raise money for the Democratic establishment.

Hats off to her for that. At the most recent soiree, however, Mrs. Harriman was absent because of a horseback riding injury, and some well-meaning friend surreptitiously recorded the proceedings so that the creator of the salon would not miss the happening.

As often happens, a transcript fell into the hands of a reporter. Felix Rohatyn, the New York banker who probably sees himself as Treasury Secretary in President Robert Strauss’s Cabinet, warned the 38 well-heeled guests that “society’s going to blow up” if Reagan policies continue; he called for “rational liberalism,” an unfortunate phrase imputing kookiness to the old New Deal.

Lawyer Clark Clifford promptly dubbed Mr. Rohatyn “one of the outstanding intellects in the country today,” and observed that the general feeling would soon be that President Reagan “is an amiable dunce.”

Senator Dale Bumpers, the cautious crusader from Arkansas, announced the present situation to be “unmitigated disaster” but suggested that Democrats “keep our powder dry” and wait for economic collapse. When diplomat Sol Linowitz wondered if the quiet awaiting of collapse were the responsible course, Sen. Bumpers produced a sticker of a line that made him sound like Fred Allen’s Senator Claghorn’', “Sol, that is, boy, that is the legitimate question.”

.... “Sensor detects another coin in your pocket,” reads the screen on a video game in Hong Kong when a play is over. “Please insert it.”