Long Life

I would like to compliment staff writer Nikki Finke on her witty article regarding good manners in the '90s. I have a suggestion I believe covers the field most succinctly, and it has to do with--of all things--golf. As presently codified, the rules and etiquette of golf are far more complicated than any book on manners ever written; however, I would refer you to the ancient rules of golf. Play the course as you find it. Play the ball as it lies. Do what's fair. It seems to me that those rules cover most any social situation I have come across in a long life.

Apropos of Beverly Beyette's story of Oct. 11 ("Taking the Lead, Thanks to Project Head Start"), I was a volunteer in 1965--to work in L.B.J.'s "War on Poverty." I took my orientation at the University of Oregon, and was then sent to Gainesville, Fla., to start a head start program in Newberry, about 44 miles north of Gainesville. After many trials and tribulations--and no money--with six black women volunteers we opened the first day care center in Alachua County, which triggered six others over a period of time.

People who have reached or passed the 100-year mark will tell you there is no magic formula for longevity and the reasons they point to for long life are as numerous as the candles on their birthday cakes. The National Institute on Aging reports that long life often results from a mixed set of factors, some that people can control--weight and temper--and some they cannot--such as genetic makeup.

In relation to your article on "The Book Generation" by Dennis McLellan (View, Sept. 13), perhaps you would be interested in some readers at the other end of the age spectrum. A group of seniors meets on Fridays at 10 a.m. at the Golden Timers, 114 E. 19th St. in Costa Mesa, and new members are welcomed. (Phone: (714) 642-2275.) We read plays: classical or modern, serious or comic. The ability to act is not at all essential, but if you're a seventy-something woman, you may read the part of a 12-year-old boy with elan and understanding; and a sixty-something man may read that of a faithless young wife in a very nice baritone for a few pages.

Sen. Russell B. Long (D-La.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, announced unexpectedly Monday that he will retire at the end of his current term in January, 1987. Long, 66, speaking to reporters at a news conference in his Senate office, said: "At some point, I think the good Lord permits you to live a long life, and, if the people are good to you, a senator ought to consider at what point he ought to retire. "And that's my decision," Long said.

Over my desk Georgia O'Keeffe says I have no theories to offer and then takes refuge in the disembodied third person singular: One works I suppose because it is the most interesting thing one knows to do. O Georgia! Sashaying between first base and shortstop as it were drawing up a list of all the things one imagines one has to do. . . . You get the garden planted. You take the dog to the vet. You certainly have to do the shopping. Syntax, like sex, is intimate.

The Western Room is dead tonight. The long bar is sprinkled with maybe 10 people. It's Memorial Day, and even in Printers' Alley, where tourists swarm at night to hear country and western music, there is little action. In the back, Fatty is sulking. No one is talking to him, and no one notices him. Also, the music is too loud. He hates that. Abruptly, the music stops. "Ladies and gentlemen, we have a world-famous celebrity right here in our audience tonight," the band leader drawls.

Re "Glacier Park on Thin Ice," Nov. 18: So the glaciers in Glacier National Park will be history within 30 years. It boggles the mind. How can the Bush administration arrogantly strip away so many hard-won environmental protections when "most scientists agree the recent warming is mainly a product of industrial activity." Surely it must filter up to President Bush, Interior Secretary Gale Norton, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christine Todd Whitman and Vice President Dick Cheney that global warming is endangering humanity.