( • • \ J „ 66_| ODiniOn Herald & Lantern 27 |une "sV
A Weird Idea Summit Meet Sounds Silly Who in the name of heaven decided that now's the time for Ron^fa Reagan and Konstantin Chernenko to hold a | sumjnil meeting? ' flow does Washington generate these weird ideas that no one living outside the Capital Beltway would waste time on? As best we can make out, the summit snowball started building last week when Howard Baker, lame-duqk majority leader of the Senate of the United States, rolled out of a meeting with the president and,said: "Let's just get together and talk about the general world situation, cause we've got to figure out some way not to blow each other up." Now frankly. .we thought the president's reported comment on this was appropriate. Trumanesque even: "If tKey want to keep their Mickey Mouse systenj, that's O.K." BI T: PHOTO opportunities! The concept is blinding to everyone inside the Beltway, not to mention the 16th-and-Pennsylvania compound: The president visiting St. Basil's Cathedral. The president looking robust and radiant next to the ailing, lumpish Soviet tyrant. All this footage spliced with Reagan at the DMZ, Reagan at the Great Wall. Sure enough, within days of properly telling Howard Baker to go soak his head, the president held a news conference at which he announced he would "meet and talk .any time" with the Soviets. Enough. We would now like to tell the president a few things about U.S.-Soviet sufnmits that his film producers won't tell him. FIRST. THEY ALSO have producers on the other side. Those writing half the script don't have your interests in mind. How about a nice network news shot of Chernenko storming out of the meeting protesting he can't deal with this warmonger? In fact, a good precedent shows that summits can backfire (no SALT II jokes intended). Dwight Eisenhower was going to meet Krushchev in May 1960. U collapsed when the Russians shot down Gary Powers. U.S.-Soviet relations got very hot. A Republican lost the election by 118,000 votes. But of course nothing unexpected like this cdtild happen in 1984. right? SECOND. ANY SUMMIT would be tied to the Soviet campaign against anti-satellite weapons, the only thing they're agreeing to talk about. This means they decided ASAT is their best shot for stopping U.S. technology. Mr. Reagai} ought to call up Jimmy Carter and get a briefing on the heutron bomb. Finally, we reluctantly bring up the question of taste, if not morality. Perhaps at the urging of the White House staff, reporters filled the president's press conference with repeated questions about the possibility of- a summit rtieeting. fThey asked zero questions about the whereabouts of Andrei Sakharov. reports that the Soviet army is now going to undertake a scorched-earth policy to starve'the Afghan resistance, or an Italian prosecutor's allegation that the Russians tried to kill the pope The Afghan and Russian emigre vote isn't very big in this country < yet > . but we suspect a lot of folks in Boston or Chicago, Catholic or not. mighi wonder what the deuce Ronald Reagan is doing in the arms of the people who . tried to gun down the pope. SURELY THE PRESIDENT must know that a Reagan Chernenko summit sounds silly. The European press, working as it does beyond the Beltway, has said it sounds silly. What reason is there to believe U.S. voters don't a agree? If Ronald Reagan doesn't stick with his own instincts and kill thefcummit talk fast. Walter Mondale's talk about a reverse Truman-Dewey this fall is going to stop sounding quite sfr silly. — Wall Street Journal "A- Hcrali 1 Published Every Wednesday By P.O. Box 43* The Seawave Corporation Cape May Court House, N.J. MZio Joseph R. Zelnik Editor Bonnie Reina General Manager Gary L. Rudy Advertising Director John Dunwoodv Special Promotions Director Darrell Kopp ft Publisher Ihwmi Carp, iffl. All rt§Mi rwsnrW. AH pruparty rifhts for t**o ontiro contonffof this publication shall bo tbo property of tbo Soowavo Corp. No port ho roof may bo roproducod without prior wrftton consont. " DEADLINES News & Photos Thursday Advertising j Friday — 3 P.M. Classified Advertising Friday — 3 P.M. f 465-5055 For News or Advertising Information ] Neither participating advertisers nor the publishers of the HERALD AND LANTERN will be responsible o. liable for misinformation, misprints, typographical errors, etc.. in any issue. The editor reserves the right to edit any letter or articles submitted for publication. Tower Toscnahip Lanterns Published Every Wednesday By P.O. Box 4M
Lookin' and Listenin' Train to Beach By DOROTHY D. FREAS Until January, 1975, Wildwood Railroad Station, a large sprawling building on New Jersey Avenue, was usually teeming with people. Each train as it arrived in those days discharged a large, happy crowd, young and old. The youngest of them ran through th? station in all directions, with an older brother or sister darting after each one. Parents, laden with suitcases or else an assortment of shopping bags full of towels, bathing suits and food, stopped to gather their family and to plan the direction of their next move. TEEN-AGERS, on their own. bustled about, calling "Mary, have you got my bag?" or "John, where's our Thermos jug? " Those older couples, who came because they have spent their holidays over many years "at the shore," usuallyhad one large and one small suitcase, and they had a reservation of a room for at least a week. The train, one of several arriving daily, had come down from Camden where many boarded after a ferry ride across the Delaware from Philadelphia, to catch the train. ALL THE TRAINS stopped in Wildwood but. until April of 1958. the passenger service continued to Wildwood Crest, circling there for return trips. Wildwood, with its wide beach and boardwalk and amusements, drew a big crowd from the trains. To tell us "how big" one day, the ladies' restroom attendant said it was a VERY busy morning as she'd been "disinfecting and disinfecting ever since nine o'clock." Between the days of the railroad and the buses, a plan formed and took place for a time, of a restaurant and train exhibit on the grounds of the station. But now buses — two dozen or more a day — make the trip directly from Philadelphia, another dozen from New York City, and the passengers as in the d&ys of the now nostalgic train ride, can read, snooze, talk and relax. In your own car, you can carry food, towels, blankets or in fact, anything you deem a necessity for a "shore day. " Only the driver has a small, gnawing hope that traffic won't be too heavy on his return trip toward early evening, but the beach still welcomes crowds.
Our Readers Write MUA: Heads In the Sand To the Editor: At a meeting on June 20, MUA members emphasized that their present incinerator study at a cost of $145,000 will not be completed until the end of the year, and that it would be downright foolish for Lower Township to undertake any further action until the MUA study is completed. Throughout the meeting they also emphasized the fact that delays were attributable to securing approvals from the many layers of bureaucracy involved. If this is so, why have they not found out how and why other areas of the country have received necessary approvals and are presently effectively operating in the incineration business? TO DATE, DELAYS have cost Cape May taxpayers millions of dollars, with no promise of anything but more studies. This is totally unacceptable. * It would certainly appear that members of the authority should stop burying their heads in the sand, communicate with their productive counterparts in areas where progress is being made, eliminate the word "can't" from their dialogue, and help their community rather than hinder it. If "can't" had not dominated their approach to the problem and they had initiated studies similar to Lower Township's, the county might well be currently successfully functioning in the incineration. MARY T. BAXTER Villas If He Can t Sleep. . . To The Editor: On June 19 at 6 a.m. the workmen at the sewer plant on 40th Street in Avalon started a pump, which at that time can be very annoying. I requested them to turn it off and I was told they were instructed to do this at this particular time. I called Mayor Rachel Sloan only to have the phone hung up on me three times by Mr. Sloan, who seemed very annoyed that I would disturb him at that time. After all, if I can't sleep, he shouldn't be able to either. I walked around to his home to request that the pump be turned off. He suggested I leave or he would have me removed forcibly. He has the power to do this because he has the whole Police Department behind him. WILLIAM J O'NEILL Avalon
-An Orange Sink and Crumbs Moping 4 Doors from the Beach
By JOE ZELNIK When I lived three blocks from a mediocre beach last summer, few persons visited me and I was able to mope aroundja lot. People felt sorry for me and asked me to dinner. Now I'm four doors from a great beach and somebody's always visiting. So I mope around a lot because I'm usually out of sheets and pillow cases. I guess some people would say I'm never satisfied. But do you know what sheets cost nowadays0 I'm running out to buy linens the way some people run out to buy milk. Actually, it's not the sheets so much as the pillow cases. Let a woman's head touch a pillow arid it becomes instantly smeared with green, brown, cerise, purple, mauve ... Whatever happened to the natural look0 NOW THAT THEY CAN HEAR the ocean from my stoop, relatives, friends, acquaintances, even enemies are filling my summer calendar. Women who told me to bug off in January and February are dropping in to say "hi" accompanied by two suitcases. Children who were once a name on a six-days-late Father's Day card are suddenly flesh and blood people using four towels a day. That sends me to the laundromat about eight hours a week. Did you know it costs a buck to do one load and at least another buck to dry it? vfkU SURE MEET weird people in laundromats. Of course appearances can be deceiving because, Ijke me, they are wearing the last shred of clean clothes they own, the one thing that is so bad you don't care if you ever launder it. \ A few weeks ago a fellow looked so destitute I gave him a buck for breakfast. He turned out to be vice president for DuPont and drove away in a Mercedes . Wrong Halo (ED. NOTE: A photograph of actor Lester Fletcher, a halo above his head, appeared in this space last week, incorrectly identified as Joe Zelnik. The mistake occurred because Zelnik also has a halo. The Herald-Lantern regrets the understandablyyror. )
1 myself always wear to the laundromat a pair of gray jogging trunks whose elastic is gone The trunks tend to slip when I'm bending over to reach into the machine. Women over 70 think this is great. Everyone else usually calls the police. ; The laundromat I patronize is on the Stone HarborAvalon border, so a call to report a sexual pervert usually brings a squad car from each. Two squad cars in Stone Harbor-Avalon is a big deal, except at Windrift closing time, of course. SUMMER GUESTS do strange things. They'll rinse the sand off their feet for 20 minutes, then carry their sandcovered beach chairs into the house They also make crumbs. Everyone who comes to visit acts like they're doing bachelor Zelnik a big favor by making a home cooked meal. Pot roast, mashed potatoes and apple pie? No. Spaghetti. My once-white sink is already permanently orange from rinsing spaghetti sauce from plates. And since they cook, I'm expected to clean up. I'd rather clean up after the Valentine's Day Massacre than another spaghetti dinner. i WITH CONSTANT visitors, I've had to make changesm my lifestyle. I have to close the bedroom door when I go to bed, and that cuts off the cooling breeze. 1 have to close the bathroom door when I shower, and the mirror steams up. ' They all sleep later than me, so I have to tiptoe all the time. My calves hurt. i Worst of all has been the effect on my breakfast. Breakfast is my most nourishing meal of the day and I long ago decided to splurge on the very best: Cocoa fluffs, Pac-Man, Lucky Charms (love those marshmalldws), ' Cookie Crisp, Donkey Kong. Now, though, with strangers devouring a couple boxes a day, I economize and buy generic cornflakes, little misshapen brown puffs found unworthv of the name . "Kellogg." Don't conclude from this that I'm cheap. Not so. I charge my friends less for an "escape weekend" than any boarding house in town. I'm even considering a 10 percent discount for relatives.

