opinion_

Our Readers Write Which Mothers 'Need to Work 9 To The Editor: 1 believe K.T. Sullivan's Aug. 7 letter. "Threatened by Day Care," misunderstood the intention of Cherri Olsen's July 24 letter. "Day Care Benefits Adult, Not Child." 1 as a taxpayer and parent have given this day care program much scrutiny. Pirst of all. the underlying problem is how one views day care and who should be allowed to utilize such a program. My position is that mothering children is a full time commitment and crucial to strong emotional development. Therefore, all other ambitions that would cause me to leave my children under the extended supervision of another adult would be excluded by me. Now that is just one persons opinion. HOWEVER. THERE ARE people who "need to work." Before you shake your head and jump on the bandwagon. I must explain what my idea of "need to work" really is. Food, clothing and shelter are certainly needs. But Calvin Kleins, Gloria Vanderbilt, and Nikes are not my idea of a need. BMX bikes, two cars per house hold, and a bedroom for each child because he or she needs their own space is not my idea of a need. If. on the other hand, material possessions are indeed what you constitute as need, then don't plan on having a single wage earner family to bear the brunt of your frivolous expectations. Census data show there are more than 14 million such families today who raise their children on a single income earned by the husband. , These traditional families have made the commitment to give their children something very special — a resident mother in the home to provide constancy, stability, and emotional security to her children. This commitment often involves significant self sacrifice on the part of the mother, also a big sacrifice in material things. STATISTICS SHOW that the one wage earner family lives at an income level $5,000 less than the average two wage earner family. The current tax law offers financial incentives up ta $6,000 per year to two wage earner couples where the wife takes a paid job and gets someone else to look after her children, benefits which are denied to the traditional single wage earner couples who care for their own children. So what is all the fuss about? The fuss is about a school district which is pushing day care on the community without even checking on the "needs" of those using the program. The fuss is aljp about where the money is coming from to provide free transportation for parochial school students, certified instructors, and numerus field activities (including computers which the school district purchased for school children during school hours). * And finally, the fuss is about considering wear and tear on any and all equipment involved in the program including the buses. NO, I DON'T THINK any of us women who choose to stay at home and raise our children would deny anyone who truly had a need for a daycare program. However, yes I do resent a program which possibly is tapping into our hard-earned dollars to provide benefits for parents who may be trying to attain, bigger, better things for their own while trying to seduce the rest of ' society to join their ranks. Low-cost day care for everyone? Come on Mr. Sullivan, someone has to be paying for it. MRS. ANDREA MAHER Bayside Village Do you have an opinion on this subject? Write a letter to the editor. Herald and Lantern, P.O. box 430, Cape May Court House. N.J. 08210.

fHtrttliiV tANTERN! Pebtteked tv*ij WM«fwU» By TIm Stmn Corporation P O. Bos 430 C«pr May Court Ho—. NJ. WHIP Joseph R. Zelnik Editor Bonnie Reina General Manager Gary L. Rudy Advertising Director John Dunwoody Special Promotions Director Darrell Kopp Publisher Srowovr Corp 1945 All 'iglri All p*oprrr, '.ght, for tfcr iowi oi fK% pufelKor-o* «Ao» bo *o P'opo", al iko Soo-o.« Ctvp No pa- ko«ool ~a, t* -op' odvrod ^ ~~ DEADLINES News & Photos Thursday Advertising Friday — 3 P.M. Classified Advertising Friday — 3 P.M. 465-5055 For News or Advertising Information NrMbrr partKiyrbM irfirfliop or Ibr fofcliAw. "I ibr HMUIll IMI I OTt.HN odnor — 1 - lltCAPE MAY lllr * fiwali-IJtsjatcn Evwry W By Tfc. S«..m J P.O. »w 450 Oh* C—rt No—. W.J. BB31Q

pooe. iwe «ee the cwLtttej....'* Live- Aid Fans Cheapskates By EDWIN FEULNER Something sorely needs to be said about the Live Aid concert to help feed the starving of Africa: namely, that despite all the free publicity lavished on the affair, the rock-and-rollers showed themselves to be cynical cheapskates. According to the best estimates available, more than one-billion people worldwide watched the live televised performances from Philadelphia's JFK Stadium and London's Wembley Stadium. The shindig attracted an unprecedented gush of media publicity. And it still hasn't stopped. Yet, the same people who every week turn some guitarbashiing bunch of organ-coiffed weirdballs into overnight millionaires by purchasing their records, tapes, and rock videos, pledged, according to estimates that seem to fluctuate with the barometric pressure, just $40 million to $70 million. This is nothing to scoff at, of course. But as anyone who has ever been involved in charitable fund-raising knows, a pledge is one thing, the actual contribution is something else. In other words, when all the U.S. dollars, British pounds. Japanese yen, Swiss francs, and so forth are counted, the actual take will be something less than the amount pledged. While $40 million is not pocket change, I still find it difficult to praise the Live Aid groupies for their generosity. In the United States alone music fans purchased some 679.8-miliion records and cassette tapes in 1984, spending an estimated $4.37 billion, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. Rock records and tapes accounted for a third of all sales, meaning that U.S. rockpop fans spent some $1.46 billion on records and tapes in 1984, considerably more than was pledged by the one billion-plus rock fans who tuned in Live Aid. The Live Aid benefit concert was a nice gesture. It was an organizational masterpiece. But in terms of charity, it was a lot of self-congratulatory noise that unfortunately didn't produce the kind of big bucks it should have. Heck, if the one-billion viewers had donated, on average, just ten cents each. Live Aid would have raised $100 million. — Feulner is president of The Heritage Foundation, a Washington-based public policy research institute.

What a Way To Start Day To The Editor: North Wildwood had come through with a ruling requiring trash cans. I'm not objecting to the ruling; I do have trash cans. What I do think would be helpful to all North Wildwood residents would be a little cooperation on the part of the trash men. I came outside yesterday on my way to work and saw a trash man standing in the middle of the street and heaving my trash cans on to the sidewalk. 1 ) There are windows that could have been broken. 2) I can not afford to buy new trash cans every week. He not only thew mine, but also treated the ones across the street the same way. I did not say anything to him at the time. Who wants to start their day arguing with the trash men? I certainly hope that someone with authority can do something for us. 1 Mrs Mary E. Rogowski North Wildwood. Remember Pearl Harbor To The Editor: I am sick and tired of hearing all about the poor Japanese that got hit with the A-Bomb. But I don't hear anyone saying anything about the Japanese that bombed Pearl Harbor when we were talking peace with them. We still have men in water tombs in Pearl Harbor, but the American people, the press and TV stations don't talk about that. How soon we forget. I wonder what our friends and buddies would say who didn't come back from over there in 1945? The Japanese tortured and killed them for information which our boys wouldn't give. We finally beat the Japanese. Now they are putting the American people out of work everyday with the cars and other products they send over here. When are the American people going to wise up? E P. HARRIS SR. Rio Grande Enforce Speed To The Editor More speed limit signs along Bay Drive in Lower Township are not the answer to speeding. Enforcement of current ones would help all over the township and Villas. Forty-to-fifty miles an hour is common on streets posted for 25. Let's have a real crackdown. VINCENT M. McMAHON Villas

-It Took Hard Work — They Achieved Greatest Goal

By JOE ZELNIK My Uncle Frank died at the end of July and no one told me until two weeks later. I guess his sons figured, correctly, that I'd been closer to their mother, my Aunt Louise. She was always pitching in for my mother, who was sick a lot. They were sisters, and the resemblance was strong, until illness prematurely aged my mother. I was an only child and my cousins were, at times, my brothers. And Louise was, at times, my mother. But a father. I had. So I never really got to know Uncle Frank well. He was big and strong and quiet and put up with me being around. My cousins also reasoned that, since my Uncle Frank. 84, died in California and was buried in Chicago. I was not likely to attend the funeral. But he was my only remaining uncle. I LAST SAW HIM at my Aunt Louise's funeral about four years ago. My cousins and Uncle Frank took me to the airport afterward and he gave me a hug from the back seat and cried and said he'd never see me again We toldhim that was silly, that we'd be getting together again. Bur he was right. Ever notice how often old people are right? Frank and Louise were good people who had factory jobs and worked hard ail their lives. During the Depression, they ate corn flakes for dinner and bought raw milk i to save a penny and often went to bed with the darkness. I guess to save electricity. Lacking education themselves. • they achieved their greatest goal: sending their kids to college. It never seemed to me that my aunt and uncle had much fun, but that was from my perspective. What do I know j about what they thought was fun? When they retired. 20 years ago, they moved next door to my Cousin Richard outside Chicago. He would wave goodbye to his mom each morning as he left for work.

ONE ASSUMED Uncle Frank would die first. He'd gotten a bum leg somehow and slowed down and was a bit cranky while my aunt zipped right along and even went to aerobics with her daughter-in-law. But it didn't happen that way. Aunt Louise got a brain tumor and deteriorated in a hospital, something I was blessed not to see. My Cousin Richard went each day to see her and try to comfort her After she died, my Uncle Frank, angry that he'd been left behind without her. moved to a retirement home in California, just down the street from my Cousin Frankie. I called Frankie last week and he told me his dad never really got sick, just cantankerous at being old FRANKIE T()I.I> ME he went every morning and night to the retirement home to put in and take out his father's contact lenses. Then, about four months ago. his dad "finally ran out of gas," as Frankie, an aeronautical engineer, put it. Dissatisfied with the care at the retirement home's nursing section, they brought Uncle Frank home. My cousin told me he'd rigged up a bicycle bell on Uncle Frank's wheelchair for when he wanted something. Three weeks after he was gone. Frankie said, he still imagined he heard the bell ringing. After we hung up, I thought about how many parents sacrificed for their children and were never repaid. My cousins, bless em, did their best to treat their parents as well as their parents had treated them. AS A CHILD. I used to love staying with my aunt and uncle. What I liked best was spending the night, sleeping with my cousins, three to a bed. with the sound of a brook gurgling outside the bedroom window and the smell of toast waking us in the morning. I can still remember hearing a loud smack in the next room as my Uncle Frank and Aunt Louise would kiss good night. I'd bet that's what they're doing right now.