Latchkey Children Have a Friend to Phone

Mention “telephone hot line” and most people probably think of a teen-ager or adult, down in the dumps and maybe contemplating self-destruction, desperately seeking consolation from a total stranger at 3 in the morning.

Norma LeVecque’s hot line, on the other hand, only operates from 2 to 5:30 in the afternoon. Its callers are small children, from kindergarten through sixth grade.

They’re latchkey kids--alone at home and bored, sad, nervous or frustrated--looking for someone to talk to. They call Norma or one of her volunteers at “Caring Call,” which operates out of the Girls Club of Vista.

One student caller needed help on his math homework. A girl called to talk about a fight she had with her best friend. A boy called because his mom wasn’t home by the normal time, and he was frightened. Another caller wanted to know what to feed a lizard. And another wanted to read her poem to anyone who would listen to it.

Norma thinks hers is the only program in San Diego County established to be a telephonic friend for elementary school children who arrive to an empty home after school and, for whatever reason, may need someone to talk to. She is looking for corporate donations to pay for more phone lines, and she would like more volunteers to lend an ear.

Norma set up the Vista program in January, visited each of the city’s elementary schools, explained Caring Call and gave out its phone number (941-0222). Since then, 15 to 20 kids call every day. Some are regulars.

“Most of the kids are bored and lonely, and just want to talk to somebody about anything. They’ll just say, ‘Hi’ and pause, so you strike up a conversation. When another call comes in, you ask the first caller to call back later,” she said.

Some kids complain of boredom in an empty home and ask for ideas. One of the volunteers at Caring Call is an aerobic dancer, so she encourages her callers to turn on music and dance. Another volunteer encourages her callers to do simple arts and crafts projects, such as cutting up old magazines and making collages.

“We find out what they can and can’t do before we start giving them ideas,” she said. “It turns out that a lot of kids are bored by TV these days, and want something else to do.”

Directory for Duffers

So Uncle Harry’s coming to town and he wants to play golf and you’re not quite sure where to take him?

The Escondido Convention & Visitors Bureau is coming out with a 12-page directory listing each of the 28 public or semi-private golf courses in North County, from Fallbrook to Rancho Penasquitos, from Lawrence Welk Village’s par-3 layout to La Costa’s tournament course.

“Over the last two years we’ve had 25,000 inquiries from out-of-town golfers about where to play,” said Suzanne Strassburger, executive director of the bureau. “This directory should answer all their questions.”

The directory is subsidized by the Acushnet Co., which last year made 50,000 sets of irons and woods at its Titleist plant in Escondido.

“We tell our golfers that they can spend a month here and play a different course every day,” she said.

The News in Santee

In our Government-at-Work Department, these items:

- Santee is coming out with an official City Hall newsletter “designed to inform residents of city-related activities.”

We’re not sure just how many activities there are but, for the record, the newsletter will come out twice a year.

- County Supervisor Brian Bilbray, obviously pitching himself as the working man’s politician, promises to work one day a month in differing county departments, to kind of get to know the county a little better.

The other day he showed up for work at the Department of Animal Control. He drove around the South Bay looking for strays, helped answer telephone calls, and finished the day shoveling out and hosing down the kennels.

‘U-Bake’ This Pizza

And, in our Small Business Department, there are these curious establishments:

- In Escondido, where there is no shortage of pizza joints, a “U-Bake Pizza & Video.” They don’t deliver, but if you buy one of their pizzas to bake at home, you get a discount on one of the 200 video films on display.

- In downtown San Diego there is “We Copy,” which is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. “All sorts of people come in at 3 in the morning,” said manager Robert Stuckey. “Like students who just finished their master’s thesis and need to turn it in at 8, and businessmen who finally finished their report for the boss and their secretary’s not around to make copies.”