It’ll Be a 78-Candlepower Party

The only thing that may be missing from an upcoming birthday celebration in Tampico, Ill., is the guest of honor--Ronald Reagan. “We’ve invited him for his birthday, Feb. 6, 6:30 p.m. at our grade school gymnasium,” Mayor Roy Siegel said. “We haven’t heard yet, but it’s no wonder, with him leaving office and all and the inaugural and the few problems he has with Col. (Oliver L.) North. We sincerely hope he can make it.” President Reagan was born in 1911 in the northwest Illinois town of 990 people. He still has 22 relatives in the area but has not been back to Tampico since 1976. “One of his boyhood friends grabbed Nancy and kissed her when they were here for the primaries,” Siegel said. “Maybe that’s why he hasn’t come back.” Helen and Paul Nicely have turned the apartment above a bakery-restaurant where Reagan lived as a boy into a museum drawing an estimated 5,000 visitors annually. “There are enough people in Tampico who remember Reagan, so it wasn’t too hard to duplicate his apartment,” Nicely said.

Japan’s Emperor Akihito will have to make ends meet on the same salary that his father, the late Emperor Hirohito, received. A Finance Ministry official said that Akihito will receive tax-free annual pay equivalent to $2 million, the same as his father, and an amount equivalent to $20 million for court expenses. The official said the government will spend $74 million on the funeral of Hirohito, who died Jan. 7 and will be buried Feb. 24. Akihito’s salary must support a family of six that includes his mother, Dowager Empress Nagako. Hirohito’s salary was used only for himself and his wife, the Imperial Household Agency said.

Mikhail S. Gorbachev is a popular man in West Germany. In a survey conducted by that country’s Tempo magazine, 75% of respondents picked the Soviet leader as the “Man of the 1980s” for his institution of reforms to improve East-West relations. West German President Richard von Weizsaecker, praised for his sensitive handling of his country’s troubled past, was the second most popular choice, followed by Polish Solidarity leader Lech Walesa and President Reagan. Rita Suessmuth, Speaker of the Bonn Parliament, was selected by 69% as “Woman of the 1980s,” primarily for her work as health, youth and family affairs minister from 1985 until 1988. Tennis star Steffi Graf and Gorbachev’s wife, Raisa, were ranked second and third.