Odds & Ends Around the Valley
Portrait of a Full Life
You think you’re busy. At 84, Sam Tash of Northridge still has more to do than he has time for.
“I’ve got lots of painting to do,” he said with a shake of his head. Tash paints life-size portraits from snapshots for family, friends and friends of friends.
“When I paint a portrait, it looks just like the people,” he said. His fee? “I ask them to make a $25 donation to the Wilkinson Senior Center.”
The Northridge facility, operated by the Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Department, is a past recipient of Tash’s artistic generosity. Three years ago, he donated a 4-by-8-foot painting to the center, which shows senior citizens engaged in some of its many activities, such as bingo, ballroom dancing, billiards, painting, crocheting and card-playing.
“I admire that mural every day and I’ve been coming here for four years,” said Satch Fleming, 83, of Northridge. “It’s a real work of art.”
So how many paintings does Tash, a former orchestra leader, finish in a month? “It depends on how ambitious I feel,” he said with a laugh. And on how much time he’s spent playing his violin instead.
Lots of Controversy
Homeowner groups in Encino and Tarzana are dealing with a very Beverly-Hills-ish problem: tear-downs.
“Developers buy a piece of property, take down a one-story ranch-style home and put up a two-story house that they take to either side of the lot lines,” said Joel Palmer, president of the board of directors for Tarzana Property Owners Assn.
“It means a loss of privacy for the neighbors because now they have a huge house looking down into their yard. These new houses are simply too big for the lots and they’re changing the character of the community.”
Richard Smith, past president of Encino Property Owners Assn., pointed out another problem plaguing neighborhoods. “There are a number of one- and two-acre lots in this area, and they’re being bought up and then subdivided into as many as four to six lots,” Smith said. As Palmer elaborated, “It creates a density problem.”
The nonprofit group Homeowners of Encino regularly receives notices from the city’s planning department regarding lot splits. “We used to get one every six weeks, and now we get two a week,” said Gerald A. Silver, the group’s president. “The neighborhood is getting chopped up into postage-stamp sized lots.”
The economics of the situation have pitted neighbor against neighbor. “It’s creating a near-warlike environment between homeowners,” Smith said. Some homeowners are adamantly against any changes in lot sizes, and others want to cash in on the gold mine their property has become.
Smith keeps the issue in perspective. “It’s not really poor versus rich when you’re talking about $700,000 houses being torn down,” he said.
Message of Hope
“Two-thirds of people with multiple sclerosis--MS--are doing relatively well 20 years after the onset of the disease,” said Audrey Goldman, of the Multiple Sclerosis Society’s Southern California chapter.
“It’s an adult-onset disease, but it’s not terminal. It affects the central nervous system, which is made up of the brain and spinal cord, so that basically it’s a conduction problem: The brain’s messages get interrupted. In severe cases, though, the messages just can’t get through anymore.”
About 25 people in the San Fernando Valley with severe cases of MS will soon participate in a three-month study directed by Robert Winslow, professor of leisure studies and recreation at Cal State Northridge. The goal is to develop individual recreation programs that are based on their abilities and interest.
The problem for most people with severe MS, according to Winslow, is that they led very active lives before the onset of the disease and they have an overabundance of free time. “They can’t do the things they used to and consequently they feel very isolated because they’re homebound,” he said.
Goldman, who is also involved with the study, said, “They’re bored and don’t feel as productive. We want to help them develop a menu of activities so they can actually make selections during the day. We want to expand their choices.”
The study is being conducted with a $15,125 grant from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. More than 1,200 Valley residents are registered with the Southern California chapter. “And we figure there’s one person who doesn’t contact us for every one who does,” Goldman added.
Overheard
“All my life I looked up to ballplayers--they were my heroes--and now they’re all younger than me. It makes me feel old.” --Man in early 40s to friend in line at Cineplex Odeon in Universal City
