Odds & Ends Around the Valley : Working Overtime

If you are feeling pressed for time between now and Christmas, thank your lucky stars you aren’t in the religion business.

Fathers Michael Carll and Tim Fountain, the rector and associate rector of St. Nicholas Episcopal Church in Encino, are hoping their chief executive will help them find the time to deal with all they have on their ecclesiastical plate.

In addition to the usual eight Masses they say between them each week, they are putting on a three-performance circus Dec. 8 in celebration of the feast day of St. Nicholas, which is actually Dec. 6.

“We have to find the animals, get the performers, deal with setting up the big top on the church grounds and get bleachers for 500 people,” said Fountain, who prefers to be called Father Tim. And then there are the city permits and the banners and advertising and the insurance to deal with.

In addition to the circus and the Masses, the pair teach classes and have the usual baptisms, confirmations, weddings and funerals.

They are also working with an interfaith group on a shelter for the homeless, and putting out bids for construction that is going to be started soon at the church.

There are additional Masses to be said because of the holiday season, and there is the work they are doing to make the church a disaster-relief site.

And, Father Tim said, the counseling load increases substantially during the holidays, “because it is a time when people feel their problems even more acutely, particularly the lonely.”

And, both have families to keep them busy.

Father Tim has a wife and a young daughter, and Father Carll and his wife have five youngsters between the ages of 3 and 17.

“It’s important for us to spend time with our families,” Father Tim said.

Heaven only knows where they’re going to find the time.

In Search of Work

It is not unusual to see job-seeking groups of men waiting on corners in Canoga Park, Reseda, Van Nuys or San Fernando, but a couple of Saturdays ago there was a lone woman standing near the corner of Vanowen and Mason, dressed in clean, plain clothes and holding a neatly lettered sign that said, “I will work.”

She said her name was Maria Fernandez and that she lived in an apartment nearby.

She said she needed work for money to feed her baby and to send for her children, who are with her sister in Mexico. Her husband, she said, is in jail and she doesn’t know when he will come home.

She said she can’t get a steady job because she has no one to stay with her baby while she’s away. On that particular day, a friend was caring for the child, but Fernandez said she can’t count on the friend to help her out on a regular basis.

Fernandez said she is willing to do any kind of house or yard work, is good with washing and ironing, and likes to care for children.

When asked what would be the best thing to happen to her, she shrugged and said to get money for the rent and food.

Finally she said she would like to work as a bagger in a market. She said her friend does that and gets a steady paycheck and benefits.

Fernandez looked at the traffic all the time she was talking. She was not anxious to continue talking to an Anglo who writes for a newspaper.

Twenty minutes later she was gone.

Chess Man

David Sosser isn’t going to become a financial mogul, but he loves his work, which is more than some moguls can say.

Sosser, who works part time selling magazines at the Sherman Oaks Newsstand at the corner of Ventura and Van Nuys boulevards, is the founder-operator of the Gym for the Mind that began in Topanga Canyon about 10 years ago and recently relocated to Woodland Hills.

The gym, 4907 Topanga Blvd., is for those who play chess, something Sosser calls his life’s preoccupation.

For $25 a month, or $150 a year, Sosser provides members with chess instructions, chess games, talk about chess, chess books and chess periodicals to read when they aren’t actually playing chess.

And because Sosser believes in keeping mind and body in sync, there is also some gym equipment on the patio so members can work on their pecs while mentally working out some tricky moves.

Sosser said he has had to rent out rooms at the club to keep it going, but adds that the renters are chess people, so “they are happy.”

The club also offers poetry readings, a writing club and a computer club, and is going to start up an ecology club soon.

“Figuring out ways to save the planet is probably the most important way to exercise your mind,” Sosser said.

Even more important than chess?

Yes, Sosser said.

Taking Care of Business

Students in Max Lupul’s marketing class at Cal State Northridge are getting to do some hands-on work with small businesses.

Lupul says the CSUN School of Business and Economics makes students available to people who are starting up small businesses, or who need new directions for existing ones.

The students, in groups of three or four, meet with the head of the firm, discuss what’s going on, then, under the guidance of Lupul and other instructors, draw up a plan of action.

“The program provides real assistance to small-business people, and it gives our students an opportunity to work in the field,” Lupul said.

The program, which is in operation at more than 500 colleges in the United States, is sponsored by the Small Business Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce.

And it’s free.

Overheard

“Since all the greed gods of the ‘80s are getting busted or going bust, does that mean there’s more money for the rest of us?”

--Shopper at the Antelope Valley Mall