Historic Effort To Set It Right

Lee Fleming Reese of San Diego has a passion.

Reese, 77, a retired adult education teacher of government and history, is passionate about restoring/reviving the historic reputation of George Mason, one of the lesser-known Founding Fathers.

Mason (1725-1792) was a member of the convention that wrote the U.S. Constitution, but he refused to sign the document because it lacked a bill of rights.

Reese contends that the Bill of Rights that was later added was actually penned by Mason. She wants the record corrected.

She distributed 200 copies of her 1967 master’s thesis about Mason to high schools and colleges. She contacted George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.

She appealed to retired Chief Justice Warren Burger, chairman of the bicentennial celebration of the Constitution.

Recently, she wrote to the San Diego County Bar Assn. after hearing about its upcoming program for Law Week 1991 (April 27-May 4), “Freedom Has a Name: The Bill of Rights.”

“Somebody ought to get it straight someday,” Reese said. “It’s true that Mason wasn’t the leader of men that Washington was, but then, Washington was no mental giant, either.”

Ed Millican, who teaches political science at San Diego State University and has written a book on the making of the Constitution, says Reese is swimming upstream. Still, he admires her pluck.

“Most historians agree that James Madison wrote the Bill of Rights,” Millican said. “But they also say that without crusaders like Mason and other anti-Federalists, it might not have been written. He deserves a lot of credit.”

Reese is used to nonbelievers. She says she had to fight her adviser at Cal Western University (now United States International University) just for the right to write about Mason.

“Mason had to stand his ground against Washington, Madison, Franklin and the rest,” Reese said. “He was a rebel, just like me.”

Post No Bills

Words, words, words.

* Forbidden flyer.

Trustees for the Carlsbad public library have voted to ban all groups not affiliated with the city or library from posting notices on the library bulletin board.

The flap started when a North County peace group posted a notice about a planned demonstration.

* On the menu at the cafeteria in the County Administration Center: “Mock filet mignon.” Alas, no mock baked potato.

* Sign in window of downtown eatery: “Mexican Food We Now Have.” Eat let’s.

* If the success of Operation Desert Storm means a boon for military boarding schools, it’s not evident yet at the Army and Navy Academy in Carlsbad. Cutbacks and layoffs have just been announced.

* The San Diego Convention Center boasts that it’s the only convention center in the country with doormen (eight).

As of today, make that doorpersons. The first woman has just been hired.

* Apparently I’m in good company after being bounced from the La Jolla Country Club Golf Course.

In 1960, two days after winning the nomination for President at the Democratic convention in Los Angeles, John F. Kennedy asked if he could play golf at the La Jolla club.

He was turned down. The explanation: It’s ladies’ day, no exceptions.

Elementary Justice

Who says being arrested no longer carries a social stigma?

San Diego beat cop Evan Ziegler has been encountering a 20-year-old Serra Mesa man who insists on driving his battered Volkswagen with a suspended license.

Finally, the police computer spit out the information that the VW driver has a slew of unpaid tickets for moving violations and that a bench warrant has been issued for him.

So when Ziegler next spotted his man, he knew it was time for an arrest.

It’s unclear what punishment he’ll get from the courts, but the miscreant has already been scolded heavily.

As Ziegler was cuffing him, 50 students at a nearby elementary school began chanting gleefully: “You’re being busted! You’re being busted!”