Odds & Ends Around the Valley

A Real Old Boys’ Network

It looked like an ad for the golden good life as 32 smiling, affluent, smartly groomed elder folks greeted one another at the entrance to the Odyssey Restaurant in Granada Hills.

There was only a slight haze in the cloudless sky Sunday as the members of the Tartars Boys Club--many with their wives--went into the restaurant for their annual reunion brunch.

The group is distinctive because of its longevity. The 17 men, between 76 and 78, are the remaining members of the Tartars Boys Club, which started with 45 members in 1927, when they were students at either Hollenbeck Junior High School or Roosevelt High School in Boyle Heights.

The group hung together all through high school and up until the time when the members went off to serve in World War II, said Ben Leibowitz, 76, of Burbank, a retired post office superintendent and this year’s reunion coordinator.

After the war, they would have informal get-togethers once in a while at people’s homes, drawing members who had married and moved up or down the coast, Leibowitz said.

By 1972, as people became sick or died, the remaining members had realized just how much the fellowship meant to them.

“We began having reunions once a year and inviting widows of members who had died. Most of us are pretty active and in good health, but we did begin to put a greater value on the friendship than we did before that,” he said.

Leibowitz, who received a bachelor’s degree in history from CSUN when he was 69, said this latest reunion is the first held in the San Fernando Valley--where six of the members now live.

Entertaining the Entertainers

It’s no wonder those retired people at the Motion Picture and Television Fund Country House look so spry.

They’ve decided that if laughter is the best medicine, they’ll get all they can. And they keep activities director Sue Schubert busy scheduling entertainment.

On Tuesday, Martin Yan, a noted chef who has a television show on KCET called “Yan Can Cook,” will give a Chinese food demonstration. The residents--most of whom eat in the dining room and don’t cook--like him because he’s funny, Schubert said.

In addition to shopping trips, dinners at noted restaurants and visits to the Music Center for plays and concerts, the residents are staunch Dodger fans who like to go to home games.

One of this year’s highlights was when Dodger announcer Ross Porter gave the residents the inside scoop on the team and how much Tommy Lasorda really weighs.

In October, Little Richard came to play, and Schubert said she wasn’t sure how the residents would react.

They were not only pleased, they showed it.

“Gertrude Combs, who is 99, got up and did a little shimmy before giving the entertainer a hug,” Schubert said.

Calling All NOW Members

A lot of people don’t know whether to laugh or sue these days.

Take the issue of sexual harassment, for example, since much of America has had to.

Anita Hill’s accusations about now-Supreme Court Judge Clarence Thomas have made many realize that they can’t pinpoint the legal definition of the crime or how they feel about it.

At least one group is reporting a surge of interest.

Kathryn Alice, an officer with the local chapter of the National Organization for Women, said her organization’s offices around the country, including the Valley office, have been swamped with calls.

Many people wanted either to report they had been sexually harassed or wanted a clear definition of what constitutes a crime in that area, she said.

According to Alice, NOW will send out a brochure with a definitive description. She said sexual harassment is basically repeated inappropriate behavior, with sexual connotations, without consent.

Alice said that a lot of the calls to NOW were from people frustrated at the way Anita Hill was treated during the Senate hearings, and that many women were angry at the all-white male makeup of the judiciary committee.

“A lot of callers said they wanted to find ways to get more women in the Congress, because without that input the problem of sexual harassment will never be resolved,” Alice said.

Overheard

“You’ll have to open these books because I just had a manicure, and my nails are still wet.”

--Teen-ager with a stack of books, to Woodland Hills librarian, as a lot of impatient people waited (with open books) to get them checked out.