NEIGHBORS : Education in the American Dream : Westlake Village foundation is designed to show students the value of home ownership.

To Klara Katersky of Westlake Village, first-graders drawing pictures of a house might just as likely be instructed on home equity options as on choice of colors.

Katersky is spearheading a project called the Foundation for Home Ownership Education. She hopes to teach schoolchildren the value of buying a home.

“We envision a K-through-12 program to teach children how to participate in the American Dream. We want to teach about goals and aspirations just the way we teach history and math so that children can learn the value of home ownership.”

Katersky, a longtime Republican supporter, envisions the program as a self-esteem class to complement drug and alcohol education.

“Everybody is trying to help the inner cities, but they are not going to come up with a solution until we teach people to participate in the American Dream, and that starts at the grass-roots level with the kids. The country needs to go back to 1950s values in order to save itself,” Katersky said.

She suggested Ozzie and Harriet as a good model couple.

Katersky heads Katersky Mortgage Group. She also hosts a weekly radio show on KIEV (870 AM) called “Financing Tactics for the ‘90s,” which airs Tuesdays at 6:30 p.m.

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The California Vegetarian Assn. is long known for combining ingredients in unique ways. This week the group, which is based in Thousand Oaks, tossed together a hypnotherapy potluck.

What do flesh-free dining and hypnosis have in common? The answer: L-tryptophan.

Club Co-President Cretia Shire of Camarillo said the essential amino acid is conducive to relaxation.

“Tufts University and the Boston Sleep Lab report that L-tryptophan is used by the brain to synthesize the vital brain chemical, serotonin, a neurotransmitter that’s critical in the biochemical mechanics of sleep.”

Just about any protein-rich food is high in L-tryptophan, Shire said. Sources of the snooze-inducing amino acid are bananas, dates and peanuts.

For the hypnotherapy session, the club’s other co-president, Rich Longobart, will make “ice cream” composed primarily of frozen bananas and dates.

Mmmm, we’re regressing already.

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Ojai’s well-dressed environmental activists will have one last chance to acquire the summer’s de rigueur clothing item, the Dump Weldon T-shirt. The victorious Coalition to Stop Weldon Canyon Dump has a surplus of memorabilia, T-shirts among them, that they will distribute at Ojai Day on Oct. 9.

Angela Stasse, a coalition board member, estimates 75 to 100 of the shirts were left after Waste Management Inc. withdrew its proposal in July.

“I see as many of the shirts around town now as I did before,” Stasse said. “They’re worn as a symbol of people making a difference.”

A special bottling of Chardonnay sporting the familiar “Dump Weldon” graphic on its label has long since sold out of local stores. Imbibers report that it had an excellent, dry character and that the wine, like the dump controversy itself, had a satisfying finish.