Woodland Hills Teen-Ager Learns About Congress in Person

Yoeli Barag, a junior at Taft High School in Woodland Hills, has been playing hooky all semester, with his teachers’ blessings.

The truant has been hanging out in the halls of Congress, rubbing elbows with the power elite and in the thick of the NAFTA and Brady bill debates.

Barag, 16, is serving as a congressional page recommended by Anthony Beilenson (D-Woodland Hills) and says his September-through-January posting has changed his life.

Instead of familiarity breeding contempt, in Barag’s case it has been the opposite.

“Once you see how hard members of Congress work--on committees, in the House and with their constituents--you understand why they are due the respect they receive,” he says.

Barag lives in rooms in the third floor of the O’Neil Office Building with roommate Ken Dechant of Ohio, a fellow page. Male pages are all housed on the third floor, women on the fourth floor. The elevator stops running between those floors after 10 p.m.

Barag is up at 5:30 a.m. every weekday and is in the classroom in the O’Neil Building from 6:45 to 10 a.m. From there he hikes a block over to the Capitol, where he works until at least 5 p.m.

“During times when there are long debates on the floor, we sometimes don’t get through until 1:30 a.m. or 2 a.m., but we are expected to be in school at the appropriate time,” he says.

On weekends, pages are taken to historic places around Washington, and are still expected to keep up with homework.

“I’m taking American history, American literature, chemistry, Spanish and the Washington Interdisciplinary Scholastic program, which is about how Congress works,” he says.

He must be doing something right, because he just made the page school honor roll.

“Yeah, I was really stoked, all A’s,” he said. “I did well at Taft, but school here is hard, and there is so much going on, the grades really made me feel great.”

Page duties include raising and lowering the flags over the Capitol building, delivering messages to the floor of the House, summoning members to the phone and delivering papers between congressional offices.

During the NAFTA debate, he says, a lot of pages summoned members to speak to President Clinton. He was not one of them, but he says the level of excitement was so high that the atmosphere was supercharged.

“It was like when I had been in Washington only a few weeks and just gotten my first assignments and the President came to address both houses of Congress. There were all the people who run our country, members of Congress, the Supreme Court and the chief executive. It’s hard to explain what an impact it makes on you to be working in that kind of a situation. We were all pretty awe-struck.”

Barag’s stepfather, Leonard Loren, is an Encino psychiatrist. His Israeli-born mother, Bracha, helps in the offices and air-mails kosher food to her son.

“We brag to everyone about how Yoeli is a page at Congress,” his mother said. “They all think we had some political clout to get him to have that experience. We didn’t even know Mr. Beilenson.”

Barag first met Beilenson at a political rally in May, 1992. “My older brother had had a three-month internship in Washington, which really gave me the idea of trying to become a page,” Barag says.

After the rally where he met Beilenson, he called the Woodland Hills office and asked for an application.

By August, 1993, he was informed the page job was his.

“I was in Mexico with my family on vacation, and I called the Washington office to see what my status was,” he says. “When I was told I got it, there was a lot of cheering and noise.”

Cindy Gordon, who oversees page candidates for Beilenson, says Barag was an exceptional candidate and has been an excellent page.

Barag says he knows it is going to be a letdown when he has to give up the highly charged political atmosphere of Washington and return to Taft for the spring semester. He’s going to miss the idea that’s he’s at the power base of the free world.

“In Washington everyone talks politics and has tremendous interest in government. I’ll really miss that, but it will be great to be back with my family and friends,” he says.

Where Do They Get All That Energy?

It’s a sorry situation when people have no sense of propriety, particularly old people who won’t climb into their rocking chairs. One of the sorriest examples of this phenomenon can be found in a group of rowdies called the Over the Hill Gang.

The Los Angeles County president of this band of rebels is 69-year-old Richard Knudsen of Glendale, whose idea of a good time is going up on the black-diamond ski runs and beating the teen-agers to the lodge.

Should you care to lecture Knudsen on his unseemly behavior, don’t bother him this week. He and the gang are skiing in Colorado.

Then there’s the ski trip to Alpine Meadows, one to the Italian Alps, one to Sun Valley and another to Oregon. That’s just part of the calendar for January.

In between downhill runs, these gray-haired men and women have bike rides, hikes, walks, wind surfing expeditions, off-road biking, sailing, kayaking horseback riding, canoeing and heaven knows what else.

One of the gang is 90-year-old Florence Woo of Los Angeles, who celebrated her 89th birthday with a river-rafting trip.

And, last year, some of the gang went to New Zealand for some summer skiing. And, just to spice things up, they threw in a little bungee jumping.

Their bike rides have included a recent one from Anaheim Stadium to San Diego. Knudsen says the slackers took the train back.

He says the only requirement for group membership is to have achieved the age of 50. Many members have taken up skiing in their 60s and 70s. Some have learned to windsurf in their 60s and 70s.

No under-50 youngsters may go on trips or outings or attend meetings, not even family.

The group meets at the Bombay Bicycle Club in Burbank or Reubens on the Westside, but only about 30 of the 160-plus members show up--probably because they hate sitting still.

In February, there’s a five-day ski trip to Mammoth Mountain. One hundred people have already signed up.

“Our group often goes in with the Ventura gang for outings like this one. It gives us better rates and it’s fun,” Knudsen said.

He said the organization was started several years ago by a bunch of over-50 ski instructors in Colorado who wondered where all their contemporaries had gone when it came time to ski.

Now if they are looking for a ski buddy, the founders have a nationwide roster of about 3,000 from which to choose and a national board that organizes trips like this February’s journey to the Italian Alps.

Los Angeles County is one of the local chapters whose members are overactive and need something to do besides skiing.

“We have every level of competence at skiing, sailing, biking, you name it. The general idea of the membership is ‘Go for it, and have a good time.’ ”

Overheard

“My neighbor gives new meaning to the concept of artificial intelligence. She’s afraid to live in the Valley anymore and wants to move to Montana, but she’s not sure she could get a proper manicure there.”

--North Hollywood woman on phone to friend.