European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - March 5, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Wednesday March 5, 1986 the stars and stripes Page 17 Good help czechs subdue trauma of 68 by Michael t. Kaufman new York times t Here is a new state run shop in Prague that sell Christian dior perfume an toilet water for three and fou times Airport prices. The store is very Busy. Prague s wine bars taverns Heaters and concert Halls Are similarly full of people. At night there is far More Street life in Prague than in Warsaw or Budapest. The winding lanes of Golden Prague the City s baroque Core invite wandering even in the cold. Czechoslovak a generally Well dressed fill the stylishly renovated old cellars eating Large portions of Duck and dumplings and drinking copiously available and very Good Beer. All of this serves As evidence of one Side of the bargain that the czechoslovak government struck with the people As part of the normalization that came after Warsaw pact troops under soviet command ended the freedoms Blooming in the Prague Spring of 1968. The government has delivered on its part of the agreement to maintain a living Standard that is among the highest in Eastern Europe. What was demanded in return was that there would be no room for political innovation no Liberal gestures or challenges to orthodox communist Rule. With the exception of a few largely isolated dissidents this part of the bargain has also been kept. William h. Luers the . Ambassador said there is now much More open and interesting debate and discussion going on in the soviet Union than in  you know said Jiri swim head of the czechoslovak department dealing with foreign journalists our people have done very  he quoted from a report on his desk for every 100 households there Are 145 washing machines 115 refrigerators 125 television sets and 49  there Are More appliances than households because Many Urban czechoslovak also have tiny country cottages. A new comprehensive economic plan unveiled in january Calls for personal consumption to Rise 50 percent by the end of the Century. But with atrophy ing Industrial plants and High Energy costs some czechoslovak Are hedging earlier predictions of boundless growth. Still the Standard of living for czechoslovak is something that poles can Only dream about. On the other hand the relative Freedom of Poland s churches the scope of underground publishing in Poland and the existence of a popular counterculture often arouse the curiosity and occasionally the envy of czechoslovak. When Solidarity first flourished the czechoslovak authorities curbed tourist travel Over the polish Border. Although Solidarity As a Legal labor Union has Long been crushed czechoslovak still find it As hard to gets a photo by Linda White Prague Standard of living in Czechoslovakia is among highest in Eastern Europe. Permission to go to Warsaw As to go to the West. The Rev. Vaclav Maly is one of the few czechoslovak who will talk openly to foreigners about what he considers the costs of the National bargain. He is a 35-year-old roman Catholic priest whose government License has been lifted. Now if he dresses in clerical garb or serves communion he faces a two year prison sentence. Technically my License was taken away because they said i was practising As a priest in a District that was not listed on my License but the real reason is that i was meeting with Young people the priest said during a break from his Job As a Stoker in the boiler room of a Small hotel. Here a priest cannot discuss religion in apartments Only in  the licensing of priests has a Long tradition in this Region going Back to the 17th Century. The habsburgs did it and after the decline of the Austro hungarian Empire the democratic prewar government of Tomas Masaryk maintained the practice. Today president Gustav Husak s government licenses and pays the country s roman Catholic priests protestant ministers and the sole rabbi. The state pays to maintain Church property and for the operation of the two Catholic seminaries. Vladimir Janku director of the government office of religious affairs explained that lifting the License of prelates who took their work beyond Church grounds was simply a matter of professional rules governing All jobs. Maly said the lifting of his License had brought some benefits. I am paid badly but i live with the people he said. I ride trams and buses and have to worry about food and i no longer live in the Parish House isolated from the Man in the  of course i am still a priest and i serve god he said. Maly has had Contact with charter 77, the main dissident group and once went to prison for seven months because of his work with the committee for the defense of the unjustly persecuted. He said the members of charter 77 concentrate on human rights on having the czech government live up to the International treaties it signed and this is a very Good approach. But i think people need More than human rights some values and Hopes that go beyond just this  is via Bombeck w Hen i thought about it which was too often i always assumed people stole cars that were sorta Plain an Basic and blended into the flow of traffic without arousing suspicion. I figured they d be rather nondescript possibly beige or Gray with a minimum of Flash and Chrome. Wrong. The no. 1 car that is stolen More often than any other is a Buick followed closely by a Cadillac Eldorado porsche and Pontiac grand prix. The car i drive did t make the top 10. I m not sure How i feel about that except i m wondering who told Crooks that to Start it you had to pump the accelerator 3 /2 times let it rest for exactly 16 seconds turn the key floor it and hum a German Waltz. Possibly another reason Why my car has remained intact is that cars Are usually stolen for Joy  assuming Joy ride translates to a ride in a car that is shiny sleek and inspires looks of envy and can be Ridden in Comfort my car is out. Car Wash attendants demand Hazard pay. There Are Tennis balls rolling around under the Brake pedal there s a Chip in the front window secret sauce stains on the seat covers and radio dials permanently set for the Barry Manilow network. Looking Over the cars driven by our children i would have been willing to bet that they could have left them in a world class ghetto with the keys in them and the windows rolled Down and no one would have looked twice at them. Also wrong. You cannot imagine our Shock when one of our kids called saying his car had been stolen. He was sick. He d just put a Dollar s Worth of Gas in it. How did they get the motor to turn Over we asked. They hot wired  Why did t you think of that Why do you think they took it the police said for the  which one i can t imagine " said our son. What Are the chances of getting it Back Given the Odds of having it stolen in the first place the same As Lee Iacocca buying a  three months passed when the police called him one Day and said we be found your car. Come pick it  wondering How he was going to get it on a bus our son went to the Yard and there was his car shining like a new Penny. The motor Hac been tuned up there was White pile carpet on the dashboard a religious statue dangling from the Mirror and a have a Good Day bumper sticker. Someone had put in new Points and replaced a Bald tire. Even Crooks have Pride. C 1986, los Angeles times Syndicate