European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - December 28, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 18 column the stars and stripes monday december 28. 1987 memories reduced to precious few b Andy Rooney no one can record and permanently store everything that passes in rough his or her head so each of us Dis misses and forgets most minor events storing i few of them away in stir memory we save some mental snapshots of our childhood of our school years of our wedding and of other impure land phases or events in our lives. Often the memory is no More than a funny or unusual thing thai happened. These snippets arc ear cd deeper into our memory As we Lell and retell them through inc years pushing everything else thai happened further Back until we hardly remember them at All. Sometimes things we remember never happened. The great experience of my life was seeing world War ii close up. 1 remember the faces of my fiends who died and i attach to those faces a handful of memories. In some cases spent cirs growing up with them but my Mem ories now a e narrowed Down to a precious few. 1 spent almost a year travelling Wilh a group of correspondents among whom was Ernie Pyle. I travelled All Day with him in a jeep on a dozen occasions and sat around at dinner com less nights listening to him talk with other newspaper heroes of mine and yet. When someone asks me about Emic. My memories Are limited to three stories is the same Wilh great International events. In re troop Cal we recall the headline nothing else. If we re Lucky we remember some of the names of the world leaders involved but Don l ask us to differentiate be tween Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev or to to Cal you much about what Aleksei Kosygin stood for. Tom Brokaw talked with Mikhail Gap Bachch for an hour and much of the interview was interesting and informative but All most of us who saw it Wilf Ever recall is that Gorbachev said he always told his wife Raisa  every Summit meeting in recent history has been reduced to a few thoughts like that or a few pie Iurco that stick in Nur minds. The first Summit meeting i Ever heard of As the one that look place in 1945 in Yalta Wilh Winston Church ill Josef  and Franklin d. Roosevelt. I Sav i recall the meeting but All i really remember is the Ercal picture of the three leaders seated together on the deck of a battleship. Stalin wore a general s uniform and for wore a Black Cape. You be probably seen the picture. Don t ask me what they decided about the future of Germany and i won t ask you. When Nikita Khrushchev visited the United nations in i960, All people remembered of inc event was thai he hanged his shoe on a table. When president Kennedy went to Europe in iw3 and made a visit to the Berlin will All v recall is thai he said in German. I am a Berlin ,. ,.ning All free men arc. Symbolically. Berliners. What Kennedy went for or whal he accomplished we Ilc he was there we Don t recall. Vice president Nixon went to Moscow to talk Wilh Khrushchev. Whal those of us old enough to have seen pictures on television remember most is the debate Nixon had Wilh Khrushchev in a Model american Icil Chen the russians had set up. It s probably a Good thing our memories Aren t any belter than they Are. A vaulted ceiling depicting whal used to be called the heavens co ers one of the greatest indoor spaces in the world the main wailing room. It s called the main waiting room even though no one docs much wailing in h. When i arrive there Are As Many As 100 homeless people sleeping on the floor in various areas covered with newspapers or scattered blankets. The Public toilets in the station originally built with the Best plumbing futures available and made of the finest materials by the Best craftsmen arc filthy sump holes now. No traveler using grand Central consider descend ing into the bowels of the building to use inc toilet facilities. Not All the homeless by her to use them either. They relieve themselves in the hundreds of recesses around inc building. Every Day at Midnight the homeless Are cleared out of the building and taken to what we once i delicately referred Loas  the homeless like the rest of us have their favorite places to be and every morn ing they re Back in grand tent nil. Am i heartless if i resent the intrusion of i Csc peo ple who cannot Cope with life on the Beauty and efficiency of this Public facility and. To some extent on my consciousness Why did we bother to erect such a magnificent place i have the Clear impression thai society feels sorrier for these people than icy feel for them selves. People in new York Are divided about How hey feel. One group yells Mea culpa take care of them another group shouts leave them alone they have rights As an observer i have the Clear feeling that the proud homeless who genuinely need and deserve our help because they Are hungry cold and jobless through no fault of their own Are largely in visible. They arc no on the floor in grand Central. Several years ago. The stale of new York decided it was paying for inc care of Loo Many people who were mentally ill. It turned them out of institutions and Many of those people Are now on the streets of new York City. They Ore mostly harmless and i suspect happier than they were when icy were institutionalized even though they Don l cat regularly and Are often cold on Winter nights. Their presence in Public places lessens the Quality Ollife for the Orcsi of us. Do we owe them that recently de Koch the major of new York decreed that the mentally incompetent were 10 be removed Force ably if necessary from the streets. By streets he also meant such Public places As grand Central. The edict did not include All the homeless just those some one decided were mentally disturbed each of us thinks everyone else in the world is a Lille crazy. Exact definitions of whal Consoli sulcs being mentally disturbed Are hard to find. The argument rages in the courts of new York City. When it s Over i Hope the homeless have a Home and we have grand Central Back floors men s rooms and All. A in gig a Mia services -or1sk" asst Mokot �9a Fol cabs 1i-_ a Jelly la  in Foi try has Treuh b x its Iii  \. 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