12/12/03

LC031212

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

An entire program devoted to people who have made a difference,
including a nurse who was on duty at Pearl Harbor.

Lenore Rickert>> It was in a way horrible, but in another way,
it was wonderful in that, as I say, I don't fear emergencies
anymore at all. If we have one, the best in people comes out.

Val>> And then, an award-winning playwright, poet, athlete and
actor who turned tragedy into triumph after an act of violence
changed his life forever.

It's all coming up next on tonight's Life and Times.

Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of
the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality
of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of
medicine, health, science and education.

Val>> This program is devoted entirely to people who are
changing the world for the better. All of them are very
different and many have overcome some big obstacles. First up
is a former nurse in Orange County. She survived one of the
darkest days in America's history, Pearl Harbor. Gay Yee met
with her not long after 9/11 and those terrible attacks brought
forth a flood of memories.

Gay Yee>> It's the stuff they make movies about, but Pearl
Harbor really happened with real people and eighty-seven year
old Lenore Rickert was one of them.

Lenore Rickert>> Well, it was like any other kind of duty until
the war broke out.

Gay Lee>> Lenore was a twenty-seven year old nurse stationed at
Pearl Harbor, on duty December 7, 1941 and making her rounds.
It was 7:00 a.m. and suddenly --

Lenore Rickert>> We heard a plane right overhead and it was
coming right down between the wards. I went to the window right
away and here was this plane with a single man in it.

Gay Yee>> She noticed the pilot was Asian and then she noticed
something else.

Lenore Rickert>> The planes had these great big round red
circles on the sides of them.

Gay Yee>> That day, 350 Japanese war planes attacked U.S. Navy
ships in Pearl Harbor, killing more than two thousand people.
Lenore had no idea she was witnessing the beginning of America's
World War II, a day that would live in infamy, and it all began
as she watched that Japanese plane pass outside her window.

Lenore Rickert>> He crashed right there. Then we began to hear
the bombs because the hospital point was the narrowest point of
the channel going into the harbor and we were right in the
middle of it.

Gay Yee>> Lenore met her husband at Pearl Harbor, an enlisted
man who later became a prisoner of war. They reunited the day
the war ended, got married and went on to have two children.
Today Lenore lives in Laguna Woods, a retirement community in
Orange County, eighty-seven, a grandmother and a great-
grandmother. She says she never imagined her grandbabies would
be witnessing a day of infamy of their own.

[Film Clip]

Gay Yee>> Lenore says she sees lots of similarities between
Pearl Harbor and the recent terrorist attacks. What stands out
in her mind? The humanity and the heroics.

[Film Clip]

Gay Yee>> The extreme lengths people took to help their fellow
man, firefighters and police officers that marched into the
World Trade Center only to become casualties themselves. Lenore
remembers a similar situation in Pearl Harbor. How servicemen
jumped out of their beds to help their comrades under attack.

Lenore Rickert>> They just climbed out of bed. As I said, I
had eye, ear, nose and throat. Those were people that could get
out of bed. There was only one patient in my ward that couldn't
get out of bed. He'd had double eye surgery the day before the
war.

Gay Yee>> Your patients got out of bed to go help?

Lenore Rickert>> Yes, absolutely. Right like that. They were
gone. There wasn't a person in bed except this one and he'd had
double eye surgery, so his eyes were covered. He pulled the
spread off of his bed, put it underneath and crawled underneath
so his bed would be available.

Gay Yee>> Lenore says the terrorist attack will change
Americans just as Pearl Harbor did, but this was worse. It was
on home soil and Americans will now have to live with fears
other countries have lived with for generations. This saddens
Lenore, but she says we will prevail just as we did back then.
What do you think going through the war did for your generation?

Lenore Rickert>> Oh, I think it gave them new values,
definitely. Self-values as much as anything. If they did what
they were supposed to do and came through okay, I'm sure that
their self-confidence has become an item in their lives. I
don't think they need to apologize for anything.

Gay Yee>> As horrific and heart-wrenching as these attacks are,
Lenore has not lost her deep faith in people. It's been
renewed.

Lenore Rickert>> It was in a way horrible, but in another way
it was wonderful in that, as I say, I don't fear emergencies any
more at all. If we have one, the best in people come out.
People that you would not expect to rise above and think of
other people besides themselves will do it. Guarantee it.

Gay Yee>> In Laguna Woods, Gay Yee for Life and Times.

Val>> Today Lenore is still very active in her community. She
serves as the earthquake chairman for her immediate area in
Leisure World in Laguna Woods.

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Life and Times
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Val>> Our next profile is of an award-winning playwright, poet,
athlete and actor. His greatest accomplishments came after an
act of violence robbed him of his eyesight. Lynn Manning could
easily have given up, but instead he turned tragedy into
triumph. Leah Sanders brings us Manning's remarkable story.

Lynn Manning>> Push the knees down. One-two-three.

Leah Sanders>> It's stretch time at Linda Gibson's judo class
in North Hollywood.

Lynn Manning>> One more time.

Leah Sanders>> Even before this martial arts class gets going,
there's plenty of physical contact. The man in blue is Lynn
Manning. He's a judo champion who's won on the national and
international levels, including the games in Barcelona. Linda
Gibson has taught him for twenty-one years.

Linda Gibson>> The ultimate principle of judo is to perfect
ourselves as human beings so that we can give something of value
to the world while we're alive, and this is what Lynn does.

Leah Sanders>> Like when he's helping his fellow classmates
here at the Braille Institute perfect their moves and, oh, by
the way, did you notice? Lynn Manning just happens to be blind.

Lynn Manning>> One-two-

Leah Sanders>> You wouldn't know it by the self-assured way he
moves through class, but twenty-one years ago, he lost his
sight.

Lynn Manning>> --four.

Leah Sanders>> Linda Gibson met him shortly after he went
blind.

Linda Gibson>> It seemed like he accepted that right away and
was able to move on with his life and redirect his energy.

Leah Sanders>> Gibson says Lynn personifies judo, which means
"the gentle way". Not only in his movement, but the way he
handles life.

Lynn Manning>> Legs together.

Leah Sanders>> His story is one filled with plenty of tragedy
that he's turned into triumph. But Lynn Manning's judo
expertise is only the beginning of his inspirational story. To
really understand who he is, you have to hear his remarkable
story.

Lynn Manning>> "Quick-change artist extraordinaire, I whip out
my folded cane and change from black man to blind man with a
flick of my wrist. It is a profound metamorphosis from God-
gifted wizard of round balls dominating backboards across
America to God-gifted idiot savant."

Leah Sanders>> Lynn wrote those words along with Mark Taper
Forum's producing director, Robert Egan. Lynn's a resident
artist with the Taper's "Other Voices" project which supports
the disabled community's involvement in playwrighting. This is
rehearsal for Lynn's upcoming one-man autobiographical show
called "Weights".

Robert Egan>> I think the hardest thing for Lynn in this
process and the bravery of Lynn in the process, and those people
that come to see the piece will experience this, is for him to
go back and talk about his childhood and his mother.

Leah Sanders>> Lynn Manning's story begins in 1950 South
Central Los Angeles. He says, until age eight, his home life
was great. Then domestic violence hit. His mother became a
single mom at age twenty-nine and she turned to alcohol.

Lynn Manning>> And had nine children and no man and no job of
any legitimate means, so it was hard. It was real hard.

Leah Sanders>> Lynn says eventually he and his brothers and
sisters were put into foster care. While it was tough being
separated from his family, foster care taught him to accept
sudden change outside his control.

Lynn Manning>> I was just used to having things snatched away
from me, so I learned not to get very attached to people, very
attached to schools or to neighborhoods, and just know that
wherever I landed, as long as I had a grip on who I was, then I
could make do.

Leah Sanders>> Fast forward to age twenty-three, and Lynn says
his life was taking a turn for the better. He was in school
studying art and drafting and was promoted to counselor at a
boys' home where he once lived. Lynn says on the night of the
promotion, he went to his favorite bar to celebrate and that's
where he says a man started a fight.

Lynn Manning>> I was forced to throw the guy out and he came
back sometime later with a gun and shot me. As a result, I am
totally blind. When I was eighteen, I sort of considered that
my sight might be snatched away from me because I always wanted
to be a visual artist. That's what I was striving to be.
Ultimately, I figured, well, you know, the way things have been
going in my life, you know, it might not happen. So I sort of
planned, like, if it ever happened, I would do this, this and
this. So when it happened, it was, you know, I was sitting in
the hospital going, well, it looks like it's time to throw plan
two into effect.

Leah Sanders>> Eight months after the shooting, Lynn was back
living on his own. He says he focused on writing poetry. That
led to playwrighting, acting and filmmaking. When he's not
doing that, he also runs a theater workshop for young people
who've become disabled through violence. All of this when he's
not rehearsing his own show.

Lynn Manning>> "I began to recognize the overwhelming
distraction that sight had been. I never noticed that sound
moves the way it does or feels the way it does. And what about
this pulse? This vibration that flows from all things? And the
smells. Good God, the smells."

Lynn Manning>> I hope that people come away from, say, my
poetry or my plays or my performance open to broader
possibilities for other people.

Lynn Manning>> "My final form is never of my choosing. I only
wield the wand. You are the magician."

Val>> Lynn Manning's play, "Weights", has been performed at the
Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. and at the National Black
Theatre Festival in North Carolina, and he's also found time to
get married. Our congratulations to Lynn and his bride.

When it comes to people who have made a difference, it's hard to
beat the woman you're about to meet. She's a nun who has helped
scores of ex-gang members in the Los Angeles area turn their
lives around. As you'll see, it all starts when they shed the
skin of their former lives.

"Rabbit">> When I was inside prison, we had nothing else to do.
After a riot, we'd be slammed down for like six months or a year
in our cell, so we just started tattooing.

>> What is this scar? Did you get cut?

"Rabbit">> Yeah, that was in a prison riot. I started having
this thing. I didn't know what it was. I thought I was going
crazy because I was hearing voices, but all it was was just my
conscience screaming at me. You know, these are the people that
I've hurt. I mean, the way that I look at it, I believe their
spirits are around us. I believe they're watching us right now,
you know, and it's just like you can sense them, you can feel
them. They're right there.

[Film Clip]

Sister June Wilkerson>> My name is Sister June Wilkerson and
I'm the coordinator of the tattoo removal program. Over eighty
percent of gang members would like to get out of the gang if
they could and one of the big barriers is the tattoos. So we're
removing visible tattoos so that they can get jobs, so that they
can feel better about themselves and so that they can join
mainstream American life. We're averaging about six or seven
treatments per tattoo really to get it off.

We do roughly between twenty-five and thirty people every
Saturday morning. All our staff is volunteer. We have fifteen
volunteer doctors and fifteen volunteer nurses who rotate and
come on Saturday mornings. We started the program because there
is quite a bit of violence in the community. Providence Holy
Cross Medical Center has a trauma center and they see a lot of
victims of violence.

"Rabbit">> This is where the bullet went in and here is where
the bullet came out. Right here. The bullet flew out right
here. My lungs got full of blood, so they had to open my lungs
and take the blood out.

Sister June Wilkerson>> Turning and going in a new direction is
a very difficult thing. Change is hard.

Junior>> My name is Junior and I used to belong to the 18th
Street gang in Los Angeles around Pico and Union. I joined the
gang when I was about nine years old and I got my first tattoo
about a couple months after that, so now it's time for me to
make a change and change my life around in order to get a job.

Sister June Wilkerson>> What we decided to do was to start this
program to help ex-gang members get jobs and get into a more
constructive lifestyle.

David>> Now that I have my own business and I'm working and I'm
doing my own work now, I'm going to customers' houses where
sometimes I'll lose a job because sometimes they get intimidated
of me. I'm pulling up to their house and they see I'm coming up
there with tattoos.

Sister June Wilkerson>> So with the tattoos off and getting
jobs, we're stopping the violence and the bullets and hopefully
we can help a segment of the population be able to go in another
direction with their lives.

Junior>> I finally realized that, if I go back one more time,
I'm never getting out. I spent all my younger years in there,
all my teen years, and part of my adult years in there. I mean,
I'm tired. I want to try to get myself together. I have a
daughter and I haven't seen her. She's going to be six in July,
so I can't see her until I get myself together and I get a job.
Once I do that, everything's going to fall into place, so that's
why I'm here today. The change I have to make for myself --
before, I was trying to do it for everybody else. My father, my
grandma, my grandpa, for my daughter. It's got to be for me.

Jenny>> I had a boyfriend and we were engaged and everything
and his parents didn't like me because I had tattoos and I made
myself feel really low. Then once I came here, it picked me
right up and everything.

>> She belong to you?

Jenny>> Yes. I want her to see this because I don't want her
to get them.

>> Oh, you don't want to get these. They're pretty easy to put
on, but they're pretty hard to take off and they're kind of
painful to take off. Just ask mom.

[Film Clip]

Jenny>> This program did a lot for me and it changed my whole
life, like my getting a job and for my parents and for my
daughter.

>> You mean, you didn't think you'd be strong enough to get
them off because of what people said? What made you so strong?

Jenny>> That I would get a better life.

>> And you can stand up to your friends now?

Jenny>> Um-hum.

Sister June Wilkerson>> There is response to the program from
the clients, as I've said. It's just been overwhelming. We get
all kinds of thank-you's and you've changed my life and you just
didn't take off my tattoo, you gave me a new chance at life, so
it's very gratifying to do this kind of work and to make this
opportunity available for what I would call a less privileged
group of people.

Junior>> I just want to be myself now, you know, a person
because I'm somebody. I'm not just a number anymore like what's
your prison number? That's all they know you by. Forget about
your name. What's your state number? I finished already about
four of them, so that's it. My name is Junior and I'm somebody.

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Val>> For thousands of children whose families are struggling
to make ends meet, getting new clothes for school can be beyond
their reach. But one organization, the Assistance League of Los
Angeles, has been giving kids new styles and new smiles for
years. The program is called "Operation School Bell".

Gay Yee>> It looks like a department store with racks of
clothes, shoes and toys, but there's one thing missing: a cash
register.

Shirley>> I want to get dresses, uniforms and short sets.

Gay Yee>> And on this afternoon, ten year old Shirley has a
sharp eye for fashion.

Shirley>> I like this dress. It's pretty and my favorite color
is red.

[Film Clip]

Gay Yee>> So it goes at Operation School Bell, a program of the
Assistance League of Southern California. For more than thirty
years, the nonprofit organization has provided Los Angeles's
needy school children from kindergarten to twelfth grade with
new and used clothes.

Jan Atchity>> We give them an opportunity to shop more or less.
Very often the kids haven't had that opportunity. The only
thing that their families are able to provide is what's there,
so that's what they must have. We can offer them some
selection.

>> What do you think?

>> It's pretty.

Stella Livingston>> I was glad to be able to bring my kids
here, you know, because with my income, I couldn't afford to buy
no school clothes. So tomorrow when they go to school, they'll
be all right. I'm grateful.

[Film Clip]

Gay Yee>> Thousands of L.A. Unified School District students
need basic clothing each year, shoes, socks, underwear, even
grooming kits, items that Operation School Bell provides for
free. Unfortunately, they've become luxuries many families
can't afford.

>> We knew once of a story that there were two kids in the same
family who were sharing clothes and going to school every other
day, so we were able to provide them with school clothes.

>> These are two different sizes. I want you to try them on
for me and see if they fit.

Gay Yee>> But giving away free clothes is only part of
Operation School Bell's goal. Volunteers hope to enhance kids'
self esteem and ultimately keep them in the classroom.

>> The children very often are not comfortable going to school
because they don't have clothes that are similar to the clothes
of their peers, so by coming here they feel better about
themselves. So I think it does make a difference. But it has
cut down on the drop-out rate in the schools.

Shirley>> I like the dress because it's pretty and the color is
red.
Gay Yee>> The program works by appointment only. But the
demand is so high, Operation School Bell is booked through the
end of the year.

>> Today I had someone call and say they needed to get three
children in because they had no uniforms. It was very difficult
because I said, well, I can't schedule you until January. So
that's being -- we fill up immediately.

>> Clean socks so you can try on new shoes.

Gay Yee>> But the biggest problem the program faces is having
enough volunteers to man the service during school hours five
days a week.

Jan Atchity>> We're able to service about three thousand
children, but I think if we had the manpower and the money we
could probably service twice that number of children. There is
that need.

>> These are girls too. You look like a girl.

Gay Yee>> The cost of outfitting a child can run as much as
sixty-five dollars. Funds for the program are raised through
holiday benefits and from individual and corporate donors, but a
$160,000 budget only goes so far.

Wendy Fleming>> Most of our members are the ones writing the
checks and supporting it, which is wonderful. We love doing it.
That's why we're here. But this is something that could be even
larger. We could be helping so many more kids.

Gay Yee>> In the meantime, these kids, happy, tired and
grateful, can't wait to go to school.

>> I'm happy about all the clothes I've got that I'm going to
wear to school. I'm going to try to keep them clean.

>> Dear Operation School Bell staff. I want to thank you for
all your help and goodness. I also want to congratulate you in
what you're doing.

Shirley>> I feel fine in my new clothes.

>> Dear friends at Operation School Bell, you are nice. Thank
you for taking care of my sister. Thank you for giving us
clothes.

Jan Atchity>> When the kids look at you and they smile and they
say thank you, it is very special to all of us and that's why
we're here.

>> Thank you for all our new clothes.

>> Thank you, Operation School Bell.

Val>> The number of children served by Operation School Bell
has jumped dramatically from three thousand to four thousand
children a year, thanks in part to a partnership with Mervyn's
and with the Macerich Company which owns malls and donates 2,500
pairs of athletic shoes a year. That's our program. I'm Val
Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times, thanks for watching.

Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of
the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality
of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of
medicine, health, science and education.

Val>> Monday on Life and Times, it's just a store, but its
arrival in southern California strikes fear in the hearts of
retailers. It's called the Wal-Mart Syndrome.

Toni Guinyard>> Your reaction the first day you walked in here?

>> I said, praise God, they finally got here. It's about time
(laughter).

Val>> That's Monday on Life and Times.