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Patrick’s dark world
is full of life and joy
By RICH SEELEY
Copley News Service
LOS ANGELES - “You nev
?r realize he is sightless until
it's midnight and he goes in a
dark room and gets something
for you.”
That’s how Emile Burke be
gins to explain his happy, free
spirited son Patrick and the ex
tent to which he has conquered
his blindness.
As Burke and his wife De
lores talk about rearing
Patrick, the 6-year-old boy is
playing with race cars in his
room.
“During a day, I don’t think
he’s lonely or bored,” his father
says. “He has a full day of
learning and playing.”
The Burkes talk with pride
about their son, who was
blinded by tumorous disease of
the eye at Ite.
He is a basketball fan who
can talk about the Lakers with
the expertise of a sportswriter.
He knows the words to most of
the country-western Top 40 and
can tell you the names of the
songs if you play him the first
few bars.
He can switch topics from
music and sports to talk about
the Apollo program and the
solar system, telling you the
number of days in a year on
any planet.
He brought home a perfect
report card from school, where
he is the only blind child. With
the help of a teacher, he has
Capitol restoration
has no funding
By BENJAMIN SHORE
Copley News Service
WASHINGTON - The crav
ing of many congressional
leaders for more office space
has led to a controversial pro
posal to extend the west front of
the Capitol.
The proposal has been
blocked for the time being by a
slight majority of the House,
but the pressures for more of
fices will grow in the next few
years and keep the idea alive.
last month, the House
rejected by a vote of 181 to 197 a
motion to spend $2 million to
draw up final plans for the ex
tension project. The Senate
earlier had voted to kill the
project.
These votes now open the
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learned Braille in a year and
does all the work his first grade
classmates do.
But he isn’t a bookish, shel
tered homebody type.
Next-door neighbor Bob
Woodie is teaching him to play
basketball.
“I made a hook shot yester
day,” Patrick says when the
subject of his basketball les
sons comes up. “But you know
what I have trouble with? Drib
bling. I can’t dribble,” he says
with a laugh.
He and his father also go for
long runs on the beach where
Patrick can race as free as he
wants.
“We ran a whole mile one
day,” Patrick says.
He also loves swimming. His
parents have a picture of him
taken last summer showing
him jumping into a pool.
He always has been active,
his parents say. When he was
three he loved climbing to the
top of the jungle gym.
At school he is able to play
with the other children using a
special ball with a bell in it.
With an acute sense of hearing
he can tell where the ball is and
where the other children are.
The Burkes are the last ones
to take credit for Patrick’s
growing up to be a normal, ac
tive boy. While the Burkes are
modest about their role in
bringing up Patrick, they have
worked actively to build the
happy world he lives in.
“We’ve taken advantage of
way for restoration of the 144-
year-old west front. The wall of
Virginia limestone is the last
portion of original structure.
Time, abetted by the vibra
tions of aircraft and automo
biles, has weakened the west
front as to make it unsafe, ac
cording to the Capitol archi
tect’s report in 1963.
A commission of congres
sional leaders had been formed
in 1955 to study the feasibility of
extension, and within 10 years
they were embroiled in a con
troversy with members of Con
gress who simply wanted the
west front restored.
The latest estimate for exten
sion is S6O million, but restora
tion would cost only sls million.
The east front was extended
in 1962 to provide 100 offices for
congressional committees.
Proponents of the west front
extension envision not only of
fices, but also a restaurant to
accommodate the millions of
tourists who annually troop
through the halls of Congress.
A hungry tourist today is al
most out of luck around the
Capitol. Present cafeterias in
the office buildings are re
served for congressional em
ployes during the noontime
lunch rush, and virtually all of
the restaurant space in the
Capitol is reserved for mem
bers of Congress.
Typical of the opposition to
the extension plan was that of
Sen. Ernest F. Rollings, D-S. C.
He questioned the need for
what he termed “bunches of
restaurants, committee rooms,
bathrooms, lounges, tourist
spots, sale of trinkets, Disney
land East — or are we going to
maintain the Capitol for use as
a Capitol?”
House Speaker Carl Albert,
D-Okla., chairman of the ex
tension commission, supported
moving the west front outward.
“We badly need space for our
legislative operations,” he said
during the House debate. “The
crowded conditions which exist
now are deplorable.
“This building is a national
shrine. It is also very much a
working building which must
serve the needs of the Con
gress. It seems to me unthink
able that we should penalize
ourselves and the country by
not extending the west front,”
Albert said.
The proposed extension,
utilizing the slope down toward
the Mall, would provide space
for 285 offices, plus a huge res
taurant, tourist lounge and an
underground bus terminal.
But this plan now appears
dead. The cost of extension —
four times that of restoration —
and the drastic change in the
historic building’s architecture
teamed up to persuade a ma
jority of the Congress to get by
with cramped offices for a
while.
It seems more likely that the
Congress will vote to build new
office buildings on Capitol HUI.
The Senate already is close to
agreement on a site and plan
for a third building, and the
House has its eye on several
parcels of land for a fourth
House building.
RESOLUTION REJECTED -
MILWAUKEE, Wis. (UPI)-
Delegates to the 114th Interna
tional Typographical Union
Convention Wednesday main
tained the union’s tradition of
not making political endorse
ments and rejected a resolution
to support Sen. George Mc-
Govern.
A resolution calling for
withdrawal of American troops
from Southeast Asia also was
rejected for the same reason.
his interests, to make the world
real to him,” Burke says.
One of Patrick’s early inter
ests was plumbing. He wanted
to know everything about it.
“When we’d go over to some
one’s house, Patrick wanted to
go over all the plumbing,” Mrs.
Burke remembers.
To help him understand it
better, Burke got every kind of
pipe connection available and
built a Rube Goldberg contrap
tion in the backyard. Patrick
was able to feel all the pipes.
Another of Patrick’s loves is
radio. He listens to it for hours.
But Patrick always wants to do
more than just listen, so he de
cided to be a disc jockey like
the ones on country-western ra
dio.
With a microphone in his
bedroom which runs to a
speaker in the living room,
Patrick is able to produce his
own radio show for company.
Dad acts as engineer, putting
the records Patrick wants to
play on the stereo. The six
year-old ad-libs jokes and com
mercials between records.
Radio led Patrick into his lat
est interest — basketball. He
became a Los Angeles Lakers’
fan while listening to the play
by-play during their record
winning streak.
His parents took him where
the action was. He met Chick
Hearn who broadcasts the
Laker games as well as some of
the players.
GOP smells victory
By MICHAEL O’CONNOR
Copley News Service
WASHINGTON - The Re
publican Party is hoping this
fall to gain control of the House
of Representatives, a coup it
last pulled off 20 years ago.
The Republican Campaign
Committee, House arm of a
Capitol Hill group established
to work for the election of
members of the GOP to Con
gress, is optimistic.
Minority leader Gerald Ford
of Michigan has made such a
prediction based on his feeling
that dissatisfaction among
Democrats with the national
ticket of Sens. George McGov
ern and Thomas Eagleton will
have a broad coattail effect for
President Nixon.
It would take a Nixon land
slide to make Ford’s prediction
correct.
To take control — and to
place Ford as speaker of the
House — the party needs to
make a net gain of 35 seats. No
such large gain has been made
since 1952 when then Gen.
Dwight Eisenhower captured
the presidency and carried in a
batch of new congressmen.
There are 435 seats in the
House with all members up for
reelection. Republicans hold
178 and the Democrats 255 with
two vacancies.
In 1952, the last big year for
House Republicans, the margin
of control was 221-213. The con
trol position lasted, however,
for only two years.
Ford’s optimism is based on
GOP feeling in Washington that
the McGovern-Eagleton ticket
will be controversial enough to
have a negative effect on the
party’s nominees for Congress.
The optimism is also hedged on
some practical factors which
may have a larger bearing on
makeup of the lower house than
the duel for the presidency.
They include:
1. A decision by the leader
ship of the AFIvCIO to siphon
much of the money normally
earmarked for the Democratic
presidential nominee to assist
party candidates in House and
Senate races.
2. The increasing trend for
★★★★★★★★
Fatal last fling
HOWELL, Mich. (UPI)-A
four-foot grass snake came out
a loser Tuesday when he
attempted to seduce a jumble
of serpentine wires and cables
in the transmitter of radio
station WHMl—but the would
be love affair didn’t help the
station much, either.
Station manager Ann Bignell
said that when the snake got
his wires crossed, he also
shorted out the 500-watt station
in the middle of a public
opinion phone-in show.
A spokesman said the snake
was killed by the hot wires.
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Although totally blind, young Pat Burke of Los Angeles still manages to have a grand time. His
parents treat him as a normal child and he has responded accordingly. The lad can also play
basketball and is an avid radio fan.
states to elect Democrats in
open congressional seats. The
1970 congressional elections
produced 56 new faces in the
House, including 33 Democrats.
3. The setting aside of at least
30 seats in the deep South, all of
which are held by Democrats,
as “nonattainable” this year.
4. Reapportionment of the
House in most states which, be
cause of legislative action fa
voring Democrats, is likely to
produce a net gain for the ma
jority.
Where Republicans hope to
make their strongest gains are
in 22 districts which have been
vacated in the 92nd Congress
either by deaths, retirements
or decisions of incumbents to
seek higher office. A big push in
these areas plus what Republi-
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Page 19
cans feel will be a downturn in
interest with McGovern and
Eagleton could give the GOP a
House momentum it has lacked
for two decades, aides to Ford
say.
The GOP will be coming off a
less than satisfactory perfor
mance in 1970 elections when
Democrats gained nine seats.
The Republicans, however,
looked at this situation as a
moral victory since the tradi
tional off-year margin by a
party out of power in the White
House was limited to less than
the 38-seat gain normally re
corded.
The House Campaign Com
mittee is expected to outline its
strategy in key districts follow
ing the Republican National
Convention in Miami Beach in
August.
— Griffin Daily News Thursday/ August 10,1972
To The Voters
of District 67
’’THANK YOU”
John Carlisle
(Paid Political Adv.)