Banner Graphic, Volume 17, Number 170, Greencastle, Putnam County, 21 March 1987 — Page 4

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THE BANNER GRAPHIC, Saturday, March 21,1987

People in the news Bakker paying 'a terrible price' FORT MILL, S.C. (AP) The Rev. Jerry Falwell says television evangelist Jim Bakker was “wrong, wrong, wrong” for the sexual encounter that led to his resignation as head of the PTL ministry, but he’s paying a terrible price. Falwell, who took over as chairman of PTL when Bakker admitted surrendering to sexual advances and blackmail, said he visited Bakker at the hospital, and Bakker had acknowledged to him that he had sinned. “It doesn’t really matter whether someone seduced you or you raped someone,” Falwell said. “If you’re a man of God, a leader of the flock, (and) you yield, as far as I’m concerned, you’re out of the ministry.” Don Hardister, who described himself as Bakker’s security guard, was quoted today by the Los Angeles Times as saying that Mrs. Bakker was receiving treatment at the Betty Ford Center. Among questions Falwell faces are whether the “prayer partners” who helped give PTL $129 million in reported revenue last year will continue to support the ministry without the televised pleas of the charismatic Bakker and his wife, Tammy Faye. Bakker resigned from PTL Thursday, admitting he had been blackmailed after a sexual encounter seven years ago. The Charlotte (N.C.) Observer reported that the blackmail payments totaled $115,000 and that the encounter was with a church secretary. Bakker resigned from his denomination, the Springfield, M0.,-based Assemblies of God. But church officials said Friday that they could not accept a minister’s resignation while allegations of misconduct are pending and that they would continue to investigate. Bakker told the Observer that he was going into full-time therapy with his wife at a treatment center in Palm Springs, Calif. Mrs. Bakker had said March 6 that she was being treated in California for a longtime dependency on prescription drugs. • LOS ANGELES (AP) Actor Sean Penn showed up in court four hours before an arrest warrant would have gone into effect in a battery case in which he was accused of fighting with a man he said tried to kiss his wife, singer-actress Madonna. Penn was booked for misdemeanor battery Friday. He pleaded no contest last month to one count of misdemeanor battery on songwriter David Wolinski. Municipal Court Commissioner Juelann Cathey had ordered Penn to pay fines and penalties of $1,700, complete booking by Friday and serve 12 months probation. Wolinski says Penn pushed him off a chair and kicked him at Helena’s Nightclub last year after he had greeted Madonna. • NEW YORK (AP) Sadie Youngman, subject of the line “Take my wife. Please,” which her husband, comedian Henny Youngman, used repeatedly in his stage routine, died Thursday. She was 82. The Youngmans, Brooklyn natives, had lived in Florida for years, said the comedian’s best friend, Zinn Arthur of Pompano Beach, Fla. Mrs. Youngman died at Roosevelt Hospital in New York. “This is the first time I ever said, ‘Don’t take my wife,’ and they took her anyway,” Youngman said Thursday. They had been married 58 years.

Dear Abby Lady leaves them all wondering

DEAR ABBY: My gentleman friend and I are well into our retirement years. Each of us has lost a beloved spouse, so we understand each other’s loneliness and needs, and we see each other often. What can I say to relatives and others who ask (usually with -a snicker) whether we are intimate? I do not want to confirm or deny it, but I would like to leave them wondering. I want also to cure them of the notion that the idea of sex for older people is something to laugh about. I have enjoyed the sweetly uttered put-downs you suggest to others (“and why do you ask?” etc.) and now I need a ladylike but cutting remark to use myself. Please help me! TONGUE-TIED DEAR TONGUE-TIED: With a smile on your lips and a twinkle in your eyes say, “On the advice of my lawyer, I’m taking the Fifth.” *** DEAR ABBY: Help, please. I have a snake in my attic. I found its

THE FAMILY CIRCUS® By Bil Keane

“Remember! Hugs and kisses come before what did you bring us, Grandma?’ ”

; 1 ->

SANDI PATTI Gospel nominee

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) Christian music queens Amy Grant and Sandi Patti and the rock band Petra are finalists for this year’s top awards presented by the Gospel Music Association. The three are finalists for artist of the year, the top award, along with vocalists Larnelle Harris and Steve Green. Miss Grant, who also sings pop music, won the honor a year ago, displacing Miss Patti who had won it two straight times. The association announced on Thursday the finalists for its 18th annual honors, the Dove Awards. Winners will be announced April 9. Miss Grant and Miss Patti are joined by Cynthia Clawson, Twila Paris and Deniece Williams as finalists for No. 1 female vocalist. Miss Patti has won the honor five straight years. Finalists for top male vocalist are Derek Floyd, Green, Harris, Russ Tass and Wayne Watson. Harris won the award a year ago. Miss Grant, of Nashville, sold more than 1 million copies of her “Unguarded” album in 1986. She and Peter Cetera, former lead singer for the pop group Chicago, teamed on the recent No. 1 pop hit, “Next Time I Fall.” Miss Patti, of Anderson, Ind., received national acclaim last July 4 with a rendition of “The StarSpangled Banner” on ABC-TV’s Liberty Celebration. She has received 13 Dove Awards and won a Grammy Award last week for her “Morning Like This” and shared another Grammy with Miss Williams for “They Say.” • SALT LAKE CITY (AP) Bubba Smith, the former NFL football player who relinquished a lucrative beer commercial contract to avoid sending the wrong message to youth, has urged Utah teens to stay away from drugs. Smith delivered the keynote speech Friday at the annual Utah Federation for Drug-Free Youth Conference at the University of Utah. The former defensive lineman of the Baltimore Colts encouraged the teens to withstand peer pressure to use drugs or anything else that would disappoint their parents. • SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) A group of Hollywood celebrities including Jane Fonda and Jeff Bridges want to meet with Gov. George Deukmejian about the state’s new clean-water law, but the governor may not be available. The group of 20 also includes Donna Mills, Veronica Hamel, Ally Sheedy and Kristy McNichol, their publicists said. They want Proposition 65, passed by voters in November, to ban more chemicals from discharge in to drinking water. State health officials recommended Deukmejian issue a list of more than 200 chemicals, but the administration has put only 29 chemicals on the list so far.

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Abigail Van Buren

skin in front of my door three years ago. I measured it, and it was six feet long then. I took it to the vet to have it identified, and he confirmed that it was a black snake and said, “You’re lucky it wasn’t in your bed.” He had no idea how to exterminate it. I know it’s still there because I keep finding the waste droppings, which I had identified at the local pet shop. I have contacted the local exterminator, but to no avail. I have always been extremely terrified of snakes. It will soon be spring again, and I can’t go through another summer

PAVLOV

—~ " 11 . Universal Press Syndicate

BUBBA SMITH Warns teen-agers

under such stress. I don’t need to hear how “harmless” this slithering black creature is since I have been to the emergency room of our hospital several times with a rapid heartbeat and chest pains brought on by stress. If any of your readers can offer any suggestions, I would appreciate it. SNAKE-A-PHOBIC DEAR SNAKE-A-PHOBIC: You speak of consulting an exterminator. Why kill it? According to Dr. Mary Isaacs of Encino, Calif., who is a reptile expert, it is probably a king or gopher snake and is not poisonous. Better to be instructed on how to remove it from your home and let it live somewhere where you will not feel threatened. Call your local Humane Society or Animal Protective League. Either will be able to locate the snake, contain it, and remove it to a place that will be better for you as well as the snake who is probably as terrified of you as you are of it.

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