Posted on 10/09/2005 9:17:42 PM PDT by 1066AD
Axe falls on Reagan tour guides 'for being too old' By Catherine Elsworth in Los Angeles (Filed: 10/10/2005)
Elderly volunteers at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library claim they have been barred from giving tours and welcoming visitors because they are too old - even though many are younger than the former president when he led the US.
Nearly 30 of the volunteers learned of their fate in a letter telling them that they were being relieved of their duties. They were awarded "emeritus" status and handed glass globes and certificates signed by Nancy Reagan.
Administrators deny that age was a factor in dismissing the volunteers, who are devoted to President Reagan. He was buried in the grounds of the library in the Simi Valley north of Los Angeles after his death last year aged 93.
But many of those affected, the majority of whom are in their seventies, believe otherwise.
"It was just 'goodbye and don't come back'," said Norma Stafford, 75. "Basically all they said was that we were not needed any more. But as we went along we figured out that all of us were over 70 or had grey hair, some of us both.
"I guess they thought we wouldn't be able to bounce around and were looking for younger people. But believe it or not, you can walk and talk in your 70s - as Mr Reagan did."
She said the nation's oldest president, who was 77 when he left office in 1989, "would not have liked this at all".
Dee Rickards, 79, from Malibu, has volunteered for 14 years at the library, which has about 400,000 visitors each year. Mrs Rickards said: "We are heartbroken. It was very badly done and unnecessary to do that to people who have donated so much."
Kirby Hanson, who developed the emeritus programme, said that the decision to remove touring duties from some of the volunteers was based on the "physical and intellectual" rigours of the job following the doubling in size of the campus.
"Age absolutely was not a factor,'' she said.
Yeah, right.
Well the Telegraph is not a tabloid for starters, it's probably the most consistently conservative newspaper in the UK as well as being one of the biggies.
Secondly, I don't see the article as being anti-American at all, more a report on what is all too common these days - older people getting the short end of the stick, in this case even volunteers.
Obviously you know nothing about The Daily Telegraph. It is a broadsheet newspaper, and has a very strong pro-American editorial stance.
It would have been a simple matter to divide the tours so that each guide passes you along to another. That makes for a better tour, IMO.
I'm in my 70's and I volunteer a lot---I didn't have time for it when I was younger.I also can keep up with any younger person,physically and intellectually.
I will never visit the Reagan Library if this is true (I also have time to travel more----maybe I should check out the Clinton library (ducking for cover).
Good for you :)
Good one less OLD p[erson getting in my way.
Be sure to buy some taffy and jerky at the check out counter as you leave the Clinton Library and head out over that dangerous two lane blacktop highway.
BURMA SHAVE
You spelled Clinton Liebrary wrong. When it's the Reagan Library, it's spelled without an "e", when it's the Clinton Liebrary, you must add the letter "e".
;-)
It would be kind of funny for all of these crates upon crates of pornographic materials to emigrate from the attics and musty basements of America and clog the corridors of the Clinton Liebrary. I wonder if the MSM would do a story on it?
Think of the possibilities, Mears. For instance, you could pass along tips on removing stains from one's favorite dress. You could inform the visitors like no Clinton supporter ever could. ;^)
You forgot to mention the whipped cream and edible undies.
They were "youth-challenged."
Now management faces a lawsuit for Excessive Youthitude.
Have been to the RR Library three times and enjoyed these seasoned citizens very much. Sorry to see this happen.
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