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No one thought back in 1975, when the first Ed Smith Neighborhood reunion was proposed, that it would be repeated over a three-decade span, but this year’s gathering on April 16 at the Dante Club will mark its 30-year renewal.

Ed Smith Neighborhood? For the uninitiated, Ed Smith had a service station at 23rd and F streets which became a teenage hangout. And the boundaries of that neighborhood? Well, participants come from all points of the compass with no one questioning how far anyone may have grown up from 23rd and F.

The hall may be decorated with a vintage gas pump, founder Tom Sarmento – who never thought his brainchild would grow to 30-year adulthood – likely will have his rumble-seated Model A out front, and everyone will be knee-deep in reminiscences.

If you thing you qualify (and no one’s ever been turned away as ineligible), the tab is $18, reservations are mandatory, and calls will be taken by Bim Feinberg, 944-1968, or Vera Crandall, 454-3952.

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Correspondent Wells Bain, something of a rabble-rouser, has a suggestion for El Presidente and his cohorts regarding the reform of Social Security. Wells asks, “Why not privatize the government?”

He goes on to advocate ending all federal pensions, putting everyone on Social Security – executive, legislative, judiciary, military – and “then, when the next stock market crash comes, [they all] can stand in breadlines with the rest of [us].”

It does sound just a bit extreme, and I seriously doubt El Prez will buy it, but it’s something to think about.

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The Sac State U Renaissance Society will play host on April 15 to a five-state ALIROW conference. The acronym is necessary because Association of Learning in Retirement of the West takes up a lot of space, especially if it needs to be repeated.

The featured speaker, I’m informed by Rita Gordon, will be Ronald J. Mannheimer, who has worked with the National Council on Aging and been a contributing editor to Creative Retirement.

Renaissance members and others interested in attending events during the three-day gathering can call Mildred Alexander at 361-7400. They’ll be able to meet ALIROW delegates from Nevada, Arizona, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia.

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Reading a publication to the very end can sometimes be rewarding. The point was emphasized when I came across a column on “doublespeak” on the final page of a recent AARP Bulletin.

It begins with the legendary story of a fellow who asked for a raise and was told, “Because of the fluctional predisposition of your position’s productive capacity as juxtaposed to governmental statistics, it would be momentarily injudicious to advocate an incremental increase.”

To that all the poor guy could say was, “I don’t get it.”

To which his supervisor answered, “That’s right.”

That’s the sort of talk Texas Congressman Maury Maverick had in mind when he coined the phrase “gobbledygook” back in 1944. In a word, he was saying it’s okay to talk turkey but not to talk like a turkey.

It’s the kind of statement George Bush was guilty of when he said, “Drug therapies are replacing a lot of medicines as we used to know it, “ and, “I am mindful not only of preserving executive powers for myself but for my predecessors as well.”

I mean huh, not to mention how’s that?

Then there was Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s gem, “There are known knowns. There are things that we know we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say there are some things that we know we don’t know. But there also are unknown unknowns. They are things we don’t know we don’t know.”

And I don’t know what the hell he was trying to say. Do you?

Right here in Sacramento we have Governor Gropefuhrer uttering profoundly, “I think that gay marriage is something that should be between a man and a woman,“ with his Grayness, ex-Governor Davis, having declared, “My vision is to make the most diverse state on earth and we have people fro every planet on earth in this state.”

Hey, ET, call home!

It’s contagious, it is. A doctor recording a patient’s death will write that the deceased “failed to fulfill his wellness potential” while hospitals are billing folks for an “oral administration fee” (nurse hands patient a pill) or “thermal therapy” (providing an ice bag).

And those of us who are seniors or – horrors! – “elderly?” Perish the thought. We are now “seasoned,” “veteran” or “chronologically experienced.”

Abe Lincoln once asked, “How many legs would a horse have if you called his tail a leg?” When some listeners yelled, “Five!” Honest Abe responded, “Four – calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it true.”

I was so happy with that information item I’m renewing my AARP membership.

After retiring from a long and respected career with The Sacramento Bee, Stan Gilliam found that he just couldn't stop writing. So he brought his "Stan's Sacramento" column to the Spectrum, where it has been a favorite of readers for 15 years ... and counting.

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