Front Street Weekly; 809

Oh. I just really scared the hell out of. That somebody knew that I couldn't read or write. They share a humiliating secret. They live lives of deceit and fear. They are the adult illiterate. And tonight Front Street weekly looks at their lives and some people in programs that are helping them. And Hollywood comes to Oregon. Every year a number of film crews come here. But does the state have the talent and resources to capitalize on the opportunity. Hope Robertson reports. And from Jasper Oregon. Rob might not reports on a man who brings vintage

aircraft back to life. Good evening. Welcome to this edition of French Street Weekly. Most of us have probably not ever stopped to imagine what it would be like to live in the society without being able to read. But 27 million American adults 250000 of them or more in Oregon don't have to imagine that it's real and the numbers are growing. Apart from access being denied to whole worlds of knowledge the less obvious implications of not being able to read are best way more devastating. Right. Judy human and Rita Collins are teaching fourth grade reading but the students are adults. Part of a Portland community college course in adult basic education in most cases their reading and math skills were below third

grade level. These adults are here because they want to change their lives lives filled with lost opportunities frustration and embarrassment. The handwriting and the groceries are already rung up and you said they're trying to figure out how to write this check without being embarrassed and just paying for their house just paying for your food you're paying for your bills right in checkmating terms correct without having to be upset about how while shopping everything labels on call right now outstanding. That's a problem. The price is going up. The only new job in that. Yeah right. Do you know how many applications. There. Can you read the application. I mean I don't have time. You kind of know where the name is supposed to go or something like that probably recognize words like name. Yeah you get a good memory of where things belong. Yeah you fake I say oh I got a very good view could I take this and take it home and bring back the next thank you that's their way of making it showing it. So when I have somebody else feel that you have to ask your mom or you

or your friends you know. You know you can trust them. I never have really checked before in my life for a letter. That. Not being able to read severely limits life in many other ways. If you can't read you can't get a drivers license at least not legally. And even when you do your mobility is limited by an ability to read maps street signs directions signs nutrition and health are threatened by not being able to read labels instructions recipes warnings medicines health benefits and insurance information. Basic financial transactions are a nightmare. And people who can't read voter information or ballots are excluded from the most basic participation in government. Yes. Right. While these adults are trying to escape their limitations many readers

never even try. A. Lot of people turning to her meds because they're embarrassed they can't face you know society. They don't get a job. They're real poor because of it but they'd rather be poor than to face the reality if. I can't read. I have two beautiful children thank you all over. Now we see Amy's 9 and Kevin to be five tomorrow. They were asking. Them to read when you have real stories and you can laugh until they get on enough to read but my 9 year old daughter helps me read so it's grown into a beautiful relationship there she's listening to size me for it. She understands Manson. Encourages me every day to go to school. As traveling. And to see down. Ashland. Forty seven year old John Centeno started learning to read. Two years ago about the time his son was born all his life he had

successfully faked a reading ability including four years at the Trojan Nuclear Power Plant where he supervised a crew of spent fuel hamburgers. Man. When it. Came. Time to filling out the sheet I used to get somebody else to tell my hey how do you know I have to do this you will see that I. Feel like you know the order sheet. You know we need 16 more cylinders and we need. To morrow hundred pounds of fine uranium capsules. You know and he said Well John you've got this one I got to do this you know they need me right now. But Centeno quit that job when he figured he was in over his head. It was also about then that his wife discovered he couldn't read so she dialled Oregon literacy handed the phone to John and his life began to change. And. My heart fell because somebody outside of my group found out I was OK.

And she said It's OK we know a lot of people I'm a tutor you know that we're helping adults that don't know how to read but. It just really scared the hell out of me that somebody knew that I couldn't read or write. After a year I could read the newspaper. It made me feel good. Tell me how to be a big stock boy. People don't know what it's like to read. I feel sorry for those that know how to read and don't read and don't appreciate it. This little card means a future it's a person's future. This card this is worth this is worth more than money because this will get you any book you want out of the library. And with that book you can succeed in anything you want in life. So this is worth. This is better than gold.

What kind of books will look Johnson will do if he has them in progress one of a trip to Washington D.C. in November where he was one of 20 learners in the U.S. honored personally by George Bush and his wife Barbara who has made literacy her own nation a crusade. Part of the nation will concerned about the growing adult illiteracy problem is the impact on industry which increasingly needs people with at least basic skill. For example in the southern Oregon mill town of Glendale Bill water bill Gregory realized that many of the problems they were having from handling hazardous chemicals to following simple maintenance procedures were because a lot of their workers couldn't read their side as a good thing. So then when I walk into the mill employee says my truck my live truck here doesn't have brakes. Well I get real concerned because now you don't have an accident as this my tail that said there's I get it fixed right away but all said you start understanding what is going on behind us why is it why a person that is so good at their

job in many other ways refuses to comply with some of these little simple things that you're asking them to do. Maybe some of us think that well that people won't accept help they'll be embarrassed but I think in many cases it's just that they don't know where to go and sometimes they don't have the skills to access the programs and for instance some of our community colleges been helpful in getting our program going and established but I don't think I would have thought to go out I'm talking not you wouldn't go to college just for your basic skills that probably the last place you go and use is certainly not going to go to the elementary school where the children are taught. So where do you go. Where you go a Gregory forest products is to a learning lab. The Gregory build right in the middle of the mill. It's convenient non-threatening and staffed by a full time director. Computers allow self-paced learning a basic map reading and other skills too. In our learning lab they're learning new skills the skills other people don't know. Learning how to use a computer and that's important so not only are you abusing her

very increasing your basic skills and learning how to read and write you're also at the same time learning how to use a computer and many of your peers can't use a computer so you're one up on them in the process of giving yourself any sort of act with respect to people using computers other parts of their lives you absolutely will they absolutely will. Many of the employees have purchased computers to use at home and the interesting thing I say that it's quite investment by fifteen hundred dollars and we worked up some packages of it that we could get at a reasonable price because we're buying a lot of computers for here at the business so we can get some pretty good deals for them. And then our bank brain stuff to finance them for the employees and so many of them go out and then they could use the software that they use in the learning lab and take it home and so now you have. Even then not only are they increasing their personal skills but now they're working with the children on the skills and I think as important statement in the end because it is a big spillover effect I think because it goes right down to the family and the kids

and then everybody's participate in the learning. Keeping the kids and future workers in school is another bill Gregory goal. He pays a $500 scholarship unmoored to each Glendale high senior who seeks additional schooling and gives them preference for summer jobs. Word is out that the mill won't hire you unless you graduate. In addition to maintaining a library built by Mill workers the mill also pays for any course. A worker might take on or off the mill site. Gregory says he's not just being a nice guy it's a sound business investment. If you if you find a situation where you have people whose skill level is those lower than takes to the job are you going to do anything about it and it's just it's just plain stupidity not to have your people trained to the highest level that they have and I think it's a matter of survival. If you spend a million dollars for a piece of equipment or you put in I don't like it but when you meet people. That understand how wars and what makes it tick and can take it apart and spot what's going wrong or worse yet be in our business

now in order to survive we have to get the maximum not out of the law. You can't. Just lowering wages you have to get the highest recovery that you can out of life and you do that by using your head or are the people that they use in their head. So they need to to have those skills. And so it's a matter of survival. But it may even go beyond that. If we aren't producing numbers and then they we can do if you have a skilled workforce you can do just about anything. And then you know that's the only thing that separates us from from doing anything is knowledge and skills. And so if we all work together make sure that we're as skilled bunch of people here that I mean schools possible everybody else when they were just going to be able to tackle about anything that comes up developing literacy whether for an individual or an entire business starts with a call to the literacy line at 1 800 3 2 2 8 7 1 5 4 2 9 4 18 a way to Portland. They've opened up Blue lives for thousands of people but they have hundreds of thousands to go.

First you know if you think about it there's a lot of filmmaking and video production that goes on every day in Oregon. Local news and house videos documentary programs. But it's not every day that we get a big Hollywood film crew around here. Now behind me they're shooting a scene from breaking in a Burt Reynolds film when that production came to Portland in the summer. It brought money and it brought jobs. And it's the kind of business that Oregon wants to attract on a regular basis. OK here we go. OK. Oregon has been the scene for some of Hollywood's feature film since 1914. But the first one that most people remember is Buster Keaton the general filmed on location in Cottage Grove. Nine hundred twenty six.

Altogether. More than one hundred seventy five films have been shot in the state. It's been good for Oregon's economy a few million dollars here and there but nothing steady while other states actively romance Hollywood filmmakers Oregon remained almost aloof. There is no over there just. Standing on a set of the film breaking in. Margie Lundell represents Oregon's Film Commission. It's the third oldest film office in the world she says but in its infancy as far as aggressively pursuing the film industry I think right now we're limited to the end that the most that we're really able to offer our locations you'll discover there's a world of difference shooting you know as you can see from this promotional tape Oregon has a wide range of locales to choose from desert

forest coast urban landscapes. When films come to Oregon because of the scenery that means that money comes to the states the same way a convention brings in dollars mostly to hotels restaurants and car rental agencies. But films have the ability to bring more than that to an economy. Jobs for one thing. Breaking in gave work to hundreds of Oregonians 700 were extras. Twenty six local people had speaking parts or lookalike roles. I would say even more important than that is building good crew people that they can hire here locally. There are good friends who know you there are there aren't very many of our current crew pool is about one and a half to two days. And in the summer we have a lot of commercial world tours. That's a good show. Oregon is a favorite for national car ads. This commercial for Nissan use Portland's Hawthorne Bridge as a setting. It was a million dollar spot. $400000 state in Oregon. But they had a hard time finding people here to work on the crew because most

local technicians had already been hired for breaking in the back. You know I guess this is a mean streak. This would end. You know like. That that. That building would end into like sort of a parking lot area right. If two film crews are in town at the same time that creates a crunch in hiring local freelance. Thanks. Karen Cooke has been production manager for films like Nightmare on Elm Street this fall she worked with local director Gus Van Sant on a film Drugstore Cowboy. It's been since first studio film and he insisted on coming back to Oregon to shoot. I never left songs just shooting in my own backyard basically. And I can there's always people to come up here against their will. He laughs when he says against their will but there is some truth there. Well it's expensive to move an entire crew from Los Angeles to a location like a story Oregon. We. Are coming on the tails of another film so that's.

Great I don't think two films could be shooting here simultaneously that it's not a deep pool of people. But I think other states are more accommodating because there's. A lot more people in bigger cities Marks first before we have like here explained breaking and is using a bunch of local people and there's only one bunch. So we come up here we were also going to we're going over a lot of overlapping shooting schedule. So since that place was already years there was no one else. Local film companies don't benefit from Hollywood coming to town. It takes away their free lance crews. Right now local filmmaking and video production brings to Oregon three times more money than Hollywood films. Don't do it David. You promised me you wouldn't call. I think I'd get used to these dream sequences but I will then won two Emmys this year for his popular claymation work. Having built his studio in Portland he

would like to see the film industry built up from the inside out and not relying on imports from Hollywood with them. They're not going to hire. I mean it's a myth to think that that an outside producer from L.A. is going to come up here and hire everybody to shoot an entire production. Again that's not true of a local production. A local producer would hire me hire 80 percent of the people. Do we really have the structure though to support a film industry here now. Well absolutely. This is this is I mean what you call this. We have. A staff of 70 people here working day in and day out that think that there's a film industry here because that's how we all learn or earn our living. Do you still go to L.A. a couple times a month. Oh yeah sure. There's even them who claims that 80 to 90 percent of his filmmaking dollars spent are spent in Oregon. Even he has to travel to L.A. or New York or Chicago regularly because Oregon still lacks some state of the art equipment. We'd like to see the region and the area get to that level that

threshold level where it really has the State of the art facilities and people and so on. Where we don't have to travel all the time to get to Southern California just to do a two hour strip and transfer from film to tape it doesn't make sense. When you're sitting in a mommy then you want to work with you. You know you're lying. MARTIN Mark Hughes left Oregon for Los Angeles three years ago. There wasn't any study movie work here. He hoped that someday he could come back after establishing a reputation in Hollywood and you know in the three years I've been home every summer working films in Portland. So I think the market's just starting to recognizing that the Portland's a good destination. Well how many families do we have and clinical over. Going westbound. You know you're going toward the family. As a location scout. Hughes has found other obstacles that have kept Oregon from being an attractive shooting environment. For one thing getting permits can be frustrating.

Let's. Go to another state how is it with state highway department and they no have one person that facilitates all the permits on the the but they have like four districts in the Portland metropolitan area. You know for filming here they also want to go film over on this side of town. I have to go see a whole different person making permits free from them but now the state has one person here. Like other states you don't have to pay for instance sometimes you don't have to pay for police court. It comes with shooting in that state or you don't. You pay nothing to use city streets. But that's not yet the case in Iran and I think you need to decide whether or not they want to have filmmakers they want to develop a coherent policy of how to deal with them. I think we I think we've dealt with the film sort of the special events you know one. One a year and it's kind of fun to have a movie star in town I don't know that we've been aggressive about pursuing the story.

Or. That's what I'd like to see happen. She's trying to solve a lot of the problem so that it makes it more attractive for filmmakers to come here with that kind of mean very environmentally we're open for business please come to Oregon please come to Oregon. It's only going to increase the amount of film activity that's going to take place. Oregon will be open for some more film business in another year or so. For one thing some local partners are planning to build a sound stage in the St. John's area here in Portland. Another local company is in the process of buying new equipment for film video transfer. But the next step is money and a commitment to easing up on regulations from Oregon State Legislature. Some men dream of reaching for the heavens but for a woman Valley resident 10 tone it's not a dream. He earns his living from the wild blue yonder. One of the few people in Oregon who is restoring antique

airplanes. For many of us getting away from it all often means heading for an open highway. For Tim Talon that highway is the sky. I taught. It's in Jasper near Eugene were Talen powers his vintage flying machines off a grassy runway right next to his house when starting out. He specializes in restoring airplanes built during or before the Second World War. One of the motivating factors in getting in the business was that I found out that I was really in love with antique airplanes and I really enjoyed it. And if it were possible I would own every one that there ever was. Knowing that that was impossible I

figured that the best way to do it would be restore airplanes for other people. And persuasion. Today Tim is one of two people in Oregon doing this kind of work. There maybe only a hundred other restorers like him in the entire country. There was a time when he dreamed of being a history teacher. But Tim soon found he could combine his love of aviation and antiquity into remodelling. He says older planes represent a bygone era of individual ism and aircraft making at a time when planes often took on the personalities of their builders. When you restore an antique airplane you don't just restore. Some metal parts and some wood and some fabric and put it all together and fly you carry on with that same spirit of you know entrepreneurialism. Spirit that was there initially and you put together an airplane that represents what they were

trying to do back then. Yes. Piecing a plane back together can take up to a year. Talent is faithful to originality. He starts with the old factory photos and blueprints and relies on a network of antique airplane enthuses from which to buy and barter old parts parts so rare some bolts bare the manufacturer's original stamp. I would say that on some of the harder projects more time is spent looking for various parts then the restoration itself will take. Some of that. Some of these airplanes are obscure and the record on them is very difficult to trace. And so you have a difficult time trying to find anything about. Particular airplane. That lack of record keeping is a challenge him faces on those 931 biplane known as a speed bird. It's one of a kind. A plane never went into production. Even old photos are rare finds. We have not.

Found or in fact we don't even think that there are any drawings at all. That would be the major problem is literally building brand new parts for this airplane. Parts of other old planes clutter the inside of a hangar to Modi's someday the wheels and friends will come together and fly again. Most projects arrive here in this kind of shape tattered and torn. That was the case with this rare 939 Stenson which Tim is remodeling for his family as a recreational plane. This photo shows what he hopes it will look like once he's done renovating. Are you looking forward to flying this. You bet. I flung a couple of others like it similar to it and they're very nice flying airplane they're real stable real solid. And have good control response and and it'll be fun to fly. Up here above it all Tim says he is at peace at home.

Flying an older vintage airplane. Brings me back to earlier days of flying when the people who flew in those days truly were pioneers. They were adventurers and in large measure a lot of them were heroes that we do not have anymore today. With his plane just him telling us help keep alive the memory of those heroes and each time he makes one fly again. There was always a special thrill to get at the end of the runway and you now have the power to it. And expected to fly. And it does. And that's the real record that's the payoff right there that you know that airplane is there now back back in its true element just as good as ever good as new. Going to her.