COPING WITH FEAR ITSELF BEARING THE WEIGHT OF TRAGEDY, AMERICANS LOOK TO LEADERS AND EACH OTHER FOR A LIFT IN MORALE.

Byline: Evan Henerson Staff Writer

The outdoor message board at Terry Sash & Door in Tarzana, a space usually reserved for corny puns, sales pitches or ``go team'' homerism when the Lakers are dominating, now offers a generalized plea for morale.

``Show strength, Show faith, Have courage,'' reads the sign.

``You don't want to offend people, but you still want to get your point across,'' says Guy Mullen, the store's manager who came up with the message. ``We're not trying to make any political statements. Maybe just make people laugh or think about something.''

And a strong message it is, say psychologists, historians and sociologists trying to make sense of a nation, post-Sept. 11.

The question is, how do we show strength, faith and courage? And for that matter, why should we? Who or what are our models?

Nearly six weeks after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the nation is still in mourning for its dead and fearing new attacks. Meanwhile, some of our leaders have taken initial steps toward recovery, toward making people feel they still live in the strongest and safest country on the planet.

Using history as our guide, in times of tragedy, natural disaster or economic misery, ordinary Americans feeling depressed or powerless rally around leaders - political, cultural and in the military. Widespread morale boosting can also take place as the result of feats or milestones - whether or not they follow a catastrophic event. Now would be a great time, say sociologists, for a high-ranking doctor at a research lab to announce a breakthrough in the fight to cure cancer. A trunk full of gold metals at the next Olympics wouldn't be shabby either. Even another visit by John Glenn into outer space.

``Various signs can show our country is still functioning,'' says Dr. Gail Saltz, chairwoman of public information at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute. ``Whether that be a big list in the Dow (Jones Industrial Average), a sporting event that shows we've got the stuff, or maybe an entertainer doing something. Events like the World Series or the Super Bowl are very American. Large groups come together. We are reminded of what it means to be an American.''

From the Great Depression to the L.A. Riots, from McCarthyism to the spread of the AIDS epidemic, war, earthquakes and presidential assassinations, the nation mourns, copes, reassesses and continues. In addition to mourning and acts of bravery, art and music can come out of national disasters.

But the Sept. 11 attacks, many argue, have changed the world in such a way that we'll never be able to change it back. How do you feel strong when you're continually looking over your shoulder for the next attack or scrutinizing your mail for deadly white powder?

Not with a song or a home team sports victory, says Lillian Glass, a Beverly Hills psychologist and the author of ``Toxic People: 10 Ways to Handle People Who Make Your Life Miserable.''

``We have a new sense of reality. People are paranoid,'' said Glass, who also has a practice in Manhattan. ``We're focusing on retribution against the enemy and our own self-survival.''

The sports world may be abuzz over the return of Michael Jordan to the National Basketball Association. But if someone like Jordan is going to inspire the nation, then after dumping 100 points on the New York Knicks, he better split the genome, set foot on Mars and, most important, slam dunk a trussed-up Osama bin Laden onto the steps of the White House.

``If there's a cure for cancer tomorrow, absolutely (morale will rise),'' said Glass. ``If Jordan scores a few more hoops, who cares? Our values have changed.''

Since Sept. 11, psychologists and counselors across the country have given worried men, women and children advice on individual healing - everything from gathering with friends to focusing on positive events to making sure to hug your children and not let them watch too much TV.

The silver lining 

Tragedy has the potential to bind people together, says Dr. Corinne Wilburne Barker, a psychologist at California State University, Northridge's University Counseling Services, who sees a slight parallel to the cultural atmosphere following the assassination of president John F. Kennedy.

``That was another time when people felt very united and simultaneously very sad,'' said Barker, who wrote a brochure to help students cope with national emergencies. ``There was this very touching ceremony to watch on TV as a country, but privately, people were trying to make sense of it.''

Healing the nation is a different, far more complicated process. Many sources interviewed for this story maintained that only time and distance from Sept. 11 - lots of time - will begin to get the country focused en masse on something other than fear.

Others say Americans find healing in acts of retribution, and that President Bush has taken the first course of action: by occupying a position of authority. Morale depends on leadership, say sociologists, for people to step forward with words and deeds of reassurance or comfort.

Silvio Laccetti, professor of humanities at Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey, believes the two most prominent leaders to emerge thus far have been Bush and New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani - the former promising revenge, the latter pushing recovery.

``Two months ago, Giuliani had a lot of detractors. Now it's all gone,'' said Laccetti, whose students have studied topics of heroism and social responsibility. ``And why is it all gone? He has established what every leader has to establish: presence. Just by being here and being what he is, he has taken over the local stage.''

According to Laccetti, Bush has helped give the country ``a huge morale jump start'' both through his action against Afghanistan and through his constant use of the phrase ``God bless America.''

``It's an incantation, a declaration, a manifestation that God is doing this. He's with us,'' says Laccetti. ``We feel it, and we carry it with us.''

Laccetti believes the next person to emerge as a morale-boosting leader should be a woman, since demographic surveys have shown that the people who are most afraid are women of childbearing age. That person could be someone like Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton or Elizabeth Dole or even a powerful socially aware entertainer like Oprah Winfrey.

``Her presence is quite known. She's an earthly mother figure, a compassionate one,'' said Laccetti. ``And she is taken seriously as a person concerned with social causes.''

False idols?

Culture watchers differ in their opinions over how much of a difference entertainers or sports figures are able to make. Glass places entertainment and sports heroics squarely in the category of ``healthy diversions.''

``The heroes are the people who volunteered with the Red Cross to dig bodies out,'' she said. ``The other little things like the Emmys and movies are not what's important.''

Or are they? Ralph Ramirez, owner of At Rock 'N Roll Ralph bar in Burbank, reports that the channels of the three televisions sets in his establishment flipped constantly between Barry Bonds' recently concluded quest for the single-season home run title and terrorism-related new developments on CNN.

Ramirez commissioned a mural of firefighters raising the American flag. He is inviting the general public as well as local policemen and firefighters to sign the mural, which he hopes to drive across the country to New York, collecting messages and signatures in cities along the way.

It's a gesture of empathy and patriotism, says Ramirez, who is looking for someone to sponsor the trip. But he can also understand why his sports-loving customers wanted to change the channel.

``Did (the terrorists) win? Yeah, they won by shutting us down,'' says Ramirez. ``A lot of people said, 'You know what, put the game back on. We need to watch something other than watching the damned place blowing up over and over again.' ''

Where once we might have gone for war-related propaganda, the cultural feeling of ``let's watch something else'' will likely extend to film and TV, believes media expert Anthony Mora. He pointed to the screwball comedies that emerged in the aftermath of World War II. The darker film noir entries and gangster films came later.

Immediately after the Kennedy assassination, we watched movies like ``How the West Was Won,'' ``It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World'' and ``The Great Escape,'' said Mora. A year later, audiences drank in the dark absurdity of ``Dr. Strangelove'' and the paranoia of ``Fail-Safe.''

``Both, I think, are pretty necessary,'' said Mora, president of the L.A.-based media-relations firm Anthony Mora Communications. ``I think for a while, you're going to see people trying to do very overtly 'up' material. I don't think that usually lasts because there's a contrived quality to it.

``Sometimes it's necessary to reflect either the fear or anger that people feel. Sometimes that's really necessary for morale. If it gets all saccharine, people feel a sense of unreality. They need the anger and terror dealt with.''

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4 photos

Photo:

(1 cover -- color) RECOVERING AMERICA'S MORALE

David Sprague/Staff Photographer

(2) A passer-by with a U.S. flag on her shirt waits to cross the street in front of Terry Sash & Door, where the outdoor board bears a special message these days.

John Lazar/Staff Photographer

(3 -- 4) Elvin Delgado, 20, evidently of Los Angeles, gazes upon the largest flag in the city, measuring 20 by 30 feet, hanging in front of FAMSA, a Mexican electronics store. And Ralph Ramirez stands in front of the mural he commissioned on the front of his Burbank bar, At Rock 'N Roll Ralph.

Tina Burch/Staff Photographer

Joe Binoya/Special to the Daily News