NEWS LITE : AT 102, ENGINEER LOVES LABORS, SOURED ON KRAUT.

At a century-plus and vigorously counting, engineer Milton Garland's voice is deep, his memory blueprint-clear and his distaste for sauerkraut pungently intact.

Garland is 102 years old. He was honored Thursday as America's oldest known worker. He's worked for the same Pennsylvania engineering firm since 1920. He thinks life and work are just about the same thing.

``I don't think age has anything to do with your desire to work,'' Garland told a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Garland supervised the installation of the building's refrigeration equipment in the late 1920s.

``I love the work I am doing,'' he said, leaning forward in his vested, dark pinstripe suit. ``My advice is to go into something and stay with it until you like it. You can't like it until you obtain expertise in that work. And once you are an expert, it's a pleasure.

``And once you like what you do, you don't like to quit doing it,'' Garland said.

Garland, who now works about 20 hours a week, is an expert in what he does. He holds 40 patents, mostly involving innovations in refrigeration technology. He helped perfect the production of synthetic rubber during World War II.

Where would he be if he had retired 37 years ago, at age 65?

The answer comes without hesitation.

``I'd be in my grave,'' Garland declares.

At 102, Garland is not only not in his grave, he's the new symbol of older workers across the country. He was chosen for the role by an organization called Green Thumb, which champions older workers. The qualifications were simple. Work at least 20 hours a week and have the earliest birth date Green Thumb could find.

At the news conference, Garland had no problem fielding questions.

Does he have a special diet?

``I eat anything but sauerkraut,'' he replied with heavy emphasis.

He stays away from most desserts, believes young people should listen to others, and never worries.

``I don't worry about anything,'' Garland said. ``Worry never solved any problem. If the problem is there, you'll find the answer, you just have to keep working on it.''

He was asked for advice on living a long life but did not provide it, saying that living a productive life is more important and implying that one might lead to the other.

``And if you want to live a productive life you have got to make up your mind to do whatever you're doing correctly,'' Garland said.

Arnold doesn't skirt pants issue

In Arnold Schwarzenegger's house, only he wears the pants, dang it. And who's gonna argue? ``I hate pants (on women),'' he says. ``This is something I have inherited from my father. He despised pants, and my mother was never allowed to wear them at home. I still feel that way, and neither my mother nor Maria (his wife) is allowed to go out with me in pants.''

Pets may ease stress

of marriage

Want to have a closer relationship with your partner and respond to stress better?

Then consider adding a furry friend to your household, a new study suggests.

Among 100 married couples - half of whom owned pets - those with a cat or dog had more frequent contacts with each other and with others. And those who were most attached to their pets had the most interactions with their spouses, the study found.

In addition, when couples were discussing conflicts, blood pressure readings of pet-owning couples started out lower, rose less in response to stress, and returned to baseline quicker than in couples without pets, according to research released Thursday at the annual meeting of the American Psychosomatic Society in Clearwater Beach, Fla.

It's not clear why pet owners see these benefits, said study author Karen Allen, a research scientist at the School of Medicine at the State University of New York at Buffalo.

``Pet owners may be the kind of people who inherently seek out more social contact,'' she said. ``On the other hand, there may be something in the relationsh`ip between people and pets that enhances social interaction.''

CBS star names have familiar ring

A sneak peek at fall projects in development for CBS yields some familiar faces, including Arsenio Hall and Melanie Griffith.

Hall, the former talk-show host whose comedy ``Arsenio'' failed at ABC last year, is paired with George Eads in ``Skip Chasers,'' an action series about two bounty hunters.

Griffith revives her ``Working Girl'' persona with ``Me and George.'' She plays a single mom working in a New York public relations firm. George is her baby.

Jim Belushi has signed on to ``Better Days,'' a comedy being developed by ``Roger & Me'' director Michael Moore. It features two loading-dock workers who lose their jobs when the factory moves to Mexico.

The shows were previewed Thursday for advertisers. CBS will announce its fall schedule in May.

`Titanic' floats communist boat

``Titanic'' has found a powerful fan in China: President Jiang Zemin.

It doesn't bother Jiang that the movie, soon to be shown on 200 screens in China, was made in a capitalist country. In fact, the country's Communist Party leader suggests that studying capitalist things could help his country.

``We shouldn't think that capitalism has no ideas to exchange,'' the official newspaper Yangcheng Evening News quoted him Tuesday as telling the Legislature.

``This movie shows fully how people deal with the relationship between money and love, poverty and wealth, in the middle of a difficult situation.''

Noting that the movie has reaped nearly $1 billion globally, he said: ``That's venture capital, eh?''

Airline pulls plug on rocker's antics

Cathay Pacific Airways says it has banned Liam Gallagher because the Oasis rocker threatened to stab a pilot.

The airline, based in Hong Kong, received complaints last month that members of the band and its 30-member entourage behaved badly on a flight from Hong Kong to Australia during a tour.

The pilot threatened to divert the pl`ane and have the group removed because of their rowdy behavior, Cathay spokesman C.F. Kwan said Thursday.

The entourage ``caused a lot of nuisances, and (Gallagher) has made public threats to our crew. Our priority is to protect the safety of our passengers and our staff,'' Kwan said.

Last week, Gallagher was charged with head-butting a tourist taking photographs outside the band's hotel in Brisbane, Australia.

News Lite is compiled by Karen Duffy from Daily News staff and wire reports

CAPTION(S):

4 Photos

Photo: (1) Gallagher

(2) Zemin

(3) Griffith

(4) Milton Garland and his wife, Alice, were guests in Washington.

Association Press