SENIORS PEN ULTIMATE REALITY SERIES.

Byline: DENNIS McCARTHY

Odds and ends from around the Valley:

I swung by the Royal Bellingham on Thursday morning to spend some time with a few dozen reality writers throwing themselves a literary release party.

You might recognize the settings of a few of their reality stories - the Holocaust, Great Depression, surviving in America before cell phones, things like that.

The Royal Bellingham sounds like an opera house, but it's actually a retirement home in Valley Village, which jumps with more life and vitality than a lot of younger joints I've been in lately.

The residents average 80 years old, but the members of the Royal Bellingham Literary Society write young, funny, and often poignantly. Here's one by Fanchon Klein called ``Beep.''

``Beep - you've reached Fanchon, but I'm not here right now.

I will call you back if you are a SJM (Single Jewish Man)

ISO (In Search Of) a SJF (Single Jewish Female)

Aged 80-plus (Plus Not Revealed)

And if this SJM is also an NS (Non Smoker)

And ND (No Drugs) and NS (No Sex)

And if this same SJM is interested in CDs (Casual Dates)

I would be most interested in a pot of Starbucks (Plain or Latte)

And if this SJM is also a DAN (Drives At Night)

I most certainly will call him back ASAP!''

The Bellingham Literary Society started about a year ago when resident Anne Cohen tired of everyone spending the day playing bingo and blackjack and thought someone needed to light a fire under them.

That someone turned out to be Fiera Mooney, an instructor with the Los Angeles Unified School District's Programs for Older Adults. If you've got 25 or more seniors in a group, the district will send an instructor to teach a series of classes, including writing.

Fiera took one look around and realized she had hit the mother lode of writing. The place was filled with reality stories.

``Never have I encountered as much playfulness, humor and philosophical resolve as I have with my newly found poet-writers at the Royal Bellingham,'' Fiera said, celebrating the group's first literary anthology.

There was Holocaust survivor Emily Rosenfeld, standing at the microphone reading from her story ``Having Children in Wartime.''

It recounted the morning her first child was born in 1940, when she went from hiding by the Underground to being taken by ambulance to the hospital with severe labor pains.

By nightfall, bombs had destroyed most of the hospital, but miraculously not the maternity ward.

There was Mini Chain who, at age 9, stood in Woolworth's with 25 cents to spend for a Mother's Day present - settling on a small, framed picture of a cottage with a path of colorful flowers leading up to it.

``This is my loving wish for you, Mom - a flower-lined path your whole life through,'' the little girl wrote.

Many years went by, Mini said, but whenever she visited her childhood home as a mother herself that 25-cent picture was still on the wall exactly where her mom had originally hung it that Mother's Day long ago.

Reality stories from the Royal Bellingham Literary Society.

Last week's column on ``Bill Perkins Day'' at James Monroe High School mistakenly identified Debora Masterson as the high school friend who produced a documentary on the Vietnam Medal of Honor recipient.

It was Craig Ingraham, Perkins' friend from the Monroe High Class of '65, who produced the documentary ``Above & Beyond.''

And finally, the Women's Overseas Service League is holding its annual convention this weekend at the Glendale Hilton, 100 W. Glenoaks Blvd.

Few service organizations over the years have done more to help women veterans and women who worked with troops overseas - including schoolteachers and Red Cross volunteers - than the Overseas League.

But like most service organizations, it could use some new blood. If you're a woman vet looking for a great organization to get involved with, this is it.

For more information on the convention and membership, call Pauline Morrish at [phone].

Dennis McCarthy, [phone]

dennis.mccarthy(at)dailynews.com

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Photo:

Anne Cohen, 85, left, and Emily Rosenfeld, 85, display their group's literary anthology, with LAUSD instructor Fiera Mooney behind.

Joel P. Lugavere/Special to the Daily News