SPECIAL TEENS, SENIORS GIVE EACH OTHER LIFT.

Byline: DENNIS McCARTHY 

They met one morning about seven years ago, over in the food court at the Fallbrook Mall - the kids and the old-timers.

Hank Hansen and his retired buddies were sitting around doing what they do just about every morning at the court, which is nothing much.

``Throwing the baloney around,'' Hank calls it.

Then Rose Foglesong, Marilyn Zeff and Pearl Bush walked in with the kids. The women were nervous, and they had every right to be.

This was the first time the students in their special-education classes at Diane Leichman High School in Reseda - kids classified as mentally challenged - were making a foray into the community together.

The first time they would be riding on a bus, buying their own lunch, making change and learning how to behave in public.

The first time they would meet the community. And the community would meet them.

So, sure, the women had every right to be nervous, walking into this food court with 40 excited, mentally challenged, high school-age kids in tow.

Would the kids behave? Would people complain, maybe get up and walk away? Shun them or, worse, be afraid of them?

The women didn't know it then, but they had caught a big break. They had chosen exactly the right place for this inaugural trip out into the community for their kids.

Because when Hank Hansen and his buddies looked up and saw those kids walking into the food court, they stopped throwing the baloney around and began to smile.

``Well, look at that,'' Hank said, getting up and walking over to the kids and their teachers. ``Ain't this something?''

And that's how it all began seven years ago. How the kids and the old-timers met and became instant friends.

How every time these kids walked into the food court for their weekly lesson in community socialization after that, the old-timers greeted them with big hugs and smiling faces.

Total acceptance.

It's breaking down, Rose says. Slowly but surely, the walls are coming down. People on buses, in restaurants and other public places don't shy away from her kids nearly as much as they used to.

Oh, you still get a restaurant owner or movie theater manager who cringes when they see the kids coming because they expect them to be loud and unruly, she says.

But when they're not, when they are perfectly behaved like they are on this morning over at the Canoga Park Bowl, well, it makes the next trip out into the community easier, and the next.

The Leichman High kids - the Alley Cats, they call themselves - come to this bowling alley every Friday morning to roll a few frames in a special league they've formed with 84-year-old Hank and his buddies.

It's been this way ever since they hooked up - starting with an occasional softball game, then an annual Christmas party and visits to the school on special days. Now they've got a weekly bowling league going.

There is no overestimating the importance of these old-timers to the kids, Rose says. They have become the official face of that mysterious community these kids and their predecessors at Leichman High always knew existed outside the classroom - the face most of them were afraid to meet.

But these old-timers turned out to be the best face anyone could have hoped for - a smiling, accepting face.

Hank and his buddies will have none of this talk, of course. The way they see it, these kids adopted them, not vice versa.

``We were the handicapped ones, not them,'' Hank says, cheering as one of the kids throws a strike. ``Just sitting around all day, throwing the baloney and killing time. Then, we met them.

``You know what? These kids have made us all live a heck of a lot longer than any of us figured we would.''

CAPTION(S):

Photo

PHOTO Special kids from Diane Leichman High in Reseda meet a group of local seniors every Friday to roll a few frames at the Canoga Park Bowl.

Hans Gutknecht/Daily News