Still ducking questions about the green behind his red-white-and-blue, Ronald Reagan and wife, Nancy, were treated to lots of ”America the Beautiful” at a gala concert Sunday in Yokohama, Japan, to benefit his presidential library. The concert, top-heavy with patriotic fanfare, featured Perry Como, Placido Domingo, the Harlem Boys Choir and Japanese stars Yuzo Kayama and Toshihiko Tahara. Scenes of Reagan`s presidency were shown on huge video screens and subtitled with praise for ”restoring public confidence in America” and helping to ”maintain peace throughout the world.” The final tribute, set to the tune of ”You Are My Sunshine,” went thusly: ”You`ll never know, Ron, how much we need you. Please come here with Nancy to stay. . . . ” Said Reagan: ”I want to thank all of you . . . I`m at a loss for words.” Evidently so: Both he and corporate sponsor Fujisankei Communications Group refused comment on reports of a $2 million gratuity for his goodwill appearances.
BURNING AMBITION? WELL, NO Ah, security, when it`s good, it`s matchless. Ask corporate officials at Wells Fargo & Co., who are seeing red over a court settlement in Gainesville, Fla., where a manufacturer sued after a factory blaze. The company blamed a rent-a-guard who alleviated his boredom by tossing flaming paper balls into a trash can. The guard, who was new on the job, said he extinguished his incendiary toys before making rounds, but the manufacturer held Wells Fargo accountable, contending that he wasn`t adequately trained or investigated. In such cases, the bottom line inarguably is in the red-in this case, Wells Fargo by a hot $8.75 million.
HARD SHELLS, SOFT LININGS Praise God and pass the ammunition. Theodore Kanellakis and Philip Mahony apparently don`t know each other. But they`re on the same side. Kanellakis is a priest. Mahony is a poet.
And both are New York police officers dedicated to drawing upon their knowledge of violence to awaken humanity to deeper meanings. ”To my knowledge, I am the only ordained minister who is a full-time police officer in New York City,” said Kanellakis, 45, a Manhattan cop of 24 years-the last 7 as a weekend priest at an Episcopalian church in upstate Pine Plains.
”Seeing humanity at its worst helps me in my ministry,” said Rev./Lt. Kanellakis. Meanwhile over in Queens, patrol Sgt. Mahony begins each morning by writing poetry for two hours before clocking in at the borough`s 115th precinct. His new volume, ”Supreme,” which is receiving critical acclaim, is a 43-page epic set in a Brooklyn slum where evil triumphs over good. Public apathy appalls Mahony more than murder. Hanging over his desk at home is a picture of an angel leading two children safely across an abyss. Mahony, 34, conceded a seeming incongruity: ”I`m a city worker, I like the Mets, I drink beer and I write poetry. I know it sounds like there`s a chromosome loose.”
He added: ”I hope one day my poems will be out of date because people don`t live like this anymore.”
A GHOSTLY REMINDER Just in time for Halloween: England`s Oxford University Press is publishing a ”Dictionary of Superstitions” that explains why you avoid sidewalk cracks and won`t walk under ladders. With 1,500 entries, the 494-page compendium traces many superstitions back thousands of years. Take ”knock on wood,” for instance: ”Although we know it goes back 4,000 years to nature worship, the earliest written reference . . . is a 19th Century children`s game,” said co-author Moira Tatum. ”But the actual knocking on wood, or
`touch wood` as the British say, to save oneself after saying a boastful thing, originated in Germany where they always knocked the underside of a table and said, `May I not be bewitched.` ” (Now isn`t what they say in the stock exchange on certain Fridays?)