TRYING TO TIE UNIVERSITY AVE. ENDS TOGETHER

THE MESSAGE on the mailer was jarring in its honesty. Then it made me
smile.

It begins: ``Although we are at opposite ends of the same street . .
.'' Below the caption are two photos.

In one, three men stand in front of a Free at Last drug rehabilitation
storefront on University Avenue in East Palo Alto.

In the other photo is the very European, very Palo Alto Borders Books
courtyard with its fancy umbrella tables on University Avenue.

The mailer is a fundraiser for Free at Last, which is a non-profit,
community-based agency.

At first, the caption hits like a punch. But my smile comes with the
realization that it really is a clever, neighborly handshake.

Inside, the mailer quotes Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.:

``We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. . . . Whatever
affects one directly, affects all indirectly.''

Then there is Theresa Silas' ``before,'' wearing the face of an
addict, and ``after,'' wearing the recovering addict's triumphant smile.

In one photo, Silas' hair is disheveled, her eyes are closed and she
wears a zoned-out expression. The other is a well-groomed glamour
shot taken shortly before she was honored at the Breakfast of
Champions last May by Opportunities Industrialization West for
employment success and personal achievement.

NOW SILAS, of San Mateo, wants to be a motivational speaker. Her
stories of a 20-year addiction to alcohol and drugs are riveting and
inspirational.

She was mainly a ``booster,'' using shoplifting to get money for her
habit. That put her in and out of jails and flirting with death. But
it was her arrest Feb. 28, 1995, -- and she announces the date with
pride and fervor -- that sparked her recovery.

``Thank God I got arrested in the county of San Mateo because I went
to jail in Redwood City,'' she said.

``I had been going in and out of that jail for years, but now they had
a program called Choices run by Delancey Street graduates,'' she
explained. ``You can fool the judge, you can fool Dad, Mom, your
children and yourself -- but you can't fool Choice.''

It was her intention to get into a program to avoid jail, get released
and resume drug use. With four charges against her, she was looking at
three years in the penitentiary.

What did happen was that the judge made her serve a year in the
Women's Correctional Facility in Redwood City. Then the Choice folks
made her blink first and gave her back her life.

``One day I jumped up in the group and started crying and pouring my
guts out,'' she recalled. ``I felt like my whole body got blown all
over the universe.

``Then I felt my legs and arms and body coming back. I was touching
feelings I never touched before because I was using alcohol and drugs.
I said, `I want to be clean and sober, and I don't want to be a drug
addict anymore.' ''

CHOICES ENROLLED her at Free at Last after her release Nov. 6, 1995.
After six months in its residential program, she strutted across the
program's graduation stage.

``I've never graduated from anything in my life, but I felt like I was
in a cap and gown on the stage of Stanford University,'' Silas said.

While at Free at Last, she began classes at Opportunities
Industrialization West's job training center in Menlo Park. She wanted
to be a telephone operator. One day a counselor there found an opening.

Now 3 1/2 years clean and sober and holding her first job in 20 years,
Silas had this happy opener when I reached her at home: ``I am a
grateful recovering addict and alcoholic, and I'm operator No. 35 at
the Palo Alto Veterans Hospital, where we put veterans first!''

The mailer about ``opposite ends of the street'' was the work of Free
at Last development coordinator Kathleen Alexander.

``There is this one block (of University) which is called Whiskey
Gulch,'' Alexander said. ``We step out of the door and we have broken
sidewalks. We walk halfway up the block and we are in the elegance and
beauty of Palo Alto.''

Alexander, of Menlo Park, thinks that people in surrounding
communities are concerned but don't realize how much they could help.
She is optimistic about solutions because Free at Last is on one end
of University and Stanford is on the other.

Said Alexander, ``The object of the mailer is to say we are all in
this together and we literally are on the same street.''

IF YOU'RE INTERESTED Free at Last may be reached at 1946 University
Ave., East Palo Alto, Calif. 94303; phone (650) 462-6999; e-mail
freelast@best.com.

Checked-by: Patrick Henry