Continuity

President Reagan said yesterday that he planned to tell Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev at their fifth and final meeting this week that President-elect George Bush represented continuity as well as change. Reagan said in his weekly radio address that the meeting in New York on Wednesday would not be a formal summit with a formal agenda. "But you can be sure that I'll be telling Mr. Gorbachev that George Bush represents change, yes, but also continuity," Reagan said.

Some NFL teams can put together an offensive line that remains intact for a few good years. Occasionally, a club gets lucky and the nucleus of an offensive front stays together for a decade. Of such good fortune, legends, such as the Redskins' "Hogs," are made. Coach Buddy Ryan's Eagles have enjoyed no such continuity on the offensive line. A player who started for two years at the same position would qualify as the unit's patriarch. At the moment, the longest string of consecutive regular-season and playoff starts is held by David Alexander with 30 - but he has had to do it at three different positions.

Vote early and often, the old saying goes. Just how often is the question now before Mount Holly voters. Currently the five Township Council members serve four-year terms, which begin and end at the same time. A referendum would amend the township charter so township elections would be held every two years, with three council members elected one year, and two elected two years later. The additional election would cost the township between $10,000 and $12,000. Council elections are held in May, with the next due in 1990.

The United States indicated continuity in its policy toward the Korean peninsula yesterday, saying it supported South Korea's engagement policy with the North. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and South Korean Foreign Minister Lee Joung-binn said after a meeting that they had agreed to continue "close coordination" on their policies for the Stalinist state. Lee told reporters that he had Powell's "full support" for Seoul's "sunshine" policy of engagement with the North. The United States has worked in recent years to coordinate policy toward Pyongyang with Japan and South Korea.

As much as the Upper Merion track-and-field program has changed in the last year, Dave Symonds finds continuity in coaching his former athletes' children. Symonds coached at Upper Merion from 1970 to 1982 and Ursinus College from 1982 to 1993 before rejoining the Vikings. Upper Merion's top female distance runner is freshman Alli Andreyko, whose father, Andy, ran hurdles for Symonds in the 1970s. "This is when you know you've been around too long," Symonds said, laughing. "It's neat seeing the kids of kids you've coached.

Although it seemed that Doug Collins was trying to place more of the blame for his slumping 76ers on the players, the fact is that nothing the coach said after the Sixers' loss to the Milwaukee Bucks on Tuesday was a reach. The 110-102 defeat was the Sixers' 19th loss in their last 26 games. Once again, they failed to get to the foul line and were unable to start the game with any purpose. Their 7-of-23 shooting from the field left them looking at a 28-18 deficit at the end of the first quarter.

DURING MUCH of the Andy Reid era, the offensive line has been an orderly kind of place, excepting the occasional anomaly, such as the great Shawn and Stacy Andrews adventure of 2009. Then last year, Reid brought in Howard Mudd as his offensive-line coach, and training camp suddenly took on a different tone. Befuddled rookies and brand-new free agents milled about, crashing into one another and nearly getting Michael Vick killed a couple of times in the chaotic preseason. Solid vets such as Jamaal Jackson, Winston Justice and Mike McGlynn, once prized by o-line-coach-turned-defensive-coordinator Juan Castillo, weren't deemed capable of starting under Mudd.

With a landmark group-home case behind them, the three members of the township's Zoning Hearing Board thought they might have a respite from challenge. They were wrong. The panel now faces the loss of a member who was not reappointed, and the likelihood that its most senior member, chairman Michael P. McCann, also will be replaced when his term is up in January 1997. News that Melvin M. Kreiner, a three-year veteran of the board and its vice chair, had not been reappointed came Tuesday when the new township commissioners President, Robert C. Gerhard, presented his choices for various committees and citizens' boards.

Under Page's firm guidance the opera proved dramatically and musically compelling despite a somewhat half-baked approach to questions of period style. Rhythmic crispness and appropriately brisk tempos were maintained throughout, together with admirably strong and propulsive continuity from one number to the next. The chorus had been especially well-drilled. The echo chorus in Act II deserves special mention for the striking realism with which the echo effect was produced. The succeeding "Echo Dance of the Furies" showed the orchestra unable to meet the chorus' standard in that regard.

I agree with Max Silverstein (Op-ed Page, July 3) regarding deinstitutionalization's being a successful solution for many patients and with some of the recommendations he noted from a special committee of the Mayor's Task Force on Homelessness. But the recommendation regarding emergency care is seriously flawed in my view and is contradictory to the concepts advanced about continuity of care. To resurrect a centralized reception center a la Philadelphia General Hospital without careful review of its clinical efficiency is likely to be a seriously regressive decision.

AS A GRAND JURY continues to piece together the details surrounding the May 25 death of a paralegal found in the bathtub of her lawyer boss and reported lover, her family is moving toward closure of another sort. A Philadelphia judge on Monday ordered that the remains of Julia Papazian Law be released to her mother for burial. Law, who died days before her 27th birthday, was found facedown in bathwater by a maintenance man at the Rittenhouse Square home of A. Charles Peruto, a prominent Philadelphia criminal-defense lawyer.

Read David Patrick Stearns' accounts of the Philadelphia Orchestra's 40th anniversary tour and residency in China at www.inquirer.com/ entertainment : Wednesday Music for the quake-shaken Tuesday A violinist brings the music to ailing kids Sunday Kid-centric on National Children's Day Saturday Orchestra reaches out to welcoming Hangzhou Thursday China's orchestra evolution...

Move over, Mike Trout. Bump back, Bryce Harper. There's a new phenom around (maybe). In his major-league debut Monday, Dodgers rightfielder Yasiel Puig made a catch on the warning track, then cannoned one in to first to get Padres runner Chris Donorfia for a game-ending double-play in Los Angeles' 2-1 win over the Padres. He also went 2 for 4, earning the adjective "storybook" from his manager, Don Mattingly (and Donnie Baseball knows from diamond tales.) Puig wrote a pretty nifty second chapter in his next start Tuesday, with two homers, a double, and five RBIs, helping Los Angeles past San Diego, 9-7. The 22-year-old Cuban defector made two curtain calls from the top of the dugout steps after his home runs.

VIRGINIA WATER, England - Sergio Garcia apologized to Tiger Woods yesterday for saying he would have "fried chicken" at dinner with his rival, a comment that Woods described as hurtful and inappropriate. "I want to send an unreserved apology. I did not want to offend anyone," Garcia said. "My answer was totally stupid and out of place. " Garcia was at a European Tour awards dinner Tuesday night when he was jokingly asked if he would have Woods over for dinner during the U.S. Open.

The Rick Ankiel epic just keeps going. The 33-year-old slugger was just released by the Houston Astros after hitting .194 with five homers and 11 RBIs - and striking out 35 times in 65 at-bats. It looked like the end for the guy who arrived as a hard-throwing lefty with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1999 but had to reinvent himself as a power hitter when his control on the mound totally deserted him in 2000. After an outfield stint with the Cards, he played for the Royals, Braves, and Nationals before ending up in Houston.

HARRISBURG - Traffic delays on Interstate 81 near Harrisburg resulting from a tanker crash and fire Thursday will continue for a couple more days, PennDot said Sunday. The crash, on the ramp from northbound I-81 to westbound Route 22/322, forced the closure of a bridge and the area of I-81 beneath it. The first section of the bridge was removed Saturday morning, with full demolition expected by Tuesday, PennDot said. - Diane Mastrull

TRENTON, N.J. - More than 28 hours after police first arrived on the scene of a home on Grand Street in the city's South Ward, hostage negotiators continued attempting to coax an armed man into releasing the three children he is believed to have inside. The man, who was not identified but is known in the neighborhood as "Skip," killed his girlfriend and one of her five children, said South Ward Councilman George Muschal, based on information from his former law enforcement colleagues.

Delaware County police have searched the two homes and work truck of the estranged husband of a Collingdale woman who has been missing for almost three weeks. Melissa Ortiz-Rodriguez, 30, had planned a weekend visit with friends in Newark, N.J., on April 19 but failed to show up. Her estranged husband, Jose Luis Rodriguez, reported her missing four days later after she did not show up for a new job and failed to pick up their two daughters, ages 7 and 11, from school. Rodriguez told investigators that she usually took public transportation when visiting friends.

For the second time in three years, the historic Nile Swim Club in Yeadon was set to be sold in a tax sale, and for the second time in three years, a last-minute reprieve saved the club. In 2010, a bankruptcy filing staved off creditors. In December, a deed mix-up halted the scheduled sale. Then last month, a trio of baby boomers who grew up at the nation's first African American-owned private swim club took over the Nile's leadership. The group is planning a business-oriented strategy that it hopes will put an end to the financial troubles that have crippled the 54-year-old club, founded because a nearby pool admitted whites only.