Heard recently from a friend: “Community service trip? You telling me to sign up for a vacation that isn't a vacation, but just a tough job helping other people? I've worked hard this year and deserve to get away for relaxation.”

“Doggone it! I'm entitled to bask at the shore, toss dice in Vegas, sip vino in Tuscany or dine at an outdoor Paris cafe. Who knows? With the economy the way it is, maybe it'll be my last chance for years to enjoy a vacation.”

If that's the way you feel about signing up for a community service trip, maybe you're not really familiar with them. Actually, all you have to do is make a slight change in one of your future travel plans. You can do something as enjoyable and satisfying as a fun vacation, while at the same time earn the great satisfaction of knowing you're doing something of meaningful service to others.

Just after Navy service in the Korean War, I worked on an afternoon newspaper called the Beverly Hills Citizen, now long gone. The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, about two miles from my office, was the place to be for movie stars to be seen, meet, dine, drink, book rooms and fool around ever since it was first built in 1927.

The general belief in tourist minds today is that glamorous stars, agents, moguls and hangers-on still haunt the Hollywood Roosevelt, and evenings can be fun times for autograph hounds, paparazzi and cell-phone photo freaks. The hotel is right across the street from the city's most famous tourist trap, Grauman's Chinese Theater (now the Mann Theater), so the walk-in traffic is always heavy.However, after 80 years, today both the hotel and theater are a bit threadbare. This era’s really A-list stars and their snooty companions rarely visit seedy Hollywood Boulevard, and do most of their living and playing in the hills of Beverly, Holmby, Malibu and in other posh communities west to the ocean.

Q: I know you guys at www.travel55plus.com are all for travel, and love to promote Las Vegas. However, as a retired steelworker, I have very mixed feelings about what’s happened to the closed Bethlehem Steel Plant, the biggest employer in our area for a century. On the site now is the just opened Sands Bethlehem Casino.

On the positive side, the casino has hired more than 500 local people in a town that really needs jobs. And next year, when the hotel is built on the site, there will be at least 250 more jobs. Of course, when the steel plant was here during its heyday, there were 25,000 employees and the economy was booming. But that’s all gone now, and 750 jobs, even low-paying ones, are better than no jobs at all.