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.- JHE LAST WORD Enough of the rhetoric I witnessed an amusing, yet somewhat disturbing , scenario while at the AMOA Legislative Conference in Washington, D .C. I'm not making this up ; operators Bill Stone and John Newberry saw it too . Bill and I had about 15 minutes to kill before meeting with a member of Sen. Al Gore 's staff. We decided to walk outside and chat until it was time for the appointment. It was there that we found John and, about 25 feet away, another man sprawled out on the sidewalk. John explained that moments before he had seen the man sitting on the steps. Now he was being tended to by some passers-by while waiting for an ambulance to arrive. The first vehicle to make it to the scene was a firetruck. I'm not sure why ; the man wasn't trapped in a burning building or smoldering on the sidewalk. Oh well, we said, at least they can render some kind of assistance until the ambulance gets here. The familiar, piercing sound of a siren was then heard. Good, the ambulance has made it at last, I thought. It was a police car. Two officers got out and looked ready to take charge-of what, I don't know. More people added to the scene, yet still no ambulance . One of the policemen then figured he'd make himselfuseful and began directing traffic. He had to, since the firetruck was blocking one of the Janes on this two-way street. Hurrah , an ambulance at last! The poor man was tended to by the paramedics and placed inside the ambulance. But for some reason , the ambulance didn't roar off like the Batmobile. To make sure a PLAY METER 150 JULY1991 Soviet submarine hadn't run aground outside of the Russell Senate Office Building, a car carrying five members of the U .S. Navy was dispatched. They joined the party but didn't bring chips or beer, the cheapskates. There must be some sort of D. C. ordinance or federal statute that requires a second opinion from Washington paramedics. How else would you explain the arrival of another ambulance? Only one man was in need of medical attention. Maybe they expected a sudden rash of sidewalk collapses and were preparing themselves for the next unfortunate, by God. After the summit broke up, it was agreed that Ambulance A would in fact haul this poor soul to the hospital. Ambulance B's driver chose rock, while his counterpart selected paper, and everyone knows paper covers rock. Two noogies later, Ambulance A roared off into the bowels of Washington. I hope the man only had severe indigestion; he was dead on arrival if it was anything more serious. How symbolic: this man had to suffer through red tape and needless delays before being able to get definitive action taken, minutes before Stone, Newberry, and the rest of the operators had to once again sift through verbal red tape, i.e., their lawmakers' rhetoric. But there's one difference: the man finally got an ambulance. The coin-op industry still doesn't have its dollar coin. I'm not trying to you-know-what on AMOA' s or AAMA' s parade. Both were successful in garnering co··sponsors for dollar coin legislation (there are two separate bills with important differences in the House and Senate) . It took a lot of work to secure the commitments, and members of both associations should rightly be proud of their accomplishments. But how many times does Mr. Coin-Op have to go to Washington before something gets done? It's not as if this is the only industry pushing for a dollar coin. The many divergent interests that comprise the Coin Coalition want one. Mass transit wants one. Veterans groups and the Sierra Club want one. Does Congress want one? It should: a dollar coin would save taxpayers $318 million annually. What's the holdup? There have been no groups organized against a dollar coin, just cries from sentimental people who can 't go on living without their dollar bills. It's one thing to pay lip-service, to say, " Yes, I'll co-sponsor your bill." It's quite another for the powers-that-be on the Banking Committees to hold hearings on the dollar coin and eventually produce a bill that can be sent to all lawmakers for a vote. Make these guys come off their comfortable, politically safe fences. There's been enough talk. No more promises, no more' 'wait until next year, the timing isn't right." Let's see some action. D Christopher Caire News Editor