BETWEEN YOU AND ME; By Pearl Bailey; Doubleday; $18.95, 270 pages.
When basketball star Patrick Ewing graduated from Georgetown University in May 1985, there was another star among his classmates - Pearl Bailey, the charismatic entertainer, who was then 67 years old.Bailey made the decision to enroll in 1978, when the singer, dancer, world traveler, public official and author was given an honorary degree by the school.
"Then came the unexpected," writes Bailey, now 71, of her acceptance speech. "A surprise even to me. Without forethought, out of my mouth came these words: `Who knows, folks. I may be coming to this school.' There was an uproar from the audience. What had I said? Whatever it was, I did it - the next year. I entered Georgetown University as a freshman."
In this conversational way, Bailey describes the arduous route to earning a bachelor's degree in theology while continuing to perform, lecture, attend government functions, be a full-time wife to jazz musician Louie Bellson, and mother to her two grown children - and apparently to most of the student body at George-town.
Being Pearl Bailey, who gives 150 percent of herself, she was an ardent Hoya basketball enthusiast, attending games at home and away, while studying the Greek philosophers, Judaism, Catholicism, the Hindu Path of Love and undergoing the torture of midterms and bluebooks.
"Talk about a fan," she says. "I crocheted blue and gray caps for the team on weekends. Who asked me to? Nobody."
This is the sixth book in which she shares her ebullient personality with the public. Its subtitle is accurate: "A heartfelt memoir on learning, loving and living." The author describes her strengths and weaknesses and has a general theme of exhortation and empowerment.
The section on how she earned her college degree, for instance, after being out of school for more than 50 years, is titled: "Go for It, Honey: On to Georgetown."
Bailey is devoted to home and family and concerned about the fact that "there's nobody home anymore." And with the same aplomb with which she writes about everything else, she alludes to the fact that her son still needs to do a lot of growing up and that her daughter isn't always there for her.
Bailey believes in hands-on par-enting: "Letting the children flounder without a system or any order is dangerous; a no-win situation." Responsibility is the key, she suggests, and adds: "Stand like an oak and bend like a willow."
The final section of this memoir by "Aunt Pearl," as her fans and friends call her, is the meat of the book. It includes her reflections on reaching her 70s. Still an active performer and international diplomat - she was a delegate to the United Nations and frequent representative of the United States abroad - she reveals the philosophy of her life.
She believes that love is the solution to problems such as the homeless, racism, the elderly, international relations and the AIDS epidemic. She is filled with love for everyone, a range that includes such diverse people as Betty Ford, the late Shah of Iran, Ethel Walters, President Reagan, Mikhail and Raisa Gorbachev and Louie Amstrong.
"I've always considered a `human being' as one who does things that relate to the needs of those we live with in this world," she says.