Police pose as reporters to evict woman, baseball players fight on airplane; August 6, 1958

 

Jazz legend Ziggy Elman vanishes from his Valley home after an argument with his wife ... over a chicken sandwich!

Robbers smash a jewelry store window and steal gems valued at up to $1 million ($7,287,702.23 USD 2007) after throwing a smoke bomb through the front door. The owner calls it a professional, well-planned job ... Five deputies disguised as reporters trick Mrs. Lomie Puckett into leaving her home, which is bulldozed immediately to make way for the Golden State Freeway ... Note: Ziggy Elman turned up playing at a Long Beach jazz club as if nothing was wrong--he just happened to be calling himself Red Nichols.

Dusty Rhodes and Joe Margoneri get into a fight aboard a Western Air Lines plane en route from Portland to Phoenix. The Phoenix Giants teammates were ordered off the plane during a stop in San Francisco. Both had been drinking heavily, a flight attendant said.  And the Cards beat the Dodgers, 13-3.

Comments

[Nathan]

The issue Mrs. Puckett had was that the State gave her $8061 for her house—that’s $58,746 in today’s money. It was an insult to her, hence her Springfield 30.06 and Winchester 30-caliber rifles. “It isn’t really the money itself,” she said. “I don’t want the money. If the State would go out and buy me a two-bedroom house comparable to this one, so I can rent it for income, I’d be perfectly happy.”

At least she got to be on a live KTTV telecast. 11:45am. Pretty cool for 1958.

Irreparable damage done to communities, where local officials are utterly helpless, is nothing new. And should an individual take issue with the Grand Plan, there are cries of NIMBYism, which in some camps is up there with other isms like racism or sexism in its odiousness.

I say you go girl, Lomie Puckett! (Though I doubt you’d understand what that meant.) Wish we had more of your ilk to take on LAUSD in the dark, misguided aughts. The next big fight will be the State taking vintage housing, tearing it down (for no other reason than it being within six blocks of a bus or train) and replacing it with big prefab complexes. Our Mayor says density is our future, New Urbanism, blah de blah. Doubt there will be another Lomie Pluckett, though. Too many shiny things to look at these days.

Shiny!