Found on EBay -- Bullock's Wilshire

Here's a menu from the famous tearoom at Bullock's Wilshire with a cover that shows a map of Los Angeles. Shrimp cocktail was 35 cents. Bidding starts at $9.99.

Matt Weinstock -- January 8, 1959

Dogs, Diapers, Taxes   Comes now that hiatus between cries, when the feverish race begins to clear away Christmas bets in time to pay for auto license renewals by Feb. 4 and then face up to income taxes in April.   "Any changes in the rules?" I asked a tax consultant.   "No important ones," he said, "but you might remind people that they may not claim deductions for dog licenses, traffic fines, baby-sitters, campaign contributions, diaper service, dues for social clubs or life insurance."   He went on, "Best rule of thumb to follow is that almost anything has to do with creating income is a legitimate business expense. If you go to San Francisco on business it's deductible, but if you go there to see the bridges it isn't. Not even Alcatraz."   * *   FUN-LOVING Bob Crane of KNX has totaled his mileage for 1958 on what he calls the Greasy Spoon Circuit and comes up with a few pertinent observations about food.   He did 270 personal appearances, traveling about 20,000 miles, mostly in this area.   Most popular meal, he supposes, was chicken with gravy, then roast beef with gravy. At a breakfast club in the San Fernando Valley, he swears he had corn flakes with gravy. At one place in San Diego he had Yankee pot roast, Southern style.   The reason he isn't sure the most popular meal was chicken with gravy is that he frequently encountered an imponderable he calls only-the-cook-knows with gravy.   * *   LADY IN THE RAIN The rain falls ever softly there And glistens in her shining hair How sad she seems: how cold, aloof Perhaps I should repair the roof. - GUY MULLEN   * *   A HOLLYWOODIAN I know takes no sides in the dispute between the retail clerks and the owners of the 1,000 closed food markets, but he admits he feels pretty good about it.   "I was a sneaky snacker," he said. "I would thoughtlessly load up on hot dogs, hamburgers, French fries and doughnuts."   He has lost 8 pounds since his favorite market closed.   * *   IN RESPONSE TO an inquiry, this is to report that the author of the basic prayer of Alcoholics Anonymous members is unknown. The classic prayer is, "God, grant me the serenity to accept things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference."   It was published in the 1950 Farmers Almanac and a similar version is credited to Reinhold Niebuhr, but the actual origin is unrecorded.   * *   DATA, the Better Business Bureau weekly report, takes note of a formula devised by a San Francisco newspaperman to confuse and outwit phone-pitch pests.   The intended victim deliberately misses the simple question put by the caller but is told he has won the consolation prize, "Just think -- $35 worth of free dancing lessons!"   The sucker says he can't accept it, he doesn't deserve it. The pitchman insists and tells him how lucky he is.   "Tell you what," the chump says, "just send me the money instead."   * *   ONLY IN L.A.- Joe Cordero will agree that Tuesday was the day he should have stayed in bed. En route to his job downtown, his car stalled in a mud puddle on Vermont Avenue. He got a push. On the Harbor Freeway, it went dead -- out of gas. He walked half a mile for some but the car still would not start. He went after more but still no go. A tow truck came along and he got another push. Tow bill for the day, $12.   * *   AT RANDOM -- Recommended reading: The short stories in Esquire by Glendon Swarthout, Baron Timme Rosenkrantz and Garson Kanin. And John J. Espey, UCLA English prof, has one in Harper's, which should impress his students.

Paul Coates -- Confidential File, January 8, 1959

CONFIDENTIAL FILE Wife Tells of Mate Who Died, and Lived BAKERSFIELD, Jan. 7 -- Buried alive for hours and given up for dead, Leslie O. Stafford, a construction workman, was dramatically rescued today from the bottom of a 24-foot-deep collapsed cesspool. * * Yesterday I called the wife of the man who "came back" from his grave.   "Mrs. Stafford, how's your husband now?" "They've still got him in the hospital and he's still spitting up dirt -- but that man, he's going to be all right."   "That's fine."   "It's like he's always telling me. 'I'm too young to die.' I guess now, thank the Lord, I can believe him."   "Tell me, Mrs. Stafford, when did you first learn about the accident?"   "Let's see. I've got so much on my mind now. It was 4:30 yesterday afternoon. I'd just come home from the potato shed. That's where I'm working. Cutting potatoes.   "The phone rang and my daughter answered it and handed it to me. It was Leslie's boss and he said, 'Your husband's been in a cave-in.'   "I answered, 'Is he okay?' and he answered, 'I don't think so. He's been buried for two hours.' That's when I just went to pieces. I started screaming and went hysterical."   "Do you remember what happened next?" "They sent a car over from the scene to take us over there. I asked the lady who came, 'Is he all right?' She told me 'no.' But now my friend Holly Odle and her sister were at my house, trying to calm me down. My daughter went with the people to the scene, but I wouldn't go.   "I didn't want to see them take his body out."   "Then you were sure he was dead?"   "Well, I prayed. I kept walking up and down and shouting and praying.   "Holly kept saying that maybe he'd be breathing when they brought him up, but I guess -- well, I just figured it was impossible."   "When did you learn that he was alive?"   "We had all the news broadcasts on. Must have been 7:30 when they said on the radio he was alive. Oh, God. Right then the phone rang. It was another friend to say the same thing.   "They told me to go to Kern General Hospital to wait and see him. We hurried over there and waited and waited. Then they called and said, 'No. Go to Bakersfield Memorial.' So we went over there and waited some more.   "Finally they said they couldn't get his foot free. To go to the scene. It would be three hours, at least, before they got him.   'I Knew He'd Be Calling'   "They wouldn't let me go near the hole. I wanted to see him because I knew he'd be calling for me, but they had me wait in a shack there till they brought him up."   "When was that, Mrs. Stafford?"   "That was 4:05 this morning. I remember that. I got up to him and he was spitting out sand and dirt.   "The first thing he asked for was a cigarette.   "Then he asked for me.   "Then, later, you know what he told me? He said that all the time he was down there he was worrying about me. He was worried how I'd be worried about him.   "I do that. Even when he's a few minutes late from work, I worry. I'm just that way."

New history blog -- Pages From the Past

The Chinchilla Thimble Club, 1949

The Scranton, Pa., Times-Tribune has begun a history blog called Pages From the Past, done by Brian Fulton. Please visit the site and welcome Brian to the growing number of newspaper history blogs!

Voices -- Christine Collins, April 23, 1931

Centered

Baby abandoned at hospital; Times' Oscar favorites, January 8, 1939

Sheriff Eugene Biscailuz is honored for 32 years of public service.

Above, a baby nicknamed Little Buttercup is abandoned at White Memorial Hospital. Unfortunately, The Times never followed up on what became of her. We also take a look at improvised records left by climbers on California's mountain peaks, including notes in bottles, names carved on a shingle and a message scratched into a half-dollar. At left, The Times editorializes once again against a federal anti-lynching law. It's unclear to my why the editorial board felt so strongly about this particular issue, but it did. Below left, The Times offers its Academy Awards choices. We struck out except for Bette Davis in "Jezebel," above. Note: Fay Bainter won an award, but for a supporting role in "Jezebel" rather than best actress in "White Banners." And in sports, Sam Snead shoots a 69 at the L.A. Open in Griffith Park.  To be perfectly fair, as Dewey Webb points out, several of these folks were at least nominated: Wendy Hiller, Robert Donat and James Cagney. Thanks Dewey!

Found on EBay -- Bullock's Wilshire

I've been running quite a few women's fashions, so here's something for the guys: a vintage necktie from Bullock's Wilshire.  Bidding starts at $9.99.

           

Matt Weinstock -- January 7, 1959

News From Detroit A group of grimly playful fellows at SC who call themselves Asthmatics Anonymous advise that at a raw-lunged meeting in the basement which serves as headquarters they have regrouped as Asthmatics Militant. First move was to change the association's motto from "As I live and breathe" to "You should live so long." ("Here's crud in your eye" was considered but deemed inappropriate.) Second action was to wire their Detroit operative, a talented wheezer, inquiring what goes on back there. His reply has just come zinging through. Frenzy Motor Co., he reports, already has its 1960 pride at the road-testing stage. It will be longer, lower, have deeper chest-cough acceleration and be known as the Flatulente Four Fifty- 450 h.p. that is.  IT WILL BE, as usual, fabulous, only more so. Most spectacular new feature will be a new concept of the grille, which will sweep back over the hood and is considered a worthy successor to this year's toothy crocodilian smash hit (replacement $804.22). Plans are taking shape, he adds, for a victory banquet at which the Flatulente Four Fifty will be introduced. There will be a 300-ft. mock-up car behind which a 300-ft. purple banner will wave, gently wafted by a concealed fan exuding scented odors. The banner will bear the slogan "Sweeter than all the roses." "Had enough" the Detroit wheezer concluded mysteriously. * * THE WAY Marshall King of KNX tells it, a man from the year 2000 landed on earth and got to chatting with a 1959 guy. "Are you really from the year 2000?" the present-day fellow asked. Mr. 2000 assured him he was. "Well, we're about to send a rocket to the moon -- tell me, how will we make it out?" "Moon? What moon?" * * NO LAUGHING MATTER According to a Yale lecture, the explanation of the smile on the face of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is that she is pregnant -- News item. This woman for years they've been studying Mysterious, saintly At last we know why she's smiling So faintly - RICHARD ARMOUR * * OVER THE holidays Judith Endler, a sophomore at Mount St. Marys, worked as a gift wrapper in a big store. One day, in fun, a fellow worker snatched her handbag, sealed it loosely in a carton and placed it on the conveyor belt. As he hadn't addressed it he expected it to be returned, whereupon he intended to chide her for poor wrapping. But it wasn't returned, in spite of a store-wide search, and the joker was sadly embarrassed. It turned out that a baffled homemaker on McLaughlin Ave. received an unordered C.O.D. package and without going into the interminable details Judith wants the joker, whom she can't locate, to know that she has regained her handbag and sense of humor. * * THIS IS TO report that Erie Livingston's Off Broadway "Playhouse 91" production "The Bridge" was a great success. Eric, 8, of Burbank, heard that some people in distant lands were hungry. A young man of action, he wrote a play, sold 42 1/2 tickets at door to door inToluca Woods at a dime each, and with four buddies as actors put on the show Saturday. The proceeds went to CARE.  * * RAIN PATTER -- A man on South Spring Street was wearing a raincoat and carrying an umbrella yesterday. That's like wearing both belt and suspenders. Maybe it's going to be a cautious year . . . Now they can take down those "No Smoking Please" signs at the entrances to mountain areas. They were rather ironic this year, anyway. * * MISCELLANY -- Leo Schultz said it: "Give the Russians an inch and they'll take a million miles" . . . The crew at a Wilmington coconut oil processing plant calls it the Copra Cabana . . . Tonight's the night Sports Illustrated says hurray for Rafer Rafer Johnson, world decathlon champion.

Paul Coates -- Confidential File, January 7, 1959

CONFIDENTIAL FILE Current Skull Doily Scene, With Larceny I don't know what you do for kicks, but my friend Tiger Small snatches toupees. Not just anybody's toupees, understand. The Tiger's selective. He's been working the Catskill-Manhattan-Miami circuit for years, dealing only with the best people. The cream of the show business crowd. Doctors. Professional men. When he came to Hollywood last month he brought quite a reputation with him. "But in this town," he was telling me yesterday, "they bloat everything way out of proportions." The Tiger -- an animated conversationalist -- explained that it was just a sideline with him. That he lifted his first toupee strictly as a favor for a chorus girl friend and then sort of fell into the habit. "This actor in New York owed the girl $375, so she asked me if I could help her get it back," Tiger told me. "I was a fighter, but I don't believe in felony stuff. I'm strictly misdemeanor. "So when I approached the man -- it was in a nightclub -- I wasn't sure what to do. Then I noticed he was wearing a wig. The Tiger shrugged his shoulders, "I snatched it." On the spot, the actor paid off. After that, the little boxer from Brooklyn was a man in demand. "Anybody with a beef against a guy with a wig -- they came to me." There was the guy who felt that Billy Daniels had been forgetting the old friends who knew him when. He asked Tiger to "straighten" the singer out. "Billy had one of the finest toops I ever nailed," Tiger beamed. "Beautiful blondish gray and some brown. All kinds of colors. It was a $1,200 piece if I ever saw one. I grab it off him at theCopa. But I gave it back the next day. He's been fine since."  The owner of one of New York's top beauty salons was also a friend of the Tiger. "So when this fellow who was my friend's ace hairdresser threatened to quit, I got the call," Small said. "He said no rough stuff, Tiger. I said who could hit a beautician? It's like hitting your sister. "I lifted his wig, that's all. A nice red one. Until he decided not to quit." The Tiger shook his head in disgust. "I don't understand people," he said. "Everybody thinks you grab wigs from the back. That's not right. Too thin back there. Take them from the front. "Nine out of 10 guys you do it to will stand their holding their bare heads like they just lost their pants." I asked Tiger about an example of when they didn't just stand there. "Like the time the big wheel's wife got mad at her dog doctor?" he asked. "She was sore because the doc said her French poodle died, and then she learned later that the dog didn't -- that the doc sold it. "Anyway, she called me in on the case," he continued. "I went to see my friend Chickie, who's a real cuckoo-pot, and borrowed his dog and went to see this vet. "I nailed his wig as he bent over to look at the dog." Hell Hath No Etc. . . . The Tiger's eyes flared. "That guy went out of his mind. You ought to of heard him holler. I was scared. "I dropped that doc's cheap mattress and grabbed Chickie's dog and got out of there fast." Then I asked him, the Tiger didn't deny that he might continue his profession in Hollywood. "But," he added, "some of the ones I've seen out here I wouldn't dare snatch. They're so cheap they'd fall apart in my hands." "You haven't seen any that you really like yet?" I asked. The Tiger shrugged, "Not yet." "But," he added, "I'm a friend of Jerry Lewis. Man, I wish Dean Martin had one."

Voices -- Christine Collins, April 18, 1931

Stolen statue returns

Photograph by Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times The 1920s statue, shrouded in plastic, will be reinstalled at San Vicente Boulevard and McCarthy Vista.

The 6-foot bronze miner statue stolen last February from the Carthay Circle area and later recovered from a Los Angeles scrapyard is back on familiar ground, where it will be fully installed in the next two weeks, city officials said today. For decades, the gold miner stood in plain view at the busy intersection of San Vicente Boulevard and McCarthy Vista. But sky-high prices for such metals as bronze, brass and copper made the statue too tempting a target to thieves. Then in February, thieves cut the miner free from its mooring to a boulder and made off with the 512-pound sculpture, valued at $125,000. Detectives with the Los Angeles Police Department's art theft detail tracked down the statue -- which had been sliced in two -- at a local scrapyard, where it was purchased for $900. Sebastian Espana, 22, and Jessie Hernandez, 23, were later arrested on suspicion of grand theft  in connection with a string of thefts of bronze statues and sculptures in the Wilshire area and in Beverly Hills. Each pleaded no contest to two counts of felony grand theft and were sentenced in July to 16 months in state prison. They were also ordered to pay $31,700 each in restitution. Sculpted by Henry Lion in 1924 and 1925, the miner, along with a fountain, commemorated 19th century settlers in California. Its reinstallation, nearly a year in the making, is expected to take a week to 10 days. It was one of three public statues stolen over nine months in 2007 and 2008, including a 6-foot-tall, 4-foot-wide bronze sculpture taken from its concrete stand in front of a business in Brea. Authorities across the country say the high price of metals -- which have since come back to earth -- prompted the thefts. Even then, police said, the art thieves ended up with pennies on the dollar for often irreplaceable works of art. --Andrew Blankstein

Stocks suffer worst day in 19 months; Rams rehire Allen, January 7, 1969

A 15-point drop in the Dow is Page 1 news in 1969. I wonder what they would think of today's economic meltdown. Today in Baby Boomer nostalgia: Gordon Lightfoot makes his debut in Los Angeles.

It took the Rams 12 days to decide they really didn't want to fire Coach George Allen. Owner Dan Reeves, who fired Allen over what he called a personality conflict, took it all back. Allen had been supported by many of his players, who held a news conference to claim they would retire if someone else was coaching the Rams. That's an unusual step, but Reeves said he wasn't swayed by unhappy players or fans. The Times ran daily updates on the coaching search. As it became clear that Allen was still in the picture, the stories got a little strange. There was a planned meeting between the players and Reeves, there was a four-hour meeting between Allen and Reeves and there was speculation over Allen's replacement. USC Coach John McKay and former Green Bay Coach Vince Lombardi were two names mentioned. Even when Allen was rehired, Reeves said two other coaches had been considered along with the former/current Ram coach. On Jan. 5, Bob Oates wrote a thorough analysis of the problems between coach and owner: "Quite unintentionally, Allen has been destroying what Reeves built--and therefore what Reeves is." Leave it to Jim Murray to capture the weirdness of it all. Here's part of his column on the day after Allen was rehired/unfired. "The announcement ceremony had all the warmth of the surrender signing on the battleship Missouri. The whole thing was as dignified as an axe murder. I have seen more smiles in a police lineup." --Keith Thursby