Matt Weinstock, Nov. 25, 1959

Fresh but Polluted     In the broad scheme of things, the Fern Dell water hole isn't very important.  But people who knew about it and went there to fill their jugs with cool, fresh spring water are disquieted since the Health Department declared it unfit to drink because of pollution.     The spring represented to people a renewed contact with nature and, symbolically perhaps, purity in a poisoned and synthetic world.  Also, as one man commented, "It was the last thing around here that was free."     The word from the Recreation and Parks Department is that the Health Department is working on the job but the contamination is difficult to trace.  It's not a simple matter of replacing the old, possibly rusted outlet pipe.  First, the source of the spring, somewhat high in the hills, must be traced.  Then the possibility of seepage into it from a sewer must be checked.     So, all ya thirsty ones, patience. ::     EVERYONE KNOWS about the mental torment of writers.  They brood, they get discouraged, they seize upon excuses to put off writing.     At a party a lady named Wynn Laws, who has been working on a novel for nearly a year, was pensively staring at nothing when a friend said, "Why, there's Wynn, sitting in a corner and contemplating her novel!"     The line has been used before but now every time she goes to her typewriter the remark haunts her and she has hardly been able to write a line. ::     UCLA'S UPSET 10-3 win over SC is still reverberating.  Edd McGrail said, "I think I shall never see a Kilmer capable as B"- meaning the Bruins' Bill . . . When the announcer said, "Rosenkrans replaces Kilmer," a sepulchral voice, possible an Eng. Lit. major, in back of Arcadius Stewert inquired, "And where is Guildenstern?" . . . Guy Mullen's sentiments are titled "Smithered" as follows: In spite of Marlin and     his twin The Bruins were destined     to win. Somehow I knew they     couldn't miss When they had Smith,     Smith, Smith and Smith. ::     THE PAYOLA disclosures don't surprise Mario Corona, who says, "Nobody in his right mind would play that junk because he wanted to!" . . . Al Diaz can't understand all the fuss either.  It's common practice elsewhere.  "Didn't they ever hear of mordida -- the bite?" he asks. ::     A LONG BEACH merchant named Spiros overestimated the public's appetite for pumpkin pie and the other day decided to return a load of large ones to the L.A. Produce Market.  He was driving 55 and 60 on Long Beach Freeway when he became aware he was being tailed by a gendarme.  He became so nervous he pulled his truck to the side and waited for the officer to catch up and begin the countdown.     "Say," the officer said, "I wonder if you can spare one of those pumpkins?" Spiros' sigh of relief was so immense it stirred the Algerian ivy in the parkway. ::     WORD PLAY -- A tired-looking old Mercury on Hill St. had this lilting, rear fender inscription:  "Pal-a-tin" . . . And Jack Perkins reports a knitting bag displayed in a Santa Monica shop had the attached note, "Half done, will ravel" . . . Meanwhile, another paper didn't state exactly what it meant in reporting the Manhattan Beach City Council had honored comedian Hal Perry for contributing his talents to charitable and philanthropic enterprises.  "He is giving up his residence in the city," the story continued, "and the council wanted to show its appreciation."  Fortunately Hal laughs easily. ::     AROUND TOWN -- A woman got into one of the automatic, self-operated Courthouse elevators and asked, "Oh, is this hand operated?"  "No ma'am," a bailiff said, "it runs on electricity" . . . Charles L.W.Vocke spotted this sign on the door of the walk-in ice-box in a Torrance market: "Special note to Kool Kats -- Drinking egg nog in dairy box.  If you get caught like man you're fired like now" . . . A final word on the subject by Frank Barron: "Isn't it odd that a person will smoke two packs of cigarettes a day yet refuse to eat cranberries once a year?"

Paul V. Coates – Confidential File, Nov. 25, 1959

Vice President Richard Nixon will be grand marshal of the Rose Parade! There Must Be Some Kind Answer to This     (News item) Mrs. Carol Carpenter, 19, was arraigned in Los Angeles Municipal Court yesterday on felony child-desertion charges . . .     Today, I took a one-lesson course on How to Turn a Law-Abiding Citizen Into a Criminal.     I talked with Mrs. Carpenter.  What I learned, I'll pass on to you.     Then, if you will, judge the woman.  Judge the law.  And judge the morality of the society which has branded her a criminal.     As background to the case, I'll tell you that Carol Carpenter and her husband, Daniel, were married four years ago, while he was in the Army.  She was a month short of 16 at the time.  He was 18.     Daniel Carpenter got his Army discharge in November, 1957.  Following it, he worked as a meat-cutter and store clerk in New York and Missouri, until he came to Los Angeles last June.     He came alone, found a job, saved money, rented a home and then sent for his wife and children, David, 2, and Debra, 1.  They arrived in August.      By that time he had found a better job.  He worked six days a week as a machinist, and frequently spent Sundays working at a car wash.     Two months ago, Kim, their third child, was born.  And a week later, Carpenter was laid off because of the steel strike.  Their savings were meager, and they disappeared rapidly.     Carpenter looked for a job without success.  Then he committed a stupid act.  When the kids had gone hungry for two days, and after he and his wife had been turned down by the few charities they thought to contact, he rifled a pay-phone.      He was caught and jailed.     Then Carol Carpenter -- with three infant children -- was alone.     The rent was due.  The landlady told her to get out.  She did.  She sought help where she could.  A girl friend let Carol and the three children stay with her a few days -- until that landlady complained, too.     She called ministers, the Bureau of Public Assistance, charity groups, even the police.     She asked one police officer, "What am I going to do?"      He answered, sarcastically, "What do you want me to do?"     Catholic charities came up once with money for a week's rent and a few days' groceries. Then she managed to borrow a dollar or two for more milk.     But a week ago Monday, she was again without money or food.     On Tuesday, she went back to Catholic Charities.  This time, they wouldn't help her.  She was referred to the Alhambra public assistance office, which referred her to the El Monte public assistance office, which sent her back to Alhambra.     She spent all day Wednesday in the Alhambra office, but no one heard her case.  She called some welfare agencies and charities.  No luck.     Thursday she went to the East Los Angeles public assistance office, which volunteered to sent her back to Missouri. Knowing the red tape she'd have to unravel there before getting food for her children, she declined the trip.     She called Juvenile Hall, asked if they could care for her children until she could find a job.  The answer was no.  Only if the children were abandoned would Juvenile Hall take them.     Then she went to visit her husband in jail.  She told him that she was going to abandon the children.  They were sick with colds.  They hadn't eaten in three days.     "I knew they were starved," she told me today, "because I was starved myself."     She mentioned that she didn't think her husband believed her.     "I told him, 'What do you want?  Your children being fed or three dead children?"     "I didn't know how much of a crime it was," she added to me, "but I didn't care if I went to jail if it would keep them from dying." With Two Borrowed Dimes     Then Carol Carpenter took her three infant children into a church and left them there.  From a phone nearby, with two borrowed dimes, she called Juvenile Hall and the church's priest to tell what she'd done.  She wanted her children back, she said, but she couldn't see them starve.     For this act, Carol Carpenter may go to prison.     I don't understand it.  And more and more, I'm confused by the meaning of the word "charity."  I always took it to mean, in important part at least, emergency help at the moment it's needed.     If three kids who haven't eaten in three days don't qualify as an emergency, who -- I'd like to know -- does?

A Kinder, Simpler Time Dept.: Your Movie Columnist

Nov. 25, 1962: "At Actors Studio, Julie [Newmar] says she used to watch Marilyn Monroe. 'She attended spasmodically and there was no particular fuss made over her -- she was just another member of the class. But for two years I knew she was destined for a tragic end. She had no security and couldn't relate to other people. You'd say hello to her and it was a tremendous effort for her to reply. She'd come into class an hour and a half late, wearing a black mink coat, a transparent blouse and plaid slacks. And her hair would be uncombed. She'd put on her glasses and sit there and she'd be so hesitant in answering. Six months ago I noticed a deterioration in this hesitancy and when I heard she was constantly absent I knew it was a downslide for her. The higher you climb on the mountain of success the colder it becomes; a weak person can't hold on."

Matt Weinstock, Nov. 24, 1959

Hey, it’s our old pal T.C. Jones!      He's a Go Boy     For reasons which are inscrutable, the gentlemen in charge of traffic lights are tilting and putting blinders on them so that motorists cannot see the ones to their left and right while stopped at intersections.     This is an unhappy turn of events for motorists who habitually look sideways while waiting for the signal to change.  Puts them on the qui vive.     The blinders also put into sharp focus the two schools of driving. First, those who start the moment the light turns to green.  Second, the dawdlers.     I HAPPEN to be with the go boys and against the dawdlers. In fact, I will go so far as to state that there is no place in rush hour traffic for the laggards, who don't seem to give a darn if they ever get going.     O gentlemen of the traffic lights, it could be that you've erred.  We need to see those lights to the right and left to see when and if we're going to make those signals. ::      A SUNDAY SCHOOL class got into a discussion of "The Nun's Story" the other day when it was found that several students as well as the teacher, Carl Monsen , had seen it.  They were talking about Audrey Hepburn's ordeal as a novice when one teenage girl remarked, "Wasn't it awful the way they whacked off her hair and then when she left they didn't even give her a permanent!" :: THANKSGIVING THONG Back east, thick shoes they     hear the squeak of- But shoes out here aren't     much to speak of.     --CLIFF MACKAY ::     THE CURSE has been taken off cranberries, but the gags remain.  La Vaughn Kirk reports a West L.A. camera store has a sign, "Bravest man in town is one who smokes a cranberry cigarette" . . . Harry M. Cress spotted this one in a  North Hollywood laboratory:  "Cranberry Decontamination a Specialty" . . . And a Sunset Blvd. shop has this one:  "Cranberries imported from Germany, Switzerland and Sweden." ::     ALMOST every week the post office announces new stamps and there are those who think it's time to hold everything and go back to George, Ben and Abe.     Kenny Isbell bought a dollar's worth of four-centers -- drably white, inscribed: "Champion of Liberty" with a picture of Ernest Reuter, mayor of Berlin 1948-53.  He has nothing against Mr. Reuter, he wonders only if he belongs on a U.S. stamp.  Also how commemorative Mr. Summerfield can get. ::     THE DEFENDANT in a misdemeanor case phoned the city attorney's office the morning his hearing was scheduled and said he'd be unable to appear because of a broken leg.     "That's too bad," the deputy prosecutor said.  "Are you in the hospital?"     "You don't understand," was the reply.  "I've got a wooden leg.  I lost the bolt out of it and can't find it." ::     A PUBLICIST who will be kept anonymous to spare him further embarrassment returned to his parked and locked car and saw, in dismay, that he'd left the key in the ignition slot.  There was nothing else to do as he got a big rock and smashed a window and unlocked the door from the inside.  He was about to get in when, out of habit, he reached in his pocket and found his key.  Then he realized he'd broken into someone else's car, identical with his.  Yes, he left his name and paid for the broken window. ::     AT RANDOM -- Anybody know how to say "Merry Christmas" or "Season's Greetings," in Eskimo?  Photog Emil Cuhel took a picture of a pretty Eskimo gal in a parka for a Christmas card and nobody seems to know . . . A boy, 12, who did a minor chore for the lady next door was rewarded with a nickel.  He stared at it and remarked, with feigned incredulity, "Are they still making these?"

Paul V. Coates – Confidential File, Nov. 24, 1959

Face It; Aren't You Just a Mite Rigged?     Sit down.     No.  Better yet, lie down.  Or is it lay down?     Anyway, get prone.  Tuck a pillow under your head if it'll help relieve that nervous tension which undoubtedly has been building up within you all day.     All set?  Nice and comfy?  You've got my column in front of you, extended at arm's length?     Good.  Now I can tell you.     Today, I'm going to discuss the TV quiz scandals.     You undoubtedly thought that they were passe by now.  That, of course, is part of your trouble.  Too flighty.     Along comes payola and your attention is diverted.     All you're interested in now is if your favorite disc jockey was getting a few bucks under the turntable for trying to make a roll and rock hit out of that old ditty, "Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life."     I could write a story.  I could tell you that Madame Curie was rigged, and you wouldn't care.  If Van Doren can be rigged, why couldn't Madame Curie?  That's what you'd answer me.     And now we're getting close to my point.       My point is that you've pushed this whole messy affair back deep, deep into your subconscious before you've had a chance to carefully analyze (which is, I grant you, a split infinitive) its implications.     In other words, what I'm probing into is: "The TV quiz show scandals and YOU!"     Do you know exactly where you stand now that we've all been told by the TV quiz show moguls that the riggings were a natural byproduct of the decadent, deceptive day in which we live?     If you don't, be thankful you're here.     I have with me a test which will show to what degree you have decayed morally.     Please --not for my sake, but for your own -- answer the questions truthfully.  If you don't you'll just rot a little more.     1- When you do crossword puzzles while driving home on the Hollywood Freeway in the evening, do you turn to Page 8, Part III, for the answer to "Tibetan oxen," and then write it in, giving yourself full credit?     2- On departing from a cocktail party, do you tell the hostess that you had a wonderful time, even though you know, down deep, that the Martinis were watered?     3- If you give a seven-year-old newsboy a dollar for a newspaper and he gives you $1.10 in change, do you pocket the profit, pat him on the head, and walk away with a feeling of accomplishment?     4- Do you save last year's Christmas gift boxes with Bullock's labels on them to package gifts which you bought at the 5-and-10 this year? So, You Got Defects     Now, tally up your answers.     If you have one "yes" answer, you're morally defective.  But only a little bit.  Don't let it worry you.  Cut the test out. Try it again six months from now.     If you have more than one "yes" answer, you're a moral thief.     You know it.  I know it.     And that's what I like about you.  You're not afraid to own up to it.     Now, if you'll excuse me, get off the couch.  My head hurts and I want to lie down myself.

A Kinder, Simpler Time Dept.: Your Movie Columnist

Nov. 24, 1961: “After the picture, we stepped into Jackie Gleason's Rolls-Royce, which he'd loaned us for the occasion, and drove to El Morocco for a bite to eat. There Hollywood producer Cubby Broccoli told me he will start the film ‘Doctor No,’ by President Kennedy's favorite mystery writer Ian Fleming, in Jamaica come January.”

Matt Weinstock, Nov. 23, 1959

Adrift in the City       A bellboy, 25, was in municipal court a few days ago charged with impersonating an officer.  His arrest grew out of an argument in a saloon when the bartender refused to sell him a drink.     When he went into an irrelevant outburst in which he threatened to "pull the switch on this whole town!"     "I've been sent down here from the moon to straighten things out," he went on, "but after looking around I'm not sure I can get the job done."     There was laughter, of course, and many persons reading this may also be amused.     But judges and court attaches no longer smile at such outbursts.  They know they have before them a disturbed person, one of many cast adrift in the city. They also know the inadequacy of the facilities to provide desperately needed psychiatric care for such persons.   ::       A WOMAN CAME to a well-known artist and asked if he would paint her portrait.  She wanted to give it to her husband for Christmas, she said.  Then she added, with studied gaiety. "I'll pay you a handsome fee if you'll make me look 10 years younger."     The artist, whose fees are high enough so that he can be independent, replied, "I'll tell you what we can do.  I'll paint you as you are today and you can give it to your husband 10 years from now."   ::       LIFE Steak and violins, crystal     chandeliers- Corned beef hash in tins,     followed by two beers.     --JOSEPH P. KRENGEL   ::       A WOMAN PHONED the Health Department the other day and said urgently, "I ate some cranberries yesterday -- what do I do now?"     The health officer patiently assured her she was in no danger.  When he hung up the receiver he shook his head sadly and remarked to a man visiting him, "I wish we could get through to people how ridiculous this cranberry scare is.  On the basis of the amount of poison required to induce cancer in rats, a person would have to eat 15,000 pounds of cranberries.  That's 100 pounds a year for 150 years.  I don't think anybody is going to make it."   ::       CONTINUING discussions, sometimes reaching the feud stage, are being held by northern and southern groups to settle on an agreement on water rights.  Unless surplus Northern California water can be delivered here, this area, with its exploding population, some distant day could virtually revert to desert.     After a frustrating session Assemblyman Tom Rees, who represents the Brentwood Section, remarked wryly, "Well, at least I've got the riparian rights to the water in 13,000 swimming pools!"   ::       ON HIS RETURN from his first Boy Scout camp out Mike Allison, 11, reported, "The food was terrible.  The steak was raw, the bacon was black and I never want to thing about scrambled eggs again."  Who, his father asked, did the cooking?     "I did, to earn points on my badge," the boy said, then added brightly, "but I sure had some good hamburgers on the way back!"   ::        ONLY IN L.A. -- So that there will be  a fair distribution of funerals of unidentified and unclaimed dead, who are buried at county expense, undertakers designate  a Coroner of the Month, who gets the business for that period.   ::       AT RANDOM -- The TV scene that bugs the boys in the City Council pressroom is the one in which the gal collapses when told a loved one is dead and the hero mushes up and says, "Can I get a glass of water,ma'm?"  Why water?  the pressroom boys ask.  At a time like that any doctor would prescribe wheesky . . . Did you hear about the householder, doing some weekend carpenter work in the garage, who called to his boy, "Son, get me a screwdriver, will you?"  The boy returned in a moment with a glass of orange juice and said, "Pop, I can't find the vodka!" . . . Several employees in a downtown office received credit cards they hadn't applied for.  They're angry, feeling someone was presuming.

Paul V. Coates – Confidential File, Nov. 23, 1959

Note: Standards have changed since Paul Coates used "wetback" in this column 50 years ago. Today, words like this are acceptable in The Times only if they appear in a quote and then, only after consultation with top editors. Although such words are sometimes appropriate, if Coates were writing this column for us today, we would ask him to change it. But Coates, who died in 1968 at the age of 47, wasn't writing for us but for the readers of another generation. And so we're left with the choice of making the changes ourselves or killing the column, both of which are greater offenses. I should also note that I deleted the headline that originally appeared with the column because it struck me as being needlessly inflammatory and wasn't written by Coates but by someone on the copy desk.     Ricardo Sarate Perez's story differs from that of the average wetback in two major regards.     First, in purpose.  Ricardo didn't come to the United States in search of the American dollar.  He came in quest of something we take for granted here: an education.      Secondly, when Ricardo began his several-hundred-mile journey to Mexico's northern frontier, he was only 11 years old.      One of several children of a  railroad worker, Ricardo left his family's three room dwelling in San Luis Potosi at 8 a.m. on a  chilly winter morning in 1955.  He carried a  paper bag with two extra shirts and an extra pair of pants, plus the 25 pesos (two American dollars) which he had secretly saved for the trip.     He had earned the money working with his father on the railroad.     With three years of schooling behind him, his aim was to get more -- to learn English like the tourists spoke it, then return to get a "good" job in a hotel.     This goal has been altered somewhat by the passing of time.     The trip from San Luis Potosi, to Guadalajara, north through Mazatlan and Culiacan, and finally west to Tijuana, took 21 days.     A boy on the highway in Mexico -- even a small one -- generally can keep moving by exchanging his services, loading and unloading trucks, for free transportation and, occasionally, a meal.     In Tijuana, the 11-year-old spent two days learning about the border -- where it was, how to cross it -- and hearing stories about American jails before working up courage to sneak across.     His was an ingenious plan.  And it worked.  Waiting for the late afternoon influx of Mexican workers to cross from the U.S. side back into their country, he slipped among them.  Then, walking backward as they walked forward, he passed unnoticed into the United States.     His success, however, was short lived.  Border patrolmen caught him in San Diego and returned him to Tijuana.  He tried once more.  Again, he was caught and sent back.     For his third attempt, the successful one, he traveled east, all the way to Nogales.  He crossed ankle-deep in mud through a storm drain.     And with the kind of luck that sometimes accompanies determination, he began his move northward and westward.     Walking, stowing away on trucks and freight trains, sometimes boldly hitchhiking or going by bus, he kept on the move because he didn't know what else to do.  He kept from going hungry by catching a day's work  where he could -- generally washing dishes in a Mexican restaurant.     He reached L.A., took one look and decided there were too many policemen.  So he caught the next freight north, where -- a week later -- he hit the jackpot.  In Sacramento he found a family which took him in, fed him and sent him to school.     Again, luck was his shadow.  Although he spoke no English, school authorities accepted the family's claim that Ricardo was born in Texas.  The family was poor and Ricardo helped out, spending weekends and summer vacations in the fields or slaughtering poultry.     Two months ago, however, the family told the boy he'd have to leave.  Because of illness, they would be forced to go on welfare and they were afraid of what might happen if he were discovered. Found by Church Worker     He left and came to L.A.  Sitting in a pew, praying, at Plaza Methodist Church, he was found by a church worker.  The boy told his story, illustrating it with a few tears and a few laughs.     Then some other people heard the story of the little wetback.  Dr. Richard Brooks, president of Gardena's Spanish American Institute heard it.  He said he'd accept Ricardo in the home-school for boys if immigration problems could be worked out and the $75-a-month minimum tuition could be met.     The Ladies' Plaza Club came up with $10 a month.  Arnold Rodriguez, a Plaza playground director, and his wife, a schoolteacher, volunteered another $5 and supplied the necessary affidavit of support.     Dr. Brooks and Rodriguez took the boy's story to immigration officials here.  Rodriguez said that if the additional $60 a month for tuition wasn't volunteered, he'd pay it.  Then Dr. Brooks took a frightened Ricardo to the U.S. Consulate in Mexicali.     This weekend, passport and student visa in hand, Ricardo Sarate Perez came back to town, a very happy and grateful young man.

A Kinder, Simpler Time Dept.: Your Movie Columnist

Nov. 23, 1960:  “Had a few days in New York while homebound from Europe so took in Lucille Ball's show 'Wildcat' in Philadelphia. It makes you laugh and cry and when it reaches Broadway it'll take this old town like she took the nation with 'I Love Lucy.' “

A Kinder, Simpler Time Dept.: Your Movie Columnist

Nov. 22, 1959 -- Myrna Fahey says: “I was Zorro’s girlfriend Maria at a time when they felt it a good idea to have the idol of all the kids feel tender toward someone other than his horse.”