Matt Weinstock, Nov. 26, 1959

Cop and Robber     Citizens can be thankful for policemen like Dalton Robert Patton, whose funeral was held yesterday.     Patton, 58, who retired from the LAPD in 1943, was not a "front page cop."  He preferred to work quietly, without fuss.     Friends yesterday recalled his classic encounter with a safe cracker.  Patton, detective captain at Hollywood station, spent months tracking him down and had him, as the saying goes, "dead bang."     But to everyone's consternation a jury acquitted him.  After the trial the burglar said, "No hard feelings, captain.  And I want you to know I'll never crack another safe in your division ."     PATTON DIDN'T FORGET; he waited.  One day months later he saw the man's name on a make sheet for drunk driving. He checked the jail and learned he would not be released on bail for several hours.     He went to the robber's address, was admitted to his apartment by the landlady and found what he suspected would be there -- a canvas bag of yeggman's tools.  He put a coating of powdered anthracite on them and departed.     His guess was that the robber would need money for bail and a lawyer and try for it the only way he knew.  The robber did -- one safe in Glendale, another in Burbank.  This time, when confronted with Patton's telltale evidence -- powdered anthracite is invisible but glitters like gold under black light -- the robber disgustedly pleaded guilty. ::     SILVER LINING How sad it is that berries,     cran, Have been declared     unsafe for man: But it would be much     more absurd If our turkey got the bird.         --MARY ALKUS ::     SPEAKING OF which, the movie "Operation Petticoat" has a scene in which George Dunn, crewman on a sub docked at a South Pacific island during WWII, is enjoying a luau when a Japanese plane strafes the area.     He hits the deck, gets up covered with a red smear and exclaims, "Gosh, I've been killed."  Then he tastes the red stuff and says, "Cranberries!"     A month ago the line hardly meant anything; now it's bringing down the house. ::     LETTER, in a thankful mood, signed A Grateful Patient:     "May I express my thanks to the fine doctors who take time out of busy schedules to drive miles to General Hospital to study the cases of heart patients like myself and prescribe medication.  Not all doctors are money grabbers." ::     REWRITE MEN, by superhuman effort, usually manage to smother their cynicism.  But not always.  Consider the reporter delegated the other day to throw together a few paragraphs about the Santa Claus parade.     He led off stating one of the most spectacular floats would be the "crater monster" from the film "Journey to the Center of the Earth."  Then this sentence:     "The monster, breathing jets of smoke from the nostrils of its giant serpent head, is expected to kindle the yule spirit in the heart of every Hollywood child." ::     THIS ONE is from a fact-facing Compton lady named Lois:     "The investigation of TV quiz show fixing has me wondering if the committee will look into the matter of the ladies not so well blessed as others who put on false fronts and derrieres.  After all, they are fooling people into believing their structure is all Mother Nature, which is dishonest and fraudulent.  Not to mention the letdown the ladies would get upon finding out their he-man wore padded shoulders and built-up shoes.  Personally I have no worries but this thing is leading from one place to another so fast."     Somebody was bound to bring it up. ::     AROUND TOWN -- Sign on barrier outside building under construction on Melrose Ave. near Vine: "Enyart-Rose.  Adv.  Help Wanted.  Excellent prospect for son of large advertiser" . . . There was a smashed baby carriage on Hollywood Freeway the other day.  Harry Cress wonders what it hit . . . A gas station on Sepulveda Blvd. near Nordhoff has a  sign, "We wash foreign cars with imported water" . . . Jerry Burtnett has formed the Society for the Encouragement of Calling Oahu -- the island on which Honolulu is located -- Oahu.  Not Hawaii.

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?"

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?"

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.

Matt Weinstock, Nov. 21, 1959

Car Troubles     Two years ago, Bob Joseph bought a two-cylinder French Panhard, which has positively no area in front for a license plate.  He has been driving it with only the rear plate.     On consecutive days recently he received two citations.  A new law went into effect in October requiring cars to have both plates, and it is being enforced.  He explained ineffectively to the officers that the dealer sold him the car with only one plate.     He went to the Traffic Fines Bureau at 810 Wall St., where a courteous marshal showed him the nice new law and advised him to go to the Motor Vehicle Department at 35th and Hope Sts. and get new plates.     He did, then asked where he could put the one in front.  The man there saw no possibility and directed him to the Highway Patrol at 4th and Vermont.     There he retold his sad tale.  An officer circled the car, looking for a spot to put the front plate.  When he came up with nothing Bob asked, "What do you suggest?"      "Sell it," the officer said. ::     UNDERGRADUATE ENTHUSIASM for today's game is about even.  First SC students swiped a UCLA air horn, which was returned.  Then UCLA students put a blue paint coating on Tommy Trojan, the SC statue.  Then four SC students put a red paint job on UCLA's Founder's Rock but were caught swiping two banners.  An SC student policing group has curtailed their privileges. ::     THIN MARGIN When getting on a bus that     is packed The avoirdupois I long     have lacked Is then a  joy, a thing     of merit, As past the fatter forms     I ferret.     --DELLA SKELLETT ::     IT IS traditional and inevitable that reporters, who write the news stories, and copy readers, who edit and put heads on them, should quibble.  Reporters contend copy readers destroy their lilting prose.  Copy readers accuse reporters of slaughtering the language.  They went at it again the other day.     A rewrite man turned in a  story about a W 8th St. liquor store holdup in which a case of Scotch was stolen.  The reporter, obviously a naive fellow, identified it as "Hague and Hague" instead of Haig and Haig.     A surly copy reader asked him, "Are you sure it wasn't a case of Holland gin?" ::     IN HIS latest Desert Rat Scrap Book, all about good Injuns, Harry Oliver tells of a party of tourists visiting some Indian ruins in a desolate section of Arizona.  To get to them they had to leave their cars and walk.     En route, a woman exclaimed, "Gracious, I forgot to lock the car!"     "Don't worry," the Indian guide said, "there isn't a white man within 50 miles." ::     IT MAY BE comforting to know that the Health Department is watching over you, even if you don't care.     Bob Martin received a notice the other day that his dog Concho had been quarantined for 14 days as a rabies suspect.  Puzzled, he phoned County health and asked why.  "Because he bit you," he was told.     Then Bob remembered.  Six weeks ago the dog playfully bit or scratched him on the leg.  About a week ago the sore looked infected and Bob stopped at Hollywood Receiving Hospital, where a doc put a bandage on it.  He also turned in a dog-bite report which went to Central, then to County health, then to Burbank, where Bob lives, and boom -- quarantine for Concho.     Meanwhile, the wound was healed. ::     FOOTNOTES -- It was a big week for bird watching.  In addition to the usual sparrows, towhees, blue-jays, juncoes and flickers, four stately quail, a long absent thrush, the first robin of fall and a yellow-breasted number tentatively identified as a MacGillivray's warbler visited the back yard.  That's what it states in Ernest Sheldon Booth's "Birds of the West" -- MacGillivray's warbler . . . Councilman Ransom Callicott, chatting with a friend about car mileage, remarked, "Five gallons of gas is just a light lunch for my car."

Matt Weinstock, Nov. 20, 1959

About Football     This is Big Game Week and I might as well get into the act, too.  I suppose it's true -- once a sports writer, you never get over it entirely.     SC and UCLA are being criticized for the way they play football.  Also the Rams, who can't win for losing.  Everyone's disgusted with them.     The Trojans have a great defense, the hecklers say, but their offense falters.  Oh sure they're No. 2 in the nation, but that's because of the wonderful McKeevers.  The heck its is.  It's because they're strong in all 11 positions.     UCLA, newly come alive, sends the self-appointed experts into despair.  The team looks good one game, bad the next.  Not only that, it plays the single wing, which the critics call horse and buggy football.  I happen to find the single wing a refreshing change from the ubiquitous T system, with all its variations.     AND SO THE HECKLERS say the colleges ought to open up the game.  Be more imaginative.  Well now, Stanford plays a flashy game.  Dick Norman leads the nation in passing, Chris Burford in receiving.  The Indians are gamblers.  They'll pass on fourth down and four to go in their own territory.  And where are they?  Nowhere.  Mostly because their defense is pitiful.     It could be that the Dodgers did L.A. a disservice in their magnificent drive for the pennant and their World Series victory.  Every team here is now expected to be not only victorious but also spectacular.  Fans go out to see them win.  They can't abide a loser.  Contrast this with the Middle West, where 75,000 people will sit in the cold or rain to watch teams which have been beaten repeatedly.  But it's their team.     My theory is that college football suffers mostly from the fickleness of the fans and too much undeserved criticism.  I like it as it is. ::     THIS IS to report an incredible, world-shaking event.  Tuesday an editor handling a piece of copy wasn't sure how to spell Khrushchev (most people forget the first h) and looked through the day's papers for verification.  Mr. K was not mentioned that day in any news story or column. ::     PUPPY DOGS They are cuddly- Also puddly. --JOSEPH P. KRENGEL ::    ONLY IN L.A. -- A semi-private City Hall elevator, used mostly by the brass to get to upstairs from the basement garage, is notoriously temperamental.   Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.  To warn users that it is unreliable it now bears a handsome brass, lighted, permanent sign, "Out of Service" . . .  Actress Dodie Drake awakened one night recently hearing strange noises.  Thinking someone was trying to break into the house, she called police.  The culprits?  Avocados falling off a tree and rolling down the roof. ::     JOHN CORNELL, who keeps tab on the changing L.A. scenery, reports another landmark on N. Broadway, not far from the vacant and mourned Ptomaine Tommy's, has gone out of business.  It was a store, notable for its sign, "Dental Equipment Refishishing."     Boss probably went refishishing where they were biting better. ::     FOR Red Rowe of CBS TV, Halloween was  a treat, not trick, night.  Pranksters removed a For Sale sign from a nearby lot and stuck it in the front lawn of the new Woodland Hills home into which he was preparing to move.  Next day a doctor's wife saw the sign and offered him so much more than he'd paid he couldn't refuse.  So Red's house-hunting again. ::     AT RANDOM -- Harrie Mabie heard a newscaster on KMPC say, "Smoke was noticed by the officer passing through the ventilator."

Matt Weinstock, Nov. 18, 1959

It's  Still 'Professor'     Everyone remembers certain of his teachers, particularly the ones who inspired or stirred him, even if he has lost touch with them and never sees them now.     Julius Sumner Miller, physics instructor at El Camino College and KNXT commentator, is more fortunate.  His old math prof, the revered Robert Ernest Bruce, of Boston University, lives in retirement in Redlands.  Miller occasionally visits him.      They recall the great men of the Boston U. faculty and how they literally radiated knowledge and instilled in their students a respect for learning.     On a recent visit, during such a discussion, Bruce, now in his late 80s said, "Julius, I think you are now entitled to call me Robert."     "I couldn't do that," Miller said, "after all, you've been Professor Bruce to me for more than 30 years."     "Robert," Mrs. Bruce said softly, "he really couldn't." ::     IN THE EVENT the same subcommittee which turned up the quiz show dishonesty  gets around to fake TV commercials, a fertile field awaits.     A man close to the picture in Hollywood says, "Cigarette advertising is, of course, the worst.  Any coughing, [illegible] smoker including myself could tell the FCC  that no cigarette is cool or refreshing."      As for a certain commercial showing comparative hair grooming between two women, it's well known, he says, that the models each get an $80 hairdo before the filming.     Then there's the luscious fake frosting in another commercial.  Instead of the advertised dressing, shaving cream is used.  The product doesn't photograph as well and it melts under studio lights. ::     SWEET BIRD FORSOOTH Has this mist as wet as     the rain in spring Caused your mind to flip? Any bird that sits in thick     fog to sing Surely must be a-drip.         --MATTIE RAE ::     GRANTED, Jerry Giesler has led a full life, teeming [illegible] torrid tidbits about fabulous people.  But it does appear gentle Jerry is being rather drastically [illegible] out biographically.     The editors of this paper thought the lawyer's sparkling career was wrung dry on an eight-part series by Florabel Muir in 1952, subtitled "Get Me Giesler."  Now the Saturday Evening Post is running "Giesler by Giesler" (second installment this week) and that other afternoon paper announces a 12-chapter series starting soon titled, oddly enough, "Get Me Giesler," by Florabel Muir.     First thing Jerry knows he won't have any private life at all. ::     PUBLIC AT LARGE -- There was a bright green armchair in the middle of the San Bernardino Freeway in West Covina the other day, reports Mikki Coburn, who lives on Siesta St. in La Puente . . . Rich Fowler wonders if it has occurred to anyone else that a steel mill is a strange place for "cooling off" . . . John Lund has a hilarious satire in the Screen Actor, SAG monthly magazine, in which a butler, learning his actress employer may get a big role, says joyfully, "Verily, my cup runneth over."  She says, "Then use your napkin." ::     MISCELLANY -- A fun-loving friend sidled up to Paul Grimes and whispered, "Pal, I can get you all the poison-free cranberries you want, cheap." . . . Meanwhile others are investigating the possibilities of farkleberries, if they could only find some . . . Cartoonist Herblock has drawn and had printed a wicked caricature of himself, propped up in bed reading his mail, which he sends to those who have sent him get well notes.  He's still recovering from a heart attack . . . Frank Barron reports this Hollywood fairy tale: "Once upon a time there was a papa bear, a mamma bear and a baby bear -- by a  previous marriage."

Matt Weinstock, Nov. 17, 1959

Farming Lesson     Young schoolchildren who are found after tests to be retarded are placed in a Point 1 group, as it is called, and given special tasks to perform.     A little boy in such a group in a suburban school was instructed as part of his therapy to plant radish seeds in the school garden.  Soon he harvested a large, healthy crop.  As he proudly took his radishes into class the teacher discreetly asked why he had planted them in a circle instead of rows.     "That's the way you get them in the market," the boy explained innocently.     A commercial vegetable grower heard of the incident and now grows his radishes in circles.  The idea, he realized immediately, is a boon to stoop labor required for the job. ::      WRITER Martin Ragaway was snared immediately by two motorcycle officers as he made a left turn at a busy Sunset Blvd. intersection.  He didn't think he'd done anything wrong and in the ensuing debate he protested, "I saw you and your partner there on the corner.  Would I deliberately make an illegal turn knowing you were watching?"     The smiling young officer said, "I suppose there's a touch of masochism in all of us."     Awed by his psychiatric touch, Martin foresees the time when drivers suspected of misbehavior will have to lie down on the curb and be analyzed on the spot.  By the way, he got no ticket. ::     OR POSSIBLY CROW The welfare secretary will     dine On traditional turkey, I've     heard. At least the cranberry mer-     chants Would like to give him the     bird. --JUNE R. DRUMMOND ::     SPEAKING OF which, Shigeru Tomita, who presides over the fruit and vegetables at the Vicente market in West L.A., has posted this sign:  "Be brave. Live dangerously.  Eat more cranberries." ::       QUOTE & UNQUOTE -- Overheard exchange at Lockheed:  First engineer:  "I don't know why I don't get married -- maybe I'm afraid to."  Second engineer:  "There's a scientific term for that --matriphobia!" . . . Profound and better economic truth uttered by a Hill Streeter named Ted:  "All a dime's good for these days is to put with two other dimes to buy a pack of cigarettes." ::     ONLY IN L.A. -- A woman walked into a drugstore at Wilshire and Alvarado and asked, "Where is the drugstore that used to be on this corner?"  The staff is still spinning . . . For his birthday, female office employees at Baker Oil Tools, Inc., on E. Slauson Ave. greeted the boss, Charles Sullivan, with their hair sprayed different colors than normal -- mostly gray so they could tell him I had gotten that way overnight, working for him . . . For sale ad in the North American Skywriter:  "Barbell set; pair of crutches; cemetery lots in Green Hills Park."  Let that be  a lesson to everyone. ::     AN OUTRAGED Reseda householder who received a property tax bill of $638 has put up his home for sale.  That amount, he points out, will pay the rent on a $100-a-month apartment, which he has selected, for six and one-third months.  You paying attention, supervisors? ::     AROUND TOWN -- Pancake houses are springing up all over.  Newest is Uncle John's $200,000 pancakery in Santa Monica --  20th in the chain started by John Dahl three years ago in Santa Barbara.  The question is, will pancakes replace pizza? . . . You'd never guess the name of the store detective at a Montebello market.  Yes, George Seemore . . . There are 45 coffee houses in the L.A. area, the Canyon Crier reports.

Matt Weinstock, Nov. 16, 1959

“I Think I’ll Read the Funnies.”    Conditioned Reflexes     After a business failure several years ago a young man decided to pursue the career he'd always wanted -- teaching.  He was aware that it meant a drastic change and involved great sacrifice but he and his wife decided it was worth it.     He went back to school, and, meanwhile, got a part-time job.  His wife also worked.  To keep the house running smoothly, the three young children were assigned regular duties and responsibilities.  After dinner, for instance, they quietly took their own dishes into the kitchen to be washed.     Recently after a long, hard struggle the husband got his credential and his teaching assignment and he and his wife decided to celebrate by dining in a good restaurant, something they'd denied themselves for several years.     [Illegible] an enjoyable occasion with a hilarious epilogue.  [Illegible] when the youngsters finished eating, they picked up their dishes and headed to the kitchen to wash them.  They were nabbed in the nick of time. ::      MORE AND MORE American Indians are being assimilated into the social stream and perhaps it's in order, as Chief Wah-Nee-Ota suggests, to let people in a little secret.     First thing most people ask when they meet an Indian is, "What tribe do you come from?"  It's an innocent and natural question but it tells the Indian the person knows nothing about his people.  The question correctly should be, "What nation do you come from?"  Every Indian tribe is a nation.  At present the largest Indian nation is the Navajo.     Chief Wah-Nee-Ota, by the way, is descended from the Creek nation, a branch of the Seminole.  The Creeks were never defeated, no peace treaty was ever signed and technically they are still at war with the United States, which, the chief concedes, with a smile, is also a powerful nation. ::     FOR FREE? Green stamps, orange     stamps, blue stamps,     gold- I'll be licking till I'm old.     --PAT SHROYER ::     THE WRONG NUMBER situation is out of hand again.      A man phoned the Mark Twain Hotel in Hollywood and shouted: "Tell so-and-so he's fired!"  Night clerk Henry Krieger tried to say something but the caller squelched him with, "I don't want to talk to him!" and hung up.  Half an hour later the same person called and said in a conciliatory voice, "Tell so-and-so to be on the set tomorrow."  [Illegible] figures the caller [illegible] he was talking to [illegible]  studio, one digit [illegible]  hotel's number.     Mrs. John McMurray, who lives in Laurel Canyon has received so many wrong numbers lately she [illegible] to participate.  The other day her phone rang [illegible] a man said, "Hello, Albert." She said, "No, this isn't Albert," which he should have detected from her voice.  But he persisted, "Are you sure this isn't Albert?"  When she said no again he said, "He must have moved again."  She She said this was possible if baffling. ::     NORTH YOUNG says he was dining in a Malibu restaurant with the noted Egyptologist, Pith Helmet, and, over an abalone frappe.  Pith was recounting one of his fantastic adventures.  "That was the year," he said, "that I took my wife and kids and 30 camels into the Egyptian Sudan.  Everything went well until-"  Just then an auto dealer at a nearby table jumped to his feet and interrupted, "I think it's high time people stopped exaggerating the roominess of those foreign cars." ::     AROUND TOWN -- Alberto Diaz of the Belvedere Citizen and Nicolas Avila of La Opinion were confronted with a momentary dilemma in reporting the cranberry crisis to their readers.  Cranberries aren't aren't used much down Mexico way, at least not in tacos.  Anyway, they had to look it up in the dictionary and now they know- cranberries arearandanos . . .You know what some people do these foggy nights?  They litterbug.  Through swirls of mist Walt Stone saw a motorist emptying his ashtray on Melrose Ave. . . . A young man in Palos Verdes drives around in an old hearse labeled "The Body Snatcher"  . . . And a Fiat in Santa Monica had painted on it, "Reductio ad absurdum."

Matt Weinstock, Nov. 14, 1959

Today Is Forever     Thirty years ago R. Julian Dashwood, a Britisher, found himself broke and hungry in Sydney, Australia.  Standing in a free food line, he determined never to be dependent again on how others mismanaged the world.     When the economic atmosphere cleared, he found his personal paradise, as many pressure-trapped city dwellers yearn to do, on Mauke, in the Cook Islands of the South Pacific.  He married a native girl and supports himself by selling seashells all over the world.     Readers may recall previous mention here of Dashwood's psychological bout with the natives.  When they refused to collect shells he got a movie projector and showed some old films, free at first, to the enchanted natives.  Then he told them it would cost a penny to see them.  They had no money, so he paid them to collect shells and they used the pennies as admission to the movies. ::     THROUGH A mutual interest in shells, Dashwood and Bennett Foster, L.A. adman, have maintained a wonderful correspondence.  Perhaps Dashwood's latest letter will inspire or disenchant those who still hope some day to take off for the South Seas.  The man's a poet as well as a philosopher.     He begins, "I smile to myself sardonically, thinking of you sitting in that ghastly office, imagining the delights of a tropical paradise.  At this moment the paradise is a slatey gray with sheets of rain driving in off the sea.  The fishing has gone sour for months, a situation for which I blame the Dulles-Macmillan bomb-testing firm.  My battery-driven radio has gone phut and it will be months before I can get it fixed.  You have no monopoly on grievances, only a variety of same.  But whereas mine will probably culminate in a magnificent semi-public row with my Polynesian wife, thus disposing of a lot of already cracked crockery and a marvelous discharge of libido, yours will probably find a final outlet in a stomach ulcer. ::      "BUT SERIOUSLY, I think most people work out a compromise of sorts with life only over the grave of several dreams.  Some, like myself, attempt to preserve parts of the dream in reality -- a difficult tight-rope performance.  But of this I am certain: One always gets what one wants provided one wants it badly enough to sacrifice everything to the achievement thereof.  And even then the laugh is with the Fates and Furies because although man unquestionably consciously creates the situation, the final result is seldom quite in keeping with his original intentions. ::     "IN MAUKE nothing ever happens.  This is why time passes with almost terrifying rapidity.  There are no permanent values;  nothing lasts;  one is here today, gone tomorrow and forgotten the day after.  Even the tombstones are made of soft coral and soon crumble away."     Expressing thanks for books Foster sent him, Dashwood continues: "I enjoyed them immensely, particularly 'The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit,' Vance Packard's ominously fascinating 'The Hidden Persuaders' and 'Lolita,' for me the clinching argument in my contention that the American way of life is shot to pieces on the moral front.  What a beautiful pool of iridescent slime." ::     DASHWOOD continues:  "I have only one complaint.  Time.  I have lived in the islands for 30 years and I cannot recall as many individual events.  In an environment where age carries no great penalties or burdens, one is lulled into a false sense of extended youth.  There is forever 'today,' tomorrow is somebody else's affair.  If the world came to a standstill we would slide off with complete absence of fuss.  Our preparations for the future are confined to making the best of the present.  We have a fine home, acres of unused land, three pleasant children, and no savings, no insurance, no superannuation schemes.  And nobody cares. ::     "TOTAL ESCAPE?  Maybe.  Probably as nearly as humanly possible.  Escape from people who could certainly bore me;  escape from the rat race and financial worries;  escape from practically everything except myself, and the best answer to that is to be so fond of oneself that the idea of separation is intolerable.  You probably couldn't take it anymore than I could Los Angeles."