Jan. 8, 1958

There are businessmen in this town whose professed interest in humanity I question.

Among them is the owner of a local tire agency who advertised in an East Los Angeles paper this week:

"If you are riding on smooth tires, you’re only fooling yourself. It’s
bad enough to risk your own life, but how about the lives of your loved
ones?"

And then followed his dramatic appeal to the readers’ consciences with:

"Planning to buy a new car?

"If so, let’s trade tires. Let us put tires on your old car not quite
as good as yours and pay you the difference. It’s money found."

And if you survive the trip to your favorite new car agency, let the
sucker who gets stuck with your smooth-tired automobile risk the lives
of his loved ones instead, I presume.

ALSO ON MY DESK is a handbill showing the recent double-horror attraction for a South Side theater.

It advertises:

"FREE CANDY to all boys and girls attending the show."

And it ballyhoos the "monster" in one of the pictures as

"A teenage titan of terror on a LUSTFUL BINGE that paralyzed a town with fear."

There are psychiatrists who see no damage in permitting kids to attend occasional horror shows.

But I question, sincerely, whether boys and girls lured into a theater
by a promise of free candy are going to benefit from viewing a "lustful
binge."

It’s a pretty sad choice of words. And it took a pretty sad example of an adult to combine them with free candy.

TWO DAYS AGO, I reported the frustration of a chemical engineer in
Glendora who tried to fulfill his civic obligation by reporting an
unidentified flying object.

He tried to contact both Civil Defense and Operation Skywatch offices.

He placed half a dozen phone calls to CD units, to military installations, to Skywatch stations.

His reward was either no answer or no interest. Plus some derision.

He told telephone operators and police of his plight, but they were at a loss as to who else he might try.

So maybe it’s a good idea to write down this phone number: SY camore 5-7235.

It’s the number of the Pasadena Air Defense Filter Center.

According to Capt. Gordon L. Brock, the center operates 24 hours a day,
covers Southern California plus parts of western Arizona and Central
California and is prepared to investigate all unusual aerial activity.

He admits that, unfortunately, not many people know it exists.

LAST MONTH, I wrote about a 9-year-old girl from Granite City, Ill.,
who visited Hollywood with her parents to have a final wish fulfilled
before she died.

The wish was to meet Roy Rogers. And a meeting was arranged.

At least, the little girl and her parents were told it was.

But some Hollywood press agentry at its worst fouled up the girl’s
hopes and left her standing on a street corner for an hour, waiting
vainly for Roy to appear.

After the fiasco, it was pretty well determined that Roy never knew of the proposed meeting.

Yesterday, there came a postscript to the story in a note from the girl’s mother:

"I would like very much for you to publish our thanks to Girl Scout
Troop 156 for the individual greetings they sent her for Christmas.
They gave her a tremendous thrill.

"Also, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans made several calls and sent her a
lovely gift box for Christmas. Of all her gifts, the one she was
happiest with was the costume which they sent her.

"Donna was released from the hospital recently after a third operation on her brain tumor.

"Four doctors had told us that the operation was impossible but somehow
God decided to change that. Now, they tell us she will be blind but,
thank God, she will live.

"We shall never forget the kindness shown us by everyone."