Feb. 4, 1958

Everyone is out to make an extra buck but sometimes opportunity knocks so hard it takes a man off his feet.

As in the case of a mail pitch received by E. Hewe of Pasadena from a firm in Brockton, Mass.

"You have been recommended as a person who might be interested in an
exceptional opportunity which we have open for qualified men," it
states and expounds glowingly on the commissions and bonuses to be made
in selling the firm’s products house to house. That is, if he acts at
once.

The keynote of the letter is secrecy. "This is confidential," it
begins. "Please read carefully and destroy. Remember," it concludes,
"this is held in strictest confidence."

On the enclosed postcard E. Hewe wrote, "I did not want to reveal your
secret but I am such a blabbermouth I destroyed your letter before
reading it."

LIFE CONTINUES to be full of little surprises, some new.

Ed Clement went into a pet shop in Walteria to buy a dog collar. Near
where he stood he noticed a doll buggy with something moving under a
blanket.

He thought nothing of it–until a clothed baby chimpanzee leaped out of the buggy and into his arms and cuddled against him.

The owner immediately claimed it but Ed says, "If it had called me daddy so help me I’d have punched it right in the mouth."

DARR SMITH, the
newsman who became a film actor, received a card stating that if he
appeared in person at the Screen Actors Guild office and signed a
released he would receive his residual share in "High Noon," recently
sold to TV.

He did so and picked up a check for $25.78. And he recalled his one,
ephemeral scene in the classic film. All the others were cut out.

He was a background character in a saloon in which Gary Cooper, waiting
for three bad guys to come and give him trouble, was knocked down by
the bartender. Darr helped him get up. Of course, only relatives and
close friends with 20-20 vision who had been alerted to watch for the
scene knew it was Darr.

Nevertheless, Darr is grateful. But he wonders if Princess Grace, who
starred in the picture, will have to come over from Monaco and sign a
release to get her check.

TODAY is
the deadline for SAM 123, whoever he is. (It’s the imprint on the tiny
cellophane envelopes containing the 1958 auto license stickers showing
where to place them on the rear plate).

Anyway, a Glendale man is pretty angry at SAM (as in sample) 123. His
tab tore in half as he tried to remove the cardboard and stuck
together. He reported this to the MVD and was issued another tab–after
filling out the same forms and paying an additional $2. He’s disgusted.

WHILE IN Mexico City recently an L.A. woman decided to acquire the chemiserie look and bought a sack dress.

When she tried to board a bus, however, she couldn’t. The skirt was too
narrow. Whereupon the driver motioned her to slither down the street
where the step up would not be so high. She made it OK.

Now she asks, "Would L.A. bus drivers be that accommodating?"

AT RANDOM–Saturday
night a radio station kept breaking into a musical program with
bulletins about the tragic air collision–followed in one instance by
the message of the sponsor, an airline, about the joy and safety of
flying … Pete Pitchess, candidate for sheriff, has already had his
baptism of fire, typographical division. One paper spelled it Pitchers
… No truth to the rumor, assures Hatton Hulett, that the U.S.
satellite made two passes over Las Vegas … The Cimmangad Gazette,
semiannual publication (typed) of the recently promoted B6 class at
Queen Anne Place School, has its own version of the movie: "I Was a
Teenage Third-Grader."