Talk Is Cheaper

At this
moment of drought there is much talk of water. At a meeting in
Sacramento a few days ago John E. Hunt, financial consultant of the
California Department of Water Resources, outlined to interested
persons from all over the state the cost of bringing water from
Northern California, where there is too much, to Southern California,
where there is not enough.

He used astronomical figures — $1 billion for this, $800 million for that, $30 million annually for something else, and so on.

As
he stopped for a drink of water, almost symbolically it seemed, Henry
Green, manager of the Feather River Project Assn., announced that the
waitress who had served the lunch was $10 short and asked if anyone had
neglected to pay.

And the discussion of casual billions was help up while the boys dug in their wallets to make up their shortage.

::

A YOUNG MAN named
Frank received a call the other day from a scholarly but somewhat
unworldly friend who asked Frank to look up a word in his French
dictionary. "I think it is derived from the work 'beatitudes,'" he
said, "but I can't find it in any of my dictionaries." And he spelled
out the word "be-AT-nik."

::

CAMPUS CROWDING
University housing
Certainly worsens
If seven-foot beds
Are for 3 1/2 persons.
–RICHARD ARMOUR

::

THE UNDERSTATEMENT of
the week has to do with a doctor who kept sending bills to a woman
patient but received no response. Finally, a few day ago, he received a
note stating, "My husband will take care of this as soon as he gets out
of a slight difficulty."

The secretary checked and learned that three days before the husband had been sentenced to 12 years in prison.

::

IT IS CLEAR that
there will always be motorists who will never solve the traffic maze
called the interchange. At the last moment they realize they are in the
wrong lane to go where they want to go and suddenly cut sharply in the
front of the other cars. The miracle is that there aren't 50 accidents
a day there.

Discussing the hazardous situation with a colleague, Rob Wade, head preparator of exhibits at the County Museum, came up with this picturesque description: "Yes, that's where the traffic really gets braided."

::

EVERY MOTHER has her own definition of the moment her child grew up.

With
Irene Grimes, it was the time her son Jim went into the second grade.
As he departed on the second day of school and she started to kiss him
goodbye, as she had always done, he pulled away and said, "Couldn't we
just shake hands?"

::

WITH Helen
Ernest, it was the other night when her son Bob, 17, a sailor home on
leave, went out on a date. "Be in by 12," she admonished. "Mom," he
said importantly, "I'm government property now." "I don't care if
you're government property or not," she retorted, "get that car back by
midnight!"

::

AROUND TOWN — Have
you noticed the toy stuffed tigers inside the rear windows of cars?
Looks like this may be the fad to replace Hula-Hoops… The man behind
the scenes on one of the late late shows the other night committed this
weird sequence: the title, "When the Poppies Bloom Again," then the
line, "Dedicated to those who remember," followed by "Wisconsin
cheese"… Then, Frank Barron reminds, there's this little foreign car
that goes forward and Borgward … Fun-loving admen in Pacific Palisades
have formed a club called Palisades Advertising People — Pap for
short. Purely social … A girl named Liz, who already owns two other
cats, found a stray and, after deep pondering, has decided to call it Purry Como.