Just a Mistake

Several months
ago the after-midnight serenity of the 100 block on South Commonwealth
Avenue was disturbed by a sustained crashing noise which turned out to
be a drunk driver banging into four parked cars.

Several nights ago, there is was again — the same sound.

Residents
rushed out to find a large, befuddled gentleman in his damaged car,
which had badly bruised four parked cars, trying to start it so he
could back away from the one in which it was embedded. He finally got
it going, backed up, almost knocking down a woman, and took off
erratically, damaging five more cars before stopping. Total, nine cars.

But
what fascinated J. Jackson, an onlooker, was his remark as police took
him away. "Everyone," he said plaintively in a thick German accent,
"makes mistakes."

::

ALONG WITH several million other persons, TV director Rick Oxford last week watched Desilu
Playhouse's "Man in Orbit," the exciting tale of a man (Lee Marvin) who
was launched into space and became trapped there when something went
wrong with the machinery. There he was, talking desperately into his
radio as he orbited the earth every few minutes.

To let him know
he was being heard it was arranged that when he passed over Kansas City
at midnight the people there would turn out their lights a few moments
before and turn them on again simultaneously at 12 sharp.

At the
exact moment the folks in K.C. flipped their switches Rick's TV picture
blacked out although the sound continued. Next day he called a
repairman but he found nothing wrong and the set has worked perfectly
since.

And what have you heard from outer space recently?

::

PLAY BAWL

How many hits and runs they'll score remains to be seen.
But they're already making putouts in Chavez Ravine.

-JACK PRICE

::

IT'S LITTLE old lady time again. A tiny, wizened, decrepit-looking one on the early morning Brentwood
bus, known as the Housemaids' Special, attracted the attention of the
regulars and one asked if she were going to work. No, she replied, she
was going out to take care of her daughter's children while her
daughter went to school. She added, "I don't mind going out there but,
I hate to leave my mother at home." How old was her mother?
Ninety-seven.

::

AFTER a half-hour wait in a busy airline ticket office on 6th Street, a man said despairingly, "How come if there's so much unemployment so many people are traveling?"

A lady who had been waiting 45 minutes responded. "Maybe they're going out looking for jobs."

::

A LADY NAMED
Doris decided to have an FM unit installed in her 10-year-old
radio-phonograph or possibly turn it in on a new model. When she got to
the store she became bewildered by the hi-fi and stereo talk. She
didn't know exactly how to describe her machine to the salesman so she
said, "I guess you'd call it an old low-fi."

::

ROBERT A. Futterman,
31, who has made a lucrative career of appraising American cities in
terms of future real estate values, states of our burg in the June
Esquire: "Despite what some people think, you don't have to be afraid
of Los Angeles." Who's afraid?

::

AT RANDOM — It
will come as no surprise to those who drive home around 5 p.m. to learn
that, according to Gov. Brown's traffic safety committee, there are
more autos in L.A. County than in any of 44 states … On SidKuller's
return home from an extended trip his son Kenny, 4, said, "Daddy, you
were gone so long I almost didn't miss you anymore" … This word
reversal business could be contagious. A press release quotes Jack
Carson saying he saw a TV show that underwhelmed him … Every time he
passes it Roy Walters cringes at the sign on a chicken pie place onVerdugo Road, near Colorado Blvd: "Individuals to take out."