Highway Manners

While driving on
Highway 1 recently, Jean Meredith of CBS ran over a rock and in a few
minutes was marooned on this picturesque, narrow, winding, lonelyMonterey Peninsula road with a flat left front tire.

But
luck was with her. In a little while a car stopped and a man in his 30s
came over and, while his wife and two children waited, efficiently
removed the flat and put on the spare.

Then came that awkward
moment. How does one discreetly express his gratitude for such a
service? To offer money is sometimes insulting. On the other hand,
merely to say thanks is sometimes not enough. It depends on the person
and one can't be certain what the proper course is with strangers.

Jean
drew his wife aside and tried to press a bill on her. The wife
adamantly refused. Jean had an idea. "Buy the children a malt at the
next stop," she said; "let it be my treat to them."

The wife
reluctantly took the bill. As she was putting it in her purse a look of
dismay came over the face of her 10-year-old boy and he said sadly,
"Now what am I going to tell in Scout meeting!"

::

ONLY IN L.A. — A
downtown character known as Buster was back in City Jail only 22 hours
after being released from a 90-day term — a possible record. A small
bottle oftokay undid him. As he was hauled off a pal observed, "I'll bet the boys over at Lincoln Heights wish he had a point of no return."

::

SYNTHETIC SEERESS
That prediction, ma'm, was
    a bit too drastic —
Perhaps your crystal ball is
    made of plastic.
    — JOSEPH P. KRENGEL

::

A STERN TEST of strength is taking place in an apartment house on S Kenmore Ave.

About
a week ago the tenants learned the place was being put up for sale. A
real-estate man appeared and presented a letter from the absentee owner
asking the tenants to show their apartments to prospective buyers.

The
tenants held a caucus and decided to resist. Some of them have lived
there a dozen years at a modest rental. They are certain a new owner
would raise the ante, especially after seeing how nicely they have kept
up their apartments.

So they've been playing a cat and mouse
game. They sneak down the back stairs and duck out the alley to avoid
the real-estate man. One woman didn't answer a knock on her door and
waited silently inside for three hours until she saw him and a client
drive away.

Thus far no one has got to see any apartment but the tenants realistically fear it's only a matter of time until the enemy makes a breakthrough.

::

ANOTHER BATCH of trite dialogue — the kind that tips off the kind of movie it is — has dribbled in.

Roy
Ringer squirms when a man in a doublet and cape says, "Give me three
ships, your majesty, and I'll sweep the Spanish from the seas!" Also
when the country doctor says, "There's only one surgeon in the world
who can save your brother, Miss Polyp, and he's in Vienna." A variation
of this one goes, "Medical science can do nothing more for your
brother, Miss Polyp; he has no will to live."

Jeff Davis cringes
when he hears, "Are you keeping the line open to the governor's
mansion?" Also at "I couldn't marry a man who killed my brother."

Melissa Caron shudders when the dance-hall girl, revealed as belonging to a proud Philadelphia family, says, "So now you know."

And Hal Humphrey says not to forget the tight-lipped remark, "A man does what he has to do."

::

MISCELLANY — A
messenger boy heading out into last Friday's blast-furnace heat called
to his boss, "We who are about to fry salute you!" . . . Picture
postcard signed Mary Lou, postmarked Laguna Beach, has the message,
"Between the sharks in the surf and the wolves on the beach a girl
isn't safe — thank heavens!" . . . Don Perkins of Toastmaster International reports that Alaskans are now calling us "the South 48."