Patient's Prescription

    A doctor who has been overworked treating flu patients came down himself the other day with the old virus.  He was home in bed, sniffing and coughing, when a woman patient phoned through his exchange and asked for him.

 

    "I'm sorry," the doctor's wife said, "he's ill, he's resting now."

    "That's too bad," the caller said, "I hope it's nothing serious."

 

    "I guess it's the same virus everyone else has," the wife said.

 

    "Are you taking care of him?"

 

    "Yes."

 

    "Well, uh," the caller said hesitantly, "I wouldn't give him any of the medicine he prescribed for me — it didn't help!"

 

      These are the conditions which prevail — the patients are now prescribing for the doctors.

 

    A UCLA professor was invited recently by the Board of Education to lecture on an institute program, for which he would receive $35.  He learned, however he would be required, as a paid participant on the program, to sign a loyalty oath.  He declined, on principle.  He had already signed such an oath.

 

    But he remains astonished by a statement in a letter he received from the board.  Not signing the oath, the letter stated, did  not preclude his "participation in the Institute as an unpaid service."  In other words, the Board of Education would accept potentially disloyal speakers provided they gave their services free — only paid participants must sign the loyalty oath.

 

 

 

 

    THE WAY Charley Wathey heard it in the Hall of Records, a clergyman was advised by his physician to take up golf to compensate for his heavy work schedule.  The clergyman was reluctant but after considerable urging he agreed to try.

 

    To his surprise he found he was a fine golfer.  Furthermore he kept improving, finally reaching the point that he knew he was likely to break par the next time out.  In his excitement he was seized with a compulsion to play the following Sunday.  To do this he called on a substitute to take over his congregation that day.

 

    On his fateful round he was even par as he came to the 18th tee.  As he prepared to drive, St. Peter and an angel appeared on the 18th green.

 

    "He must be punished," the angel said.  St. Peter nodded.  Just then the clergyman let go with a  beautiful drive.  The ball hit the green and dribbled into the cup for a hole in one and a score under par.

 

    "Now he'll never be punished," the angel moaned.

 

    "He is punished," St. Peter said.  "He'll never be able to talk about it."

 

 

    A PRO AND CON appraisal of Police Chief Parker by Al Stump in the Feb. Coronet has this paragraph:  "Parker sees Los Angeles as a sleeping pushover for a vast criminal army.  'The Mafia has moved here in a big way,' he says.  'Right now I need a 110% increase in personnel to meet the mob menace.  A Chicago of the '20s is developing in Los Angeles, yet my enemies — many in high place — block me.  I'm convinced that a widespread plot exists to destroy police authority in the name of 'liberalism' and break down the wall that protects society from the hoodlum.'"

 

    Ho hum.

 

 

    AT RANDOM — Oops, the tiny handsome wooden donkey and elephant emblems gotten out by Zoo-Line on N La Brea have imprinted on the matchbox size containers, "Made in Japan"  . . . A publicity man for  a TV personality — let's call him Jack — refers to himself as "Jack's other head."  Off the top of which, presumably, he does his thinking . . . Jack Kelly speared a virulent cliche in Sunday's "Maverick."  The sheriff, urging him to remain in town after he'd killed or captured the villains, said, "We could use some new blood around here." Jack retorted, "I'm not bleeding."