Hard and Fast

    The file, and it's a thick one, seems to be complete now on the tale of the premix cement truck driver's revenge on his wife's boyfriend, so let's give it another run through.  The way it's told, the trucker made an unscheduled stop at his house and, as he suspected, a gaudy Cadillac convertible was parked outside.  He pulled alongside, dumped his load of wet cement mix inside it and drove off.

    The final line is that the boyfriend disappeared and didn't prosecute.

    Originally the story was supposed to have happened in San Fernando Valley.  Then Fontana, Ontario, San Francisco and San Diego.

    The San Diego locale can be attributed to the story's appearance in the Feb. 24 edition of the Southern California Teamster, stating it happened there, but giving no names.  Several persons sent in the clipping with the note, "Here's proof that it happened."

    George W. Clark of L.A. sends along a clipping from the Charleston (W.Va.) Gazette with the story, again without names.  It was sent him by a friend who stated the car owner was supposed to be a night shift worker at a chemical plant there.

    Hamilene Shaler of Redondo Beach sends along a clipping from her hometown paper, the Sharon (Pa.) Herald, for Feb. 17, with a photo showing a policeman inspecting a car.  The caption:  "What Won't They Do Next?  Police Chief John Whitmore looks over auto filled to near window level with cement.  The 1953 model car was found abandoned near the Hickory police station.  Police gave no explanation."

    C. Smith of Gardena heard the story in the Bay area several weeks ago and the trucker was said to be from San Carlos.  He thinks it's apocryphal.  So do I.

    Best comment comes from Ruben Noren of Arcadia:  "Regardless where the cement truck story originated, it must be true.  There was concrete evidence to prove it."

    MAYBE IT'S the attention currently focused on extrasensory perception.  Or, perhaps the outer space kids are weary of our prodding and are sending back assorted spookery.  Anyway, a Hollywoodian who gave up drinking for Lent, as he does every year, woke up the other day with the classic symptoms of  a hangover, a beaut.  Not only that, his wife related a  nightmarish dream she's had in which he'd got falling-down drunk.  He doesn't know if he'll ever take another drink.

    AS ANYONE could have predicted, reference here to a young man promoted to a "semi-executive" position with a large organization aroused a copy desk purist who left this note on my typewriter:

    "It conjures up a mythical person who moves in the best semicircles, owes his rise to office politics, in which he carved out a  hemisphere of influence, clamped a half-Nelson on the boss and so got promoted to his own semi-private cubicle with demijohn.  Splits hair, takes half measures, goes off half-cocked.  Often doesn't come in until noon or takes the afternoon off and goes to his split-level home, where he frequently finds his wife is out.  She's two-timing him.  Fox starts filming his story next week with the shooting title, 'What Makes Semi Run?'"

WHAT'S the HURRY?
A freeway speedily connects
    one
From this world to the next
    one.
        PEARL ROWE

    AT RANDOM — Francis H. Sullivan finds it difficult to imagine a royal princess named Maggie Jones, but that's what Britain will have when Princess Margaret marries Antony Armstrong-Jones . . . Bill Balance of KFWB played Paul Anka's record "Puppy Love," in which he breaks down and bleats pitifully, "Help me! Help me! Help me!"  Afterward Bill comforted, "Hang on a little longer, Paul, help is on the way" . . . Alfred Hitchcock is the only one who could get away with his remark Sunday that he was "underwhelmed" by his sponsor's message.