Boys Are Finding People Aren't So Bad

A recent wire story from Liberty, N.Y., related that business was bad for the brothers Katz-Steven, 10, Arthur, 8, and Robert, 6 — founders of the Sav-A-Fine Co., a non-profit organization. 

    When the boys find an expired parking meter they put in a nickel and leave  a card on the auto windshield pointing out they have probably saved the owner $1 fine and inviting him to return the nickel by mail. 

    The story stated that the brothers had invested between $2.50 and $3 in good samaritanism and their return had been only 50 cents.

    Author Robert Nathan was touched by the story and wrote them a letter hoping the deficit wouldn't cause them to lose faith in their fellow men.  He also sent a check for $1.     

 

    He has just received a reply from Steven Katz thanking him for his encouraging letter and the contribution and  expressing surprise that news of their venture had reached Los Angeles.  "For your information," Steve wrote jubilantly, "we are now 17 cents ahead."

    A YOUNG MAN and a girl of different religious faiths told their parents recently that they planned to be married.  There is no conflict and the parents on both sides approve and wish them well.  But the mother of the boy felt the occasion deserved more dignity and solemnity than they would experience if they drove to a distant town and were married by an unknown justice of the peace.

    On an impulse they phoned a judge she knew only by name, explained the situation and her feelings and asked if he would perform the ceremony.  He said he would be happy to do it and graciously offered to come to the house, where everyone would be more at home.

    And so the mother of the bridegroom asks a typographical posy for Judge Fletcher Bowron, whom she will meet for the first time tomorrow at the ceremony.

    CONSIDER the DILEMMA of Mrs. Fred Holden of La Crescenta.  A pair of finches are nesting in a bush beside her back door.  They fly away every time the door is opened so she stopped using it.  She uses the front door.  But now a hummingbird has built a nest in a tree beside the front door.  "Should I put  a ladder up to a window and get out that way?"  she asks . . . And when Louise Mason of Gardena arrived home from work Wednesday she was greeted by about 100 birds of several varieties in her living room.  They had found refuge there from the storm, coming in from the wide chimney . . . As I always say, spring is for the birds.

                ANYBODY ELSE

    IT'S FORTUNATE, Jeff Davis thinks, that his majesty, Mahendra Bir Bikram Shah Deva, king of Nepal, and the queen, Ratna Rajya Lakshmi Shah, due in town soon, aren't bringing along the prime minister.  His name is Ojaswi Rajanya Projjwala Nepal Tara Atul Jotirmaya Trishakti Patta Ati Pravala Gorkha Dakshine Bahu Prithuladheesha — there are three more lines of it but let's no bother.

    ONLY IN L.A. — A man in a hurry was driving 45 m.p.h. on Melrose Ave. near La Brea.  He glanced in his mirror to see if he'd attracted the law but all he saw was a bus coming up fast on the outside.  It was loaded with nursery school youngsters and passed him at around 55, causing him to lose some of his guilt.

    FOOTNOTES — A Hawthorne lady who put in a bid for a pair of the county Arboretum's excess peacocks says her husband, Tom, plans to name them Sir Plus and Dementia Peacox . . . Duke Ellington Week started yesterday, the Duke's birthday, sponsored by Ellington jazz society chapters in 16 cities, spearheaded by Bill Ross of the Hollywood chapter.  If you want to know why they love the Duke get your favorite disc jockey to play his versions of "Chelsea Bridge" or "Warm Valley" . . . L.A. magazine, published in Claremont, announces a new policy — no more advertising.