October 16, 1957

On a recent clear evening about an hour after sunset, Chet Kennedy of Sun Valley looked up and apparently saw not only Saturn but some of its rings.

The planet was a bead “blazing with bright glory in the southwest sky,” he said. Nearby was a smaller bead, possibly one of Saturn’s 11 moons. The rings on the left side, he said, seemed to be in shadow. There also was a dark streak across the center of the planet.

Unwilling to accept the verdict of his own eyes, he pointed out the unusual sight to neighbors and they said they saw the same thing.

“Here’s this wonderful object spinning away at its business,” said Chet, “and here we are worrying ourselves sick about Sputnik.”

As everybody knows, Saturn is one of the prettiest things in the sky to see and I decided to let the fellows at Griffith Observatory in on it.

You know what they said? They said it’s impossible to see Saturn with the naked eye.

The question is, what did Chet Kennedy and his neighbors see.

Take it away, spacemen.

NO ONE DIES harder than a high school yell leader and a tale sifts through from one of last Friday’s football battlegrounds to prove it.

A dedicated yell king had just finished exhorting his followers to keep up their spirits although their team was trailing something like 33-0 when an opposing halfback ran 70 yards for another touchdown.

“OK,” he consoled, “they’re bound to get tired any time now.”

NOTE OF IRONY–In 1911, George Hjelte recalled the other day, Los Angeles had a 14-animal zoo on Valley Boulevard. But it was getting so much competition from the nearby Selig Zoo it was decided to move it. First choice was Chavez  Ravine, but the people there didn’t want any smelly old animals around and it was moved to Griffith Park.

ON HER RETURN the other day from a trip out of state, a San Diego woman phoned her son who lives in Rolling Hills. A recorded voice told her the number had been disconnected.

She became extremely worried. Her son has a good job, but inflation being what it is, he has a struggle to keep ahead of the cost of living. Obviously he hadn’t been able to pay his
bill and the phone had been shut off. So she sent him some money, instructing him to make up the deficit.

The son is deeply embarrassed. His phone had not been shut off. The phone company had
merely changed the numbers in the area and turned loose the recorded voice on callers without further explanation.

BY THE WAY, this beep beep about the Russian satellite is not fooling a North Hollywoodwoodian named Tom for one minute. Any day now, he figures, he’ll read about a new Walt Disney production, “The True Life Adventure of Sputnik” and a subsequent exhibit of littleSput himself at Anaheim.

AROUND TOWN–A rumpled gent accosted Johnny Dvorak on Main Street and said, “Could you let me have a dime to telephone my garage? My car broke down.”  Johnny, who can spot a borracho a block away, considers this the ultimate in high-level mooching… “Dodger Pot Roast” was on the menu at the City Hall eighth-floor cafeteria yesterday. Inevitably a cynical municipal employee wondered what was in it and a second one said it was probably a bum steer… Anyone else still awakening in the morning on Daylight Saving Time, thereby losing an hour’s shuteye? You cannot fool your subconscious. I always say… Overheard somewhere: “There’s nothing wrong with him that reincarnation wouldn’t help!”… The ivy which as covered a cottage on Cypress Avenue near Verdugo Road is now growing up the TV antenna. If it keeps going maybe it can grab hold of those rings of Saturn or something.