Birds Get the World

    It was mentioned here recently that the cedar waxwings, which have come each January and in a furious assault denuded the pyracantha bushes of their red berries, seemed to have passed us by this year.

    This surprised George D. Bereth of Woodland Hills.  They moved in on his place a month ago.  He chided: "Apparently our berries are superior to what you raise in West L.A."  My theory was that the poor crested devils wouldn't venture over the hill because of fear of the bulldozers on Mulholland Dr.

    M.C., who lives on Ibanez Ave. in Woodland Hills, also got the visitation.  More than 70 of them, aided by approximately 40 robins, swept him and unberried him.

    Pat O'Connor, who lives in Bixby Knolls, Long Beach, reported they also did it to him.

     Well, it is obvious that the cedar waxwings read the column, because as I sit by the front window writing this, dozens of them have appeared and are gorging themselves.  A mockingbird which thinks he owns the place is trying to fight them off, but he isn't going to make it.   There are too many of them and their pyracantha passion is not to be denied.

    Okay, waxwings, but what took you so long?

    THE NEWS STORY about the pastor of a mission in Bell who was arrested for intoxication in a Maywood hospital where, he told police, he was searching for  a lost artificial eye, made the city room bulletin board — with this footnote by some callous, irresponsible reporter:  "Drunks?  On just one eye ball?"

        You Never Know
To awaken love, dear Cupid
Can resort to many tricks;
It usually is an arrow,
Sometimes a ton of bricks.
        RALPH FREEMAN

    ALL the WAY from Washington D.C., Ronald Ross, West Coast expatriate and Gilbert and Sullivan aficionado, reports that he has uncovered a tale about William Penn, after whom Pa. was named.

    At one time, so the story goes, Penn went into the bakery business, specifically pies.  His pies became so famous and his business so successful that he summoned his two aunts in the old country to join him.  They were delighted at the prospect and took the first boat to the new world.

    They slaved away diligently over their hot stoves and the business grew and grew.  But soon they became dissatisfied with their slice of the take and prevailed upon their nephew to raise the price of the pies again and again.  The increase was met first with chagrin, then with dismay,  and finally all the colonies were deploring the pie rates of Penn's aunts.

    LET US NOT get carried away, Rob Roy Gregg warns, with the notion that the whining, repetitious music that has assailed radio listeners for so long is gradually passing.  We are merely in  a phase.  The new trend is for the fast buck boys who guide our musical destiny to take  a song that has been revered through the years, change three notes and let some young cooer despoil it.  Examples:  "The Whiffenpoof Song," ""Clementine," "Where or When," "Paradise," and "Harlem Nocturne."  Solution:  The stations which don't go for the stuff, or FM.

     THE ARTS — Everyone knows about mal de mer and air sickness.  Comes now elephant-ride uneasiness, in the new Cinerama productions, "Search for Paradise."  Old Dumbo really rolls . . . In his book, "My Adventures as an Illustrator," running serially in the post, Norman Rockwell states, "I paint life as I would like it to be."  Critics disapprove but his style, revealed in 306 Post covers, is probably the best known of any in America . . . There's turmoil in Bellagio school in elegant Bel-Air.  A noted actor who agreed to appear with other stars in a musical revue, "Alive and Kicking With the PTA," written by pros, has canceled.

    FOOTNOTES —  Leona M. Weary has opened an income tax office in Alhambra.  By April 15 she'll really be tired . . . A lady down with the flu and complications says, "For the first time in my life I know what they mean by 'sinus of spring.' "