Power of a Pet

    An old man whose increasing bitterness in his last years antagonized his family and friends died recently.  Despite their feeling toward him and toward each other because of him, they all came to the funeral.  He belonged to an early L.A. family and was, after all, the last remaining link with a colorful past.

    There was tension in the chapel during the service and it carried over to the graveside ceremony.  Even the clergyman who conducted the service was conscious of it.

    And then, after the last "Amen" at the cemetery, as the mourners silently headed for the mortuary limousines and their cars, someone asked, "Who's going to get Clarabelle?"  Someone else exclaimed, "Yes, who is Clarabelle?"

    The tension snapped and suddenly members of the family, estranged for nearly 25 years, were chatting amiably and laughing and exchanging information about children and grandchildren.

    The clergyman and undertaker, seeing the dormant good will gushing around them, signaled the chauffeurs to move away from the cars so the family would have time to make the renewal complete.

    Clarabelle is the old man's profane parrot.

    A WOMAN made several purchases in an art supply store, then asked timidly if she was entitled to a professional discount.

    The salesman asked, "Do you paint?"  She replied, "I try."  He pursued, "Do you sell any of your work?"  She replied, "Yes, some."

    He made some notes on the sales slip and remarked, "I think you qualify, all right."  Then he added a final notation under Description of Applicant, "Modest artist."

COMSTOCK LOAD
The censor, in his quest for
    things impure,
Finds every limpid stream
    a running sewer,
And lets each low,
    descending sun
See from his hand some
    worthy "Tsk!" begun.
        –DON QUINN

    RUDY CLEYE, the sports car enthusiast who operates the Blarney Castle restaurant, is still talking about the unprecedented incident that happened when he was driving through New Mexico in the recent First American International Rally.

    Near Santa Fe he passed a cattle truck after trailing it for more than two miles.  A highway patrolman promptly stopped him and cited him for doing 72 mph and passing the truck illegally.
   
Rudy said it wasn't so, insisted he'd passed the truck legally.  He pointed out he was taking part in a rally, not a race, and that there were dozens of other participants behind him.  He explained the drivers were extra careful because a moving violation automatically eliminated them.

    When the officer, making derogatory remarks about sports car drivers, handed him the ticket
to sign Rudy refused and the procession headed for  a nearby court.

    After the officer said his piece the judge asked if the truck had been loaded with cattle.  It had.  How fast was it going?  Under 55.  How fast was the defendant going after passing the truck?  The legal limit, 60.  How had the officer been able to determine that Rudy had required 267 feet to pass the truck, as he had testified, when his vision was obscured?  The officer had no satisfactory answer and the judge, to every one's amazement, not only dismissed three charges against Rudy but cited the officer for possible perjury.

   QUOTE & UNQUOTE — A garage attendant in a Civic Center building is having such bad luck selecting winners in the weekly football pool that a friend kidded, "Is it true that  you picked the wrong winner of World War II?" . . . You can't fool Harry Kabakoff, newsboy at 7th and Broadway, who says, "The reason so many guys are loaded with money these days is that they started from scratch."

Eccentric? Us?

    Deserved or not, people in Los Angeles have acquired a reputation for eccentricity.  Today there's evidence that we normal, ordinary folk may be the victims of borers from without.
   
Into our placid, humdrum community about a week ago came Will Jones, Minneapolis Tribune columnist.  He visits L.A. several times a year to check on movies and television.

    While here he saw a great many people and went a lot of places — on a bicycle.  Yes, bicycle.  A man of firm beliefs despite his Wally Cox appearance, he contends it's the only way to travel — in Minneapolis or Los Angeles.
   
To prove his point he pedaled one day from MGM in Culver City to downtown L.A.  Another time he went from Hollywood to Santa Monica.  He covered Errol Flynn's funeral at Forest Lawn by bicycle.

   HE WAS ASKED to move from a certain Hollywood hotel because he insisted on keeping his bicycle in his room.  It is a large hotel and he argued, in vain, that it was practical to ride his bike to and from the pool and the dinning room.  He moved to a smaller place where his bicycle was socially acceptable.

    Then there was the time he had an engagement at a restaurant with Merrilyn Hammond of Capitol Records.  He arrived late.  To his dismay the parking lot attendants were reluctant to assume responsibility fro his bike. 

    While here, Jones must have created more consternation than 100 local conformists.  Obviously, these outlanders are partly responsible for giving the place a taint of screwballishness.

    THURSDAY, Oct. 29, the 30th anniversary of the black day in 1929 when Wall St. laid an egg, was not unnoticed by John Arrington, the sage of Bunker Hill, who observed.  "It couldn't have happened again because most of the buildings that people would have jumped out of have been torn down to make parking lots."

INVITATION
O come with me my pretty
    girl,
And be my protege;
We'll live and laugh and
    love and whirl
Upon our merry way-
And none will find a stone
    to hurl
If you're my protege.
    –JOHNNY LIGHTHEART

    DURING HIS lunch hour a few days ago Virgil Raymond, Water & Power employee, bought an alarm clock!  While he was away from his desk, fellow workers opened the package, set the alarm for 5:30 and re-wrapped it.

    Shortly before 5:30 Virgil boarded a No. 25 Griffith Ave. bus and became engrossed in his newspaper.  A man carrying a lunch box came and sat next to him.  As the bus reached City Hall the alarm went off.  Virgil, a sly one, lowered his paper and glared at the lunch box.  So did the other passengers and as the alarm continued ringing the poor guy tore into it.  Just then the clock stopped ringing.

    All this was duly reported by Virgil and the conspirators are pleased with their success.  But they feel it would have been a greater triumph if some terrified passenger had grabbed the lunchbox and heaved it out a window.

   TODAY'S BAFFLER has to do with two phone calls Jack Tobin made in quest of basketball information.  He talked to coach Howie Dallmar at Palo Alto for six minutes and the operator told him the charge was $4.25 plus tax.  He talked to coach Slats Gill at Corvallis, Ore., considerably farther, for six minutes and the charge was $2.70 plus tax.  Jack doesn't get it either.

    FOOTNOTES — Sponsors of the Glendale Kennel Club show tomorrow reminded entrants of Maurice Maeterlinck's line: "A few creatures fear us and endure our laws and our yoke but none of them loves us.  Only the dog has made an alliance with us" . . . The headline, "Kaiser Signs Pact," referring to the steel strike, had Janet Siskind wondering momentarily if we were back in 1941 . . . A teen-ager named Wendy hates windy days on account of the weak gags about her name.