Righting of the Left

Not long ago a New York bank announced it had made left-handed checks available to southpaw patrons.

Now Mattell, Inc., the firm on W. 102nd Street which makes toy guns, has come out with a left-handed holster.

Clearly, what we have here is a trend. The way things are going, left-handers, who constitute about 10% of the nation's population, will no longer find themselves frustrated outcasts in a right-handed world.

At least lefties stalking along Dry Gulch Blvd. for the shootdown will have an even break on the draw with right-handed skulkers.

Oh, I tell you, significance is everywhere.

THE DOORBELL rang at a nice home in Brentwood and the lady at the door announced, "I'm the assessor."

A pained expression came over the housewife's face and she exclaimed, "Oh dear, we haven't even paid the taxes we've got!"

You listening, supervisors? Maybe it's a quiet revolt, but it's a revolt.

FOR HIS first book report, Steven Kruschen, 7, an A-2 at 3rd Street school, chose the child's version of "Noah's Ark" by Tony Palazzo.

One question on the printed sheet asked, "Who was your favorite character?" Steve wrote, "God."

Next question, "Why?" "Because," Steve wrote, he thought the whole thing up."

BACK TO NORMALCY

'Twas the morn after Easter
And all through the news
The headliners were shouting
"Us guys can lick youse."
–RWA

MENTION HERE of literary coincidences — use of similar names or situations by fiction writers unknown to each other — recalled an experience Harold Bell Wright once told Al Ball of Manhattan Beach.

Shortly after Wright's book "When a Man's a Man" was published, a stranger called on him, identified himself as a college professor, and said he had written a play three years before titled "When a Man's a Man." Furthermore, his principal character was Rags — Wright's was Patches. In addition, he said there were 80 identical situation in the two stories.

Wright could only express amazement.

"How did you do it, Wright?" the stranger went on. "My manuscript has been locked in a safe for three years. No one ever read it but me. It isn't possible."

He wasn't angry, only baffled. So was Wright.

A LADY NAMED Louise was discussing instant coffee with a friend who had never used it and suggested she try Decaf. "Where do I get Decaf?" the woman asked. "Fromde cow and de bull," responded Louise, a lady of impulse, subject to such whims. Besides, it was a hot day.

THE SOCIETY for Reducing Everything to a Pat, Provocative Phrase will come to order. This remark was heard in the city room: "Can't you see Susan Hayward playing the part of Mrs. Duncan?"

TEN YEARS AGO Pepper Blethen, 9, unaccountably stumbled and fell while running with playmates in Gardena. When it happened again a doctor diagnosed his ailment as progressive muscular dystrophy. He was given only a short time to live.

But life was pleasant to Pepper, even when he was forced to take to a wheelchair and then bed. He was helpless for years and slowly wasted away. But he remained cheerful, buoyed up by his devoted family and well-wishers.

On Tuesday at the age of 19, he died, long beyond the time doctors gave him to live. A funeral Mass was held today at St Antony's Church and his mother thanks all those who have sent him messages of good cheer.

Petty Crime Solved

Having a little time to kill before a critics' preview of "The Naked Maja" the other night, United Artists publicist Roy Smith looked in a pet shop at 10650 W. Pico Blvd. A light was on so he tried the door. It opened and he went in.

No
one was in sight so he called out, "Anybody here?" A faint answering
"Hello" came from the cavernous rear of the shop. "Don't bother, just
browsing," he said, inspecting the rows of cages and fish tanks.

Ten
minutes later, as he headed out, he noticed the cash register was open,
with money showing. Then he heard the same muffled voice in the rear
calling, "Help, help!"

Envisioning a holdup and maybe a little
mayhem, Roy summoned police and a nearby druggist phoned the pet shop
owner. The mystery was quickly solved, amid laughter. The front door
had accidentally been left unlocked. The owner said he had left the
register open. As for the voice, it was probably some lonesome parrot.

NO, NOTHING is sacred any more. Melvyn Douglas, here rehearsing for an upcoming "Playhouse 90" drama, was walking along the beach at Laguna last Sunday with Jackson Leightner
when they came upon a beautifully executed sand sculpture of Christ.
Alongside someone, presumably the artist, had lettered, "Happy Easter,Cha Cha Cha."

HAPPY ENDING

–GUY MULLEN

ONE DAY, while trying to explain adjectives to an 11th-grade
English class at Arroyo High School in El Monte, Marcia Lander asked a
boy named Darryl, "What part of speech is the word 'selfish?' "

"A noun," he replied.

"A noun?" she echoed. "Can you buy a selfish, see a selfish?"

"Why, sure. You know, when you go ocean fishing you sometimes catch selfish."

Miss Lander saw the light but still doesn't know whether he meant shellfish or sailfish.

ONLY IN
North Hollywood — Rosetta Case Bent needed a cowboy hat for a PTA show
and went into a store that supplies them to the studios. They were
costlier than she expected, so she asked about a used one. These, she
learned, were more expensive than the new ones. Logically, no cowpoke
could be expected to bring the villains to justice wearing a new
Stetson.

ONLY IN GLENDALE — Glancing
out the window of her home on Allen Avenue, Lena Cook saw a police car
slowly weaving from one side of the street to the other. A closer look
disclosed the driver was herding a steer back to the railroad car from
which it had escaped.

CALL ME antisocial and inconsiderate. Say I'm picayunish
and unappreciative. I can only state that I have declined an offer to
judge a pizza eating contest, for which I am awarding myself a
mozzarella cluster on my Good Conduct medal.

AT RANDOM — Every day on the L.A. to Playa
Del Rey bus a man and woman play cribbage. The other passengers hold
her seat until the bus gets to the block where she gets aboard … The
Better Mottoes Association selection for the month is "Are you a man or
a mouse? Come on, squeak up!" … Under the heading "Above and Beyond"
the California Highway Patrol annual report reports, "In attempting to
unsnarl an Echo Summit traffic tie-up during a snowstorm, aCHP officer
discovered the cause for the delay was an elephant pushing a disabled
circus truck up the grade" … J. Stuyvesant Fish is still quivering
from a grammatical gem he heard during a radio interview. A participant
agreed to a point by saying, "That is very so."

End of the Trail

It
may take a generation or two — and in the broad scheme of things what
are a few years — but writer Bob Schiller is confident of the
inevitable demise of the TV western. The thought came to him when he
took his children to a dentist. The doctors, technicians and
receptionists were all dressed in cowboy outfits. The kids sat on
saddles.

The masquerade, of course, is designed to distract them
and dispel any silly notion that what the dentist is about to do to
them will hurt.

Maybe it does. On the other hand, maybe it
doesn't. And if it doesn't, let's look ahead. Can you imagine kids
wanting any truck with cowpokes who come at them with pincers and
drills?

A LADY WHO
received an electric toaster for Easter has no use for it so she took
it back to the store to exchange it for an electric frying pan, which
she has wanted for a long time.

As she stood at the exchange
counter she got the feeling the man there was not having one of his
good days. And when he asked, "May I have your plate, please?" she had
an impulse. As she fished in her purse for her charge plate she asked,
"Upper or lower?"

Broke the ice.

EASTER MOURNING

— CLIFF MACKAY

AS SHE awakened her second-grader at 6:30 a.m. for school, Mrs. Charles Perrill of Whittier announced "Time to get up! All the birds are up already!"

Little
girl blue wondered why they got up so early. Her mother said, "Well you
know, the early bird gets the worm!" Came the query, "What time do the
worms get up?"

Which should make non-parents understand why parents sometimes wear a defeated look.

ST. PATRICK'S DAY is long gone but a gal named Helen still cherishes it. She drove her old black Chevrolet into a place advertising a free carwash for green cars that day. Noticing the new cars all around as she waited, she remarked, "My car is green with envy."

The attendant looked at it and said, "It sure is. One free carwash!"

QUOTE & UNQUOTE — John
J. Anthony, the TV problem solver, heard a woman waiting to be
interviewed remark to her companion, "You don't have to have a brain to
be stupid!" He's still reeling … Sudden realization: Some of the new
cars recall the classic line in the old song "Mr. Five By Five" that
goes, "There's no way of knowin' if it's comin' or goin.' "

LITERARY NOTES — Just finished reading Tennessee Williams' new play, "Sweet Bird of Youth." Again, for assorted deep South viciousness, ol'
Tenn leaves nothing to the imagination … The Saturday Evening Post's
circulation is now more than 6,000,000, up from 4,702,000 in 1955. Its
editorial comment: "More and more thoughtful people are turning to
reading for the answers they want" … Press release from Mad magazine
states it is "from the padded cells of."

AT RANDOM — So you think some people go overboard naming dogs? Steve Bilheimer
of the Glendale Kennel Club, which will hold its spring all-breed show
Sunday, recalls that when Charles Dickens, on a tour of the United
States, was presented with a white terrier named Timber Doodle he
changed it to Snittle Timbery
… Figuring the average motorist drives 12,000 miles a year and gets
15 miles to the gallon, the Auto Club estimates the amount of fuel it
takes to fill a DC-8 jet would last a car owner 29.1 years. Fifteen
miles to the gallon? What dreamers! … On the freeways 5 p.m. is the
rush hour. Stan Wood suggests bars which lower the price of drinks at
that time should call it the lush hour.