TV Cliches Shocking

About
a year ago a registered nurse inquired here what the frontier doctors
on TV wanted with all the hot water they were forever demanding when
about to deliver a baby. Her inquiry raised quite a storm. The gist of
most of it was that the doctors' peremptory command, "Boil all the
water you can!" was merely a diversion to get the men folks out of the
room.

She refused to accept this corny explanation and resolved never to bring up any more TV medical cliches.

SHE HAS BROKEN her
resolve. She finds herself curdling every time she hears a TV doctor
say, "She (or he) is in shock." Usually the patient has had an
unpleasant experience.

But witnessing something shocking,
screams I.R.N. (Irate Registered Nurse) is not being in shock. Shock is
brought on by severe pain, loss of blood or other body fluids. It is a
dangerous state and death will result if immediate anti-shock treatment
is not started.

And if the teleplay boys don't cut it out I.R.N. will go into shock.

WHILE IN Birmingham recently to appear at a benefit for retarded children, Pat Buttram of CBS visited his father, Rev. W.M. Buttram, 85, of Anniston, Ala. When he showed his dad pictures of his new Northridge home with swimming pool, the old gentleman commented, "Well!" Pat's got a washin' hole in his back yard."

CONVERSATIONS

–MARTIN HATFIELD

STU GALBRAITH has built up quite a guilt complex over what happened last Sunday in San Fernando Valley and wishes expiation here.

He was driving on Canoga
Park Avenue toward the hills when he caught up with half a dozen
slow-moving cars and trailers. As he passed, he gaily sounded his horn
— "shave and a haircut — two bits." After all, it was a nice day and
he was on his way to a party.

To his surprise, they fell in behind him and when he turned off onto a narrow road snaking off into the hills the trailercade followed him — around hairpin turns and barely squeezing by parked cars.

Stu
didn't know what to do and as he rounded a turn and came to his
destination he gunned up the driveway and sat still as the trailer
group streamed by.

He slunk into the house and after a while
peeked out the window. The trailers were apparently wandering aimlessly
up another hill. He hopes they got where they were going.

LOOK FOR controversy over Dr. Franklin Loehr's
book, "The Power of Prayer on Plants," to be published this month. It
presents evidence that prayer can be scientifically proved. Two trays
of seeds were planted under precise laboratory conditions. One was
ignored, the other received the attention of Dr. Loehr's prayer group. Analysis of 900 experiments showed that plants which had the benefit of prayer were superior. 

FOOTNOTES — Not
all the streets and sidewalk hieroglyphics are put there to indicate
projected sewer, storm drain, utility or street work. Some are for the
guidance of bill peddlers and house-to-house distributors of samples —
so they won't cover the same ground twice … A four-page press release
headed "The Recession in the Congo" states there is uneasiness about
the economy there. To put it another way, the natives are restless …
Shame on somebody, attributing to Frank E. Marlowe the gag about people
who jaywalk repeatedly having their shoes taken away. It's in Mort Sahl's record, "Look Forward in Anger" … Mac Tuesley, taking a quick course in photography from Otto Rothchild, says he keeps forgetting to pull the slide. "I can't teach you anything about that," Otto said sadly.

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."