Forgotten Heroes

In the
tense days of WWII and the patriotic binge that came with peace in
1945, councilmen solemnly pledged to honor the city’s war dead with a
memorial of some sort.

It was tentatively agreed that a living
memorial was preferable to statuary. One suggestion was for a center in
Chavez Ravine featuring a motion picture unit shooting actual films.
There was also talk of naming parks for war heroes.

A few
fumbling surveys were made but these ideas never got beyond the
discussion stage. Meanwhile, a framed sign stating "This space is
reserved for a fitting memorial to the war dead of WWII" was placed in
the entrance forecourt of City Hall.

But times and councilmen
change and memories fade. This week the sign was quietly removed. No
one knows why and apparently only a few veterans care. They think it’s
a rotten shame.

::

A MAN puffing with exertion and carrying a suitcase and overcoat arrived late for the annual school play in a San Marino elementary school recently and apologetically plowed his way to his seat.

At
intermission he said to his neighbors, "Please excuse me. I paid $15
cab fare from the airport to get here in time to see my boy. He’s in
the next act."

The little boy appeared briefly as scheduled, spoke one line and retired.

Greater love hath no parent.

::

WITHOUT a gimmick you’re nowhere in today’s movie market. And so Malvin Wald  and Henry F. Greenberg , who wrote the script for the film "Al Capone ," and David Raksin , who wrote the score, got together and dreamed up a theme song.

The
lyrics are choice. The first one: "This is the tale of Al Capone, the
biggest gangster ever known. He came to Chicago in 1920 with only a gun
— but that was plenty."

Stanza 4: "That was the heyday of Al
Capone, protection racket was all his own. Pay through the nose to save
your store, yell for the law and you yell no more."

The way things are going in the violence department it’s likely to be authentic folk music in about 10 years.

ONLY IN L.A. — During the evening rush hour on the San Bernardino
Freeway, John E. Edwards reports a motorcycle policeman in the narrow
divider was precariously holding a full-grown sheep by the neck.
Outcome unknown.

ANOTHER Space Age problem has presented itself.

Dave Siegel, preparing to film Nelson Glueck’s book, "Rivers in the Desert ," about the ancient Negev civilization, isn’t sure what to do about astrology.

In
ancient times people believed the stars guided their destinies. Many
still do and arrange their lives according to carefully calculated
horoscopes.

But now we’ve got satellites orbiting all over the
place and we’ll have more as time goes on. Will these artificial
whatchamacallits have the same astrological implications as the old
standbys? And what about horoscopes? What can be said of a person born
under the sign of Vanguard II? Tune in about the year 2000 and maybe
we’ll know.

A PIXIE at
NBC tells unmarried gals he knows of a handsome young lawyer they might
like to meet. When they show interest he says, "Fine, I’ll have his
mother call you. His name is Frank Duncan."

FOOTNOTES
— Instead of "Sincerely" or "Yours truly," Kay Kennedy of the Alaska
Visitors Assn. signs off her letters, "Gaily" … All in all, reaction
on the new mugshot is favorable. As one reader put it, "You no longer
look as if you’d just been stabbed in the back, smelled burning
feathers or were confronted with a black widow spider."

Incidentally
the untimely heat has brought out the b.w. spiders. Killed three of
them on a brick pile … Jack Webb, Badge 678, and his partner, Robert
Bailey, are deputy sheriffs at Norwalk station. Never dragged a net in
their lives … Recommended listening: Count Basie’s band playing "In
the Night" at the Crescendo.

[Note: The Daily Mirror has been using Weinstock’s preferred mug shot all along. The only thing we did is not flip it the way they did in 1959!–lrh]

The Pinch Quota

An encouraging word came out of Sacramento the other day.

Bradford
M. Crittenden, taking office as California Highway Patrol Commissioner,
told newsmen CHP officers will not have to make a minimum of arrests
each day. "Bad pinches," he said bluntly, "are bad law enforcement."

The
news story continued: "Charges have been made in the Legislature and
elsewhere that patrolmen are graded by the number of citations they
issue and that promotions are given to officers with high arrest
records."

Let us localize the picture and see what we get. We come immediately to that horrid word "quota."

ASK THE LAPD high command if there is a ticket quota and you get a horrified denial. Technically this is correct.

But
let us take the hypothetical case of an ambitious policemen who writes
a ticket for every violation he sees and perhaps one now and then that
he only half sees. As any motorist knows, this is like shooting fish in
a barrel. If a traffic officer goes by the book we’re all guilty of
some infraction every time we get behind the wheel.

Now let us
say the captain of the station to which this eager beaver is attached
is under pressure from downtown to step up enforcement because of
several bad accidents in his area. What is to prevent him from calling
in the other patrolmen and asking how come they wrote only three
tickets the day before when the fireball wrote 12? Having no
alternative, they pull a few suckers to the side and issue valentines.

AN INCREASING number
of motorists feel that justice would better be served by friendly
warnings instead of tickets for minor offenses. On serious offense, of
course — no mercy.

This would be possible if traffic officers
were given full discretion to handle each case as they see fit instead
of conforming to the philosophy that punishment is the only solution to
the traffic dilemma.

A LISTENER phoned KMPC yesterday and asked to speak to Dick Whittinghill. He had a suggestion, he said.

When
Dick came on the line the man went into a detailed explanation of his
idea but Dick cut in with, "I’m sorry, I can’t help you."

"Why?" the man asked.

"Because I’m not here today — my show’s on tape."

"Oh, I’m sorry, I’ll call back tomorrow."

THE FOLKS are fighting TV commercials again.

Christine
Walters is worried about the gal with the sniffles who gets out of bed
maybe a dozen times a day to take a cold remedy. The cold has hung on
so long that Christine thinks the gal should discard the thin nightgown
for flannel pajamas.

Ed Harding offers free to the Viceroy
people another variation on their series. The scene is an operating
room. In response to the key question the man with the scalpel tears
off his mask and rubber gloves and says, "I’m not a surgeon — I’m a
CPA."

EN AGUA CALIENTE
The trouble with betting and winning a peso-
I fear I’ll be getting carried a weso.
— CLIFF MACKAY

AT RANDOM —
No one seems to know why but racing drivers are superstitious about the
color green. An automotive engineer entered in the Mobil-gas Economy
Run to Kansas City received four new cars for the test but refused to
accept two. Yep, bright green . . . Saddest man in Los Angeles this
week is a trusting fellow who bought two Irish Sweepstakes tickets and
learned the other day the seller hadn’t turned in the money or the
coupons on account he has been in jail for drunkenness. He’ll always
think of what might have been . . . Overheard by Paul Fierro in a
Sunset Boulevard actors’ hangout: "If he ever got the right break he’d
be bigger than Lassie."
 

Diamond Discount?

A businessman who last year brought four season tickets for the
Dodger games decided not to repeat and has ignored several reminder
letters.

The other day he received a phone call from the
Dodger ticket office. Was he going to renew? No. Why? Because of the
price. "What about a discount? he asked bluntly.

The ticket tycoon was horrified. In all his years in baseball, he said, he’d never heard of such a thing.

"Well,
think about it," was the response. "In my business if a man gave me an
order for $1,500 in March, paid in advance, and didn’t get delivery of
all the goods until August or September I’d certainly give him a
discount!"

LIFE CAN BE real weird. A man I know drove
his wife and another couple home from Las Vegas and briefly went over
100 m.p.h. The remarkable thing, it occurred to him, was that no one in
the gay group was particularly concerned.

The next day he was
halted by a gendarme on Riverside Drive and given a valentine for going
too slowly — holding up traffic, the officer said.

THE PLUMBING
in Hank Howe’s bathroom became stopped up and after an hour’s cussing
and sweating over a "plumber’s friend" and coiled "snake" he removed
the cause — a Popsicle stick.

He shouted for his son Danny, 3, and demanded angrily, "Do you know anything about this?"

"Not me, Pop," Danny replied innocently. "I haven’t been in here for about two months."

SISSY STUFF
Chemical warfare is no threat
To those in our community
With all the smog we’ve had for years
We’ve built up an immunity
— JEFFREY RIMMER

THE MAD JARGON of the electronics robots apparently is endless.

A
man testing a new computer was asked to make up his own specifications
and feed them to the machine. He hastily compiled some data for a
modernistic ash tray and, reports Missiles and Rockets magazine,
inserted it. The computer digested his information in seconds and
responded with the terse teletype reply, "Geometrically impossibl."

Disconcerted, the man retorted, "At least I can spell ‘impossible.’ "

A LEAFLET
announcing a meeting at an East Side school at which a controversial
bill in the Legislature would be discussed had the entrancing malaprop,
"Learn about the factors involved in this political bug-of-war."

Bugaboo, bugbear, tug of war — what’s the difference?

DO DOGS DIG television?
Yes, says Lorraine D’Essen of New York, who trains them and other
animals for stage and TV. She’s here with her greyhound Steverino, once
Steve Allen’s mascot, which appeared on the Jack Benny show last night.

She always lets her other 9 or 10 dogs watch when one of them
is on TV and swears that when the thespian of the moment returns home,
he or she says, in dog language, "Well, did you see me?" And the
others, always ganged up at the door, wag their tails and say, "You
were great, kid."

MISCELLANY — On
reaching the corner, the motorman of a P car on which Johnny O’Toole
was riding called out, "First and Los Angeles! Parker’s Hilton!"
Another one, I’m told, sings out "Pitchess’ Prison one block north!" as
his car arrives at 1st and Broadway . . . Recommended listening:
Pianist Freddie Gambrell playing "Stompin’ at the Savoy" on his new
album . . . Flash! A group of Hollywood beatniks have discovered a
restaurant where the coffee is 8 cents a mug and tastes better . . .
Ben Irwin muses, "No matter what you think about the Duncan case one
thing is certain — the butler didn’t do it."