Feb. 22, 1958

There has been quite a literary lament lately to the effect that youngsters today don’t have as much fun as kids used to.

Of course, the lament comes from those who have reached the dangerous age of reminiscence.

The fellows on the copy desk were discussing the subject, and Mike Molony recalled one of the pleasures of his boyhood.

On
occasion, especially on bright spring days, he and a few friends at
Colton High School would suddenly get the feeling that they had
absorbed about all the education they could handle and would take off
for the hills in his topless Model T Ford phaeton.

THEIR FAVORITE ITINERARY was chugging up Cajon Pass, turning off into Horsethief Canyon and steaming up the grade until the flat desert wasteland unfolded limitlessly before them.

There was no real road, only two deep ruts in firmly baked sand and clay, made by wagons of a prior era.

The
boys would set the gas lever at 20 mph, sprawl luxuriously in the back
seat, inhale the fresh desert air and let the Model T run itself.

Now
and then the old bus would jump out of the ruts and head crazily off at
an angle. The boys would leap for the wheel and get it back in the
ruts. These detours merely added a sporting touch to the gay
irresponsibility of the ride.

The ultimate ecstasy was bringing
to this sybaritic orgy a cheap pumpkin pie and devouring it as the car
careened driverless across the lonely desert.

Match that, Elvis.

SPEAKING OF education,
this unfinished composition, written on notebook paper in what looks
like junior high school penmanship, was found on the street by Eunice
M.: "What I like best. I like spelling best. Other people like spelling
because some times people do not."

Los Angeles Examiner Negatives Collection in the the Regional History Collection
of USC Libraries

The wedding of Mickey Hargitay and Jayne Mansfield, Jan. 13, 1958, from "Mobsters, Molls, and Mayhem: A Year in the Life of Los Angeles" at the Doheny Library.

SNAKE, the caddie at Bel-Air Country Club, has reported in with a tale which might be titled, "The Cooling Off of a Hot-Shot."

It has to do with a familiar type–the blowhard from out of state who finds fault with everything.

He
hit a terrific tee shot on the fourth hole, turned to his caddie, who
he’d been giving a bad time, and asked, "What do they generally use
here to get to the green."

"Well," said the caddie, "Sam Snead used the five iron here."

The
fellow grabbed a five iron out of the bag and hit the ball with full
power. It went hard and true but landed about 40 yards short of the
green. He threw a disgusted look at the caddie and snarled, "I didn’t
even get close."

"Neither did Sam Snead," said the caddie innocently.

A YOUNG MAN recently
mustered out of the Navy after two years and uanble to find a job has
returned to college to learn a trade. As he puts it, "So when I
graduate I’ll know what kind of work I’m out of."

AROUND TOWN–Several
high school boys made a killing during Wednesday’s flood in Centinela
Valley. The water was a foot deep on one side of a railroad track hump
at 147th and Grevillea,
five feet deep on the other. When cars stalled they offered a push with
their jalopy for $5. But one dirty guy got his push and drove off
without paying.

The elephant lifter on "People Are Funny" was
Jack Walsh, not Mark Evans, as reported here. Jack, 5-9 and 185 pounds,
holds the world’s lift record–4,235 pounds.

The conflict
between science and religion–subject of many Sunday sermons–has been
quietly resolved on this paper. Versatile Omar Garrison is both science
and religion editor.

Celebration of the 50th founding of the
film industry last Dec. 12 was in error, insists Sam Stark of Laguna.
In his upcoming "Theater: A to Z" encyclopedia, Stark says "The Count of Monte Cristo" was made in 1907 in Ocean Park and the first picture made in L.A. was the Selig Co.’s "The Sultan’s Power," starring Hobart Bosworth in 1909.

Feb. 20, 1958

The case of Tom Garrett,
21, who was denied his $40 weekly unemployment compensation because he
was detained for 24 hours at gunpoint by two criminals and therefore
was not "available for work," rang a bell for others who are jobless.

Of course, Goodie [Note: Gov. Goodwin Knight–lrh] rushed in with a
personal check, thereby earning more votes than he could have done in a
dozen speeches, and goodie for him.

It was another instance of bureaucratic regulation being enforced to the point of silliness.

AN INGLEWOOD woman offers one more folder for the file. She was denied her check because, she was told, she hadn’t made enough contacts.

"I am an aircraft assembler with many years’ experience," she said
yesterday, "and when there were jobs I always had one. I think things
will roll again soon and I expect to go to work.

"But I think it’s unfair to make an issue of looking for work when
there isn’t any," she continued. "Everywhere I go there are ‘No Help
Wanted" signs. Yet the bureau says I must go to these places and apply
for a job.

"I have a 10-year-old daughter to support and of the $37 they
reluctantly give each week they require me to burn up the little
gasoline I can afford in what everyone knows is a futile search for
work."

A PARTY OF out-of-state newsmen was brought here a few days ago on a briefing tour of Navy installations.

Each place they went, the newsmen, as is customary, were given a new
set of admittance badges. This became annoying, particularly to C.W.
Skipper of the Houston Post, and he did something about it.

Which is another way of stating that he went through the Point Mugu
Missile Center with a cellophane badge proclaiming him a member of the
Wheaties Space Patrol.

FOR HER Lincoln’s Birthday assignment in El Centro School in South Pasadena last week, Laura Morgan, 9, wrote:

He didn’t go to El Centro School

But Abe Lincoln was nobody’s fool.

SPEAKING OF education
or the lack of it, which almost everyone seems to be doing, a girl
student at Belmont High went to the office to report the combination
lock for her locker had been broken and to get a new one.

"How did you get it open all this time?" she was asked.

"Oh, I just left it open," she replied.

"Did you lose all your things?" she was asked.

"No, there wasn’t anything in there but books."

THE WAY Bob
Nathan tells it, a motion picture editor printed a letter from a reader
blasting the film "Jayne Eyre." The letter said, "This is the worst
movie I ever saw, a waste of time, effort and money."

A few days later a rebuttal letter was printed stating, ""That guy was
all wrong. The picture was beautiful, tender, moving, truly a work of
art. I liked it so much I saw it 79 times."

Two days later, the first correspondent was back. "Tell that fellow to
go see it again," he wrote, "then he’ll be an octoJaneEyreian."

LOOSE ENDS–For
the first time within memory the streets around 1st and Hill were a sea
of mud, washed down from newly made excavations … Bill Lay of South
Gate says "Maverick" goofed Sunday, showing a cattle drive in the late
1800s. In the herd were several Brahmas, introduced into the country in
the late 1920s … The agenda for the United World Federalists peace
assembly in San Pedro Saturday, at which Actor Robert Ryan will appear,
frankly lists "Buzz Sessions" for 2 p.m. … Ted Argue postcards from
Victorville that a hitchhiker heading east on Highway 66 carried a
sign, "Give Me a Ride or I’ll Vote for Him Again" … John of Hawthorne
asks why all the fuss because an airman stayed a week in a cage. "Let
him spend Saturday night in the drunk tank over on Avenue 19," he says,
"and he’ll really have an experience" [Note: This refers to an
isolation experiment intended to simulate spaceflight–lrh] … Ray
Southworth thinks people who keep saying "in the last analysis" should
see a psychiatrist.