Olympics’ Twinkie Guard Is No Cream Puff

Peter Ueberroth, the kingpin of the 1984 Summer Olympics, may be Time magazine’s Man of the Year, but let’s not forget another, albeit less prominent, Olympic success story, Tim Rue.

Ueberroth left his Olympics throne to become commissioner of professional baseball; Rue, who lives in Del Mar, traded his Olympics post for a job in the advertising business.

Ueberroth was in charge of everything; Rue was a security guard in charge of protecting Twinkies, Pop-Tarts, doughnuts and other snack food at a Los Angeles area warehouse.

Hey, somebody had to do it.

There was, you’ll remember, a lot of worry about terrorism. And what better target than Twinkies? Rue applied for a security guard job, thinking he might get assigned inside an arena and see some gymnastics or, at the least, boxing.

Instead, he found himself secluded in a windowless warehouse watching over the Twinkies, et al. He passed the time by planning defenses against various attack scenarios, including enemy commandos being parachuted through the one skylight.

He obviously did his job well; not a single Twinkie was tainted by terrorists.

Rue was written up in The Times and then appeared on ABC-TV, which tracked him down and interviewed him live from the warehouse, before Olympics officials could halt the unauthorized interview. Rue said he was told later that Ueberroth was none too pleased with the TV appearance, especially the part when Rue was asked what he would do if the place really was attacked. “Run like hell,” Rue replied, “and go to a phone booth and call the SWAT team. Heck, I’m only getting $5 an hour.”

Rue was immortalized. Long-lost friends from all over the country telephoned him after seeing him on TV, and complete strangers stopped him on the street. “Hey,” they’d say, “You’re the Twinkie guy.”

Among Rue’s Olympic mementos are an employment Olympic pin, a diploma-like commendation and a souvenir certificate from the security company. And he still has his security uniform (and beret), which he saves for Halloween.

But, alas, there has been no trickle down to him of any of the $215-million Olympics cash surplus, Rue said ruefully.

The Odor Order

There’s a new law at the San Diego County Law Library.

The new order: You can’t have an odor.

If four people judge that you smell offensive, you can be asked to leave. Honestly.

It’s not that lawyers, as a lot, smell bad.

The policy was enacted by the library’s board of trustees because one particular person, a pungent panhandler, would hang out in the library for hours at a time, pretending to peruse law books just for a place to rest.

The person has since been told of the complaints and has left.

“Not only did we breathe a sigh of relief,” said a library clerk, “but we breathed, period.”

A Bubble Has Burst

The hundreds of retirees living at the Lawrence Welk Village are big fans of Lawrence Welk’s music and his mobile home park life style.

And, presumably, Welk has done well by them. After all, he’s still playing their kind of music, and in recent years he has doubled the size of the adults-only mobile home park. He’s got the formula.

So you could imagine the whispers when, in a newspaper article in the Times-Advocate, Lawrence Welk Village general manager Bob Dias said that time-share condominiums were being introduced to the park partly to dispel its image as a retirement resort.

That particular image, Dias was quoted as saying, “is a negative (one) for us.”

Say what?

That’s like suggesting that the Mouseketeers are no longer welcome at Disneyland.

Holiday Sale Branches Out

Among the more intriguing after-Christmas sales is this offer from the Ramona-Julian Resource Conservation District.

It wants to unload between 6,000 and 7,000 pine trees, each between 5 and 10 feet tall, for $10 each.

The district got the trees from a North County man who wanted to plant a commercial Christmas tree farm. But he got ill before the trees were planted and decided to hand his inventory over to the conservation people, said district spokesman Pat Burke.

The trees, with roots protected in sawdust bags, will grow to more than 30 feet and are great for erosion control, windbreaks or beautification, Burke said.

He’s hoping cities will buy hundreds of them for parks. Or you can always buy just one and start growing next year’s Christmas tree.

Big Bucks for Star’s Car

Among the used-car ads in the Rancho Santa Fe Times, along with a 1971 Toyota Corona and an ’85 Chevy Sprint, is this one:

“Rolls-Royce 1981, owned by Kenny Rogers, best offer over $100,000.”