Needing a Fast Shuffle for Card Game

Because she has stiff fingers, Dorothy Samuels of Westminster is looking for a manual card shuffler. All she has been able to locate are models that are powered by electricity or batteries, neither of which is satisfactory. Please don’t give Samuels a fast shuffle, but help before she’s convinced that what she’s looking for is not in the cards.

Jane Goetz of Malibu is really hot under the collar about her inability to locate an iron that merely irons and has no holes for steam. She’d like to replace her GE Dry Iron, but all she can find are steam irons and miniature travel irons. Can you help smooth the path for Goetz, or will she have to blow off steam?

Reader-to-Reader Help Line: Dan Olincy at (213) 878-1213 would like to locate some Pelican garment hangers, which are no longer being manufactured. They look like clothespins with springs and are about 14 inches long, with two plastic strips to hold the garment. Please help if you (peli)can, so that Olincy will again get the hang of it. . . . George at (213) 257-2738 would like to locate a copy of the book “Pianists of the Old West,” which was published about 20 years ago but is no longer available. Please help keep George in tune with the old times; after all, it is more than merely a question of black and white. . . . Susan at (619) 457-3676 needs the carrying case for a 1948 Singer Featherweight portable sewing machine. Please help before Susan carries this case too far and starts to sew somebody.

Note: The Reader-to-Reader Help Line is only for one-time items and for products that are no longer available in stores. And you must give us written permission to publish your telephone number, so readers may contact you directly.

Mrs. C.L. of Studio City, who was at the end of her rope with her request for 27-inch Dynel (to be made into a chignon), no longer need tear her hair out. We have no retail outlets, but two readers are willing to help out, with no strings attached. A Palm Springs reader is willing to part with a chignon she never wore because her hair is too thin to support the weight. And a Corona del Mar reader who calls herself the “Chignon Lady” says she has Dynel in 24 shades. If any other readers are interested in this heady topic, send a stamped, self-addressed envelope.

Alberta Hultman of West Los Angeles, who was looking for a wooden mailbox that looks like a birdhouse, should soon be cooing when she gets her bills, but she may not be able to get what she wants for a song. Mrs. W. G. Carnduff of Woodland Hills says Castle Craft, 19605 Ventura Blvd., Tarzana, (818) 345-7711, carries a large selection of such mailboxes. A bit farther away as the crow flies, Alice Nastasi of Burbank states that her husband designs these mailboxes to customer specifications. The Nastasi phone number is (818) 846-8041.

Flying in a southerly direction, Brenda Kain of We Are Collectibles, 1484 N. Kraemer Blvd., Suite 390, Placentia, Calif. 92670, says they carry a full line of marvelous mailboxes, including the wooden house with a shake roof. And if she wants to wing her way up the coast, Hultman will hear from Ed Gillooly of Carmel Wood Products, 24723 Upper Trail, Carmel, Calif. 93923, (408) 624-4678, who sells the birdhouse for $34.95 plus freight and handling. We even have a mail-order source. Charles Wildhaber of Long Beach writes that Mailbox Crafters, Box 135-N Center St., Miamiville, Ohio 45147, has a variety of unusual mailboxes. Last but not least, a Mrs. Galloway chirps in with the news that she has a birdhouse with a shake roof. If you send us a stamped, self-addressed envelope, you’ll get details--and not by carrier pigeon, either.