Picture’s a Must in This Exchange

There in the Pennysaver, sandwiched between ads for a used Sears refrigerator and a white cane and wicker headboard, was this curious personal:

GOOD LOOKING WOMAN, 39 years old or under with golf cart, to share home. Please forward picture of golf cart with reply. Big Jack . . .

Say what?

It was, it seems, a retaliatory practical joke being played on John Henberger (and, may we speculate, his wife, Helen) of Solana Beach, courtesy of a couple of golfing buddies at the Lomas Santa Fe Country Club.

“A year ago, my golf partner wasn’t playing very well, so a few of us put an ad in the Pennysaver advertising a membership at Lomas Santa Fe for half price, and we used his name and phone number,” Henberger said.

“He promised to get even some day.”

The retaliatory ad was quite clever, Henberger said. The phone’s been ringing, not only because some other golfers are in on the gag, but because a few ladies out there are seriously interested.

Helen Henberger, flustered by the golf cart calls and distracted by a pending wedding in the family, got confused one day and told one caller “Oh, I’m so glad you’re coming!” The caller hung up, probably even more confused than Helen.

“I’ve been telling the ladies that I was going to start up a list and I’d get back with them,” Henberger laughed. “But one lady said not to put her on the list until I first sent her a picture of me. “ Built-in Democracy

The concept of “home rule” is taking on a slightly different meaning these days, with directors of the Palomar Pomerado Hospital District voting to issue themselves personal computers, telephone hook-up equipment and printers for home use so they can have a direct link to one another and the hospital administration.

The reasoning goes like this: the cost of computers ($14,000) is cheaper than the cost of couriers and mail delivery in sending board and committee minutes, agendas and other materials to the directors’ homes.

But what if, in possible violation of the state’s open-meeting laws, a kind of computer dialogue develops among a majority of the directors sitting in front of their computer screens at home, instead of at an open, public meeting?

No problem, says the district’s legal counsel; the computer will be programmed so that if the same information is seen by four or more of the seven directors, that information will automatically be printed in a “public access file.”

Let’s hope democracy doesn’t glitch. A Deeper Purpose

A couple of weeks ago in this space, we talked about the anti-Kadafi (“Gadaffy, Duck!”) T-shirts being marketed by Loch David Crane, a part-time college English teacher.

The shirts were actually designed by Steve Heuer, a 37-year-old Vietnam veteran and carpenter who wants President Reagan to know that he and a lot of other people stand firmly behind his decision to order air strikes against Libya. His T-shirt shows a duck in military fatigues, bearing a resemblance to both Daffy and Moammar, bobbing in the Gulf of Sidra, with a missile ripping through his cap.

Unlike Crane, who said unabashedly that he’s serving as Heuer’s marketing man with the intent of making a buck, Heuer said he wants most of his profit from the T-shirt sales to go to an organization he is forming, called “Aid to American Victims of Terrorism.”

For each $10 T-shirt sold, a buck will go to a bank account to aid terrorist victims, and another dollar will go to Vietnam Veterans of San Diego, he said.

What if only $1,000 or so is raised? What good would that do? “I don’t want this to be an age of apathy,” he said. “I want to turn some heads. Any amount we raise will be a step in the right direction.”

The account will be held in trust at a local bank for six months while the Internal Revenue Service reviews Heuer’s request to become a tax-exempt or nonprofit organization, he said.

The T-shirt isn’t the only fund-raiser planned, he said. He’s thinking about a public roast of Kadafi: “We’ll call it a Gadaffy Roast Duck.” Texas Style VW

Overheard in the passenger pickup zone outside Southwest Airlines at Lindbergh Field was this conversation with a twist:

San Diego man, leading a welcoming party of four, to a couple who just arrived from San Antonio: “Be looking for a VW van. Some friends are circling around to pick us up.”

Texan, looking at a royal-blue stretch limousine parked directly in front of him at the curb: “How about we just go home in this?”

“Sure, that would be nice, huh?” the San Diego man responded.

“Yeah, c’mon, let’s take this home. There’s room for all of us,” the Texan laughed, wishfully.

With that as an obvious cue, a classy brunette chauffeur, dressed in tails, cummerbund and black skirt, approached the couple with a smile, picked up their luggage and put it in the limo’s trunk.

The Texans looked bewildered.

The chauffeur opened the door and invited the couple inside, where champagne and beer were on ice.

The Texans looked even more bewildered.

“OK, then, why not go home in this?” the local host said. The Texans were nudged inside and the welcoming party followed. Off they drove.

It was, apparently, a setup from the get-go.

Welcome to San Diego.