Caltrans Helps You Find Your Way to Panda Land

You might remember a few months back when Mercy Hospital was told by San Diego city officials that a directional sign pointing motorists to the hospital’s emergency room could not be displayed on a footbridge that crosses the University Avenue off-ramp of California 163.

The reason, the city said, was that the airspace over the street was public domain--even though the hospital owned the footbridge--and that the sign could be distracting to motorists.

Further, there was concern that the sign was a promotional gimmick by the hospital, and allowing it would open the floodgates for other companies wanting to advertise on overpasses and bridges. The hospital countered that it just wanted people to find their way quickly to the emergency room, especially in matters involving life and death. The hospital eventually won out, and today the sign is in place.

The San Diego Zoo had significantly less hassle putting up nine, three-foot-square signs along downtown freeways depicting the Giant Panda logo.

The zoo provided the signs, and Caltrans obligingly erected them onto existing directional signs to help out-of-town pandaphiles find their way to the zoo’s auxiliary parking lot on Pershing Drive.

“Caltrans expressed concern that by doing this for us, they’d be opening the door for everybody else who wants signs,” acknowledged zoo spokesman Jeff Jouett.

Picture, for instance, Caltrans freeway signs with Shamu’s picture around Mission Bay, or drawings of the San Diego Chicken or Charger lightning bolts through Mission Valley.

But Caltrans agreed with the zoo that the panda signs were helpful for motorists, versus promotional for the zoo, according to Caltrans spokeswoman Shirley Weber. After all, Caltrans erected customized directional signs in Los Angeles during the ’84 Olympics in order to keep traffic flowing.

The zoo provided the plastic, black-and-white signs to Caltrans for free; you can buy your own at the panda gift shop for $18.

Juvenile Journalists

There are school newspapers, and then there are school newspapers, like the one published by Dormitory Unit 200 at Sarah Anthony School, operated at Juvenile Hall in Kearny Mesa.

Teacher Bill McGrath thought the one-sheet weekly publication, the product of his computer class, would stimulate his students and, sure enough, it has.

The students cover Juvenile Hall sports, news on campus--such as dormitory inspections--and offer first-person accounts, such as one student recalling his family’s escape from Vietnam.

“We even have a ‘Dear Tammy’ advice column,” he noted. A recent letter had a student wondering how to deal with peer pressure to do drugs.

“The kids are opening up more than I’ve ever seen,” he said.

Aisle Meet You There

Whatever happened to the days of meeting the guy or girl of your dreams at the church ice cream social or in the mixed-singles bowling league?

Local radio station K-Lite (94.9 FM), picking up on the trend of lonely singles meeting in supermarkets, is hosting a “Successful Singles Night” this Friday at a Casady’s Whole Foods, an Encinitas grocery store.

To encourage singles to mingle, they’ll be given fictional name tags and told to search the aisles for their name’s counterpart (as in Lucy and Ricky, Romeo and Juliet and, well, you get the idea).

Some of the games being considered for the event are a “singles toss” where cheese slices are thrown at targets, a “Pass the Pampers” game and the ever-popular sport, “Friendly Fun with Fruit.”

Contra Brown-Bagging

Is your local civic group looking for an interesting noontime program and you’ve grown tired of political candidates, money managers and motivational speakers?

Then close the curtains, put up the screen, turn on the projector and look at the slides of Nicaragua that were the celebrated no-show during Ollie North’s appearance before the Iran- contra hearings.

U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Coronado) borrowed the 57 slides that North was prohibited from showing at the hearings, had copies made and is now making them available--along with North’s script--to local groups, organizations, employers and classrooms.

Betty Wilkinson, a volunteer in Hunter’s La Mesa office, said Monday that 70 groups have asked to see the 20-minute slide shows--or a 16-minute videotape in which Hunter himself reads North’s script and the slides appear on a TV screen.

The Mira Mesa Lions, the Lemon Grove Kiwanis, the Jewish Community Center of La Jolla, the Old Town Chamber of Commerce, the California Council of Civil Engineers and the Pacific Beach Republican Women Federated are among those who have asked to see the show.

Wilkinson said Hunter, through his campaign office, is providing the shows as a public service; they’re being promoted in ads in local community papers. “Now you can see the Ollie North slides,” the ads say.

Just last week, Wilkinson said, Hunter showed the slides at the White House for President Reagan’s viewing. She said she wasn’t sure if the President had previously seen them.