People and Events

Leo Koewe finally learned what happened to his dog Loekie, lost on a TWA flight from Dallas to Los Angeles, and the news was not good.

The Dutch tourist had last seen his terrier-poodle five days ago when it was loaded aboard the plane. After a nationwide search by Trans World Airlines, the body of a small dog believed to be Loekie was found Tuesday afternoon beside a busy thoroughfare near the airport in St. Louis.

TWA officials said Loekie apparently escaped its cage during a plane changeover in St. Louis and bounded across the airport taxiways. After making it past the jets and into a field adjoining the airport about a half-mile away, the dog then ran onto nearby McDonnell Douglas Boulevard, where it was struck and killed, TWA officials surmised.

Koewe, 50, a singer-composer from The Hague, Netherlands, who raised Loekie from a pup and had been separated from his pet only one night in four years, took the news hard.

“I cannot believe it, but it must be so,” he said.

News of the death ended Koewe’s one-day hunger strike at the TWA terminal at Los Angeles International Airport. Koewe, who has been staying with a friend in Huntington Beach, booked himself on a Tuesday night flight to St. Louis, where he planned to reclaim Loekie’s body and have it buried near a relative’s home in the Dallas area.

Another hunger striker was local anti-war activist Jerry Rubin, who said he hadn’t eaten for 10 days in his protest against war toys and violence on television. Having saved some money on food for himself, Rubin said, he ordered up $100 worth of pizzas to throw a Tuesday evening dinner for homeless residents of the Justiceville “tent city” on Venice Beach.

“There’s a lot of people that are hungry,” he said. “I’m not eating by choice. I hope the pizza is hot and I hope it’s delicious and I wish I could have some.”

The day after he offered to pay $1 to anyone finding a pothole in an unincorporated area of his district, County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn had eager reports of four of them.

However, said aide Dan Wolf, one proved to be in the City of Hawthorne and two were in the City of Los Angeles. The fourth was at Florence Avenue and Alameda Street, said Wolf, who noted that “was either in Kenny’s district or in the City of Huntington Park,” depending on which side of the street it was on.

Or, noted Wolf, the pothole could be on Southern Pacific Railroad property, in which case “Kenny plans to send a letter to the president of SP in San Francisco, recommending that he send a dollar to the person who reported it.”

One can only guess at the mood of the crowd that gathered on the Fortune Auto Sales lot in Alhambra. Police say car dealer Eddie Yang had asked about 20 customers to meet him there at 5 p.m. last week so he could make good on bad checks he had given them for their used cars.

Or to return automobiles left with him on consignment. Or to give refunds on faulty cars he had sold.

Everyone showed up except Yang, said Lt. Rocky Caringello, who figured the dealer had written about $98,000 worth of bum checks and reneged on $32,000 owed to other customers.

The following day, on Friday, another 15 people called police with similar complaints. The lot was empty.

By Tuesday, Capt. Russ Silverling said it was possible that at least 55 people had been victimized. Yang had not been seen. “He’s still in the wind,” Silverling said, adding that an arrest warrant would be sought today.

Ava Gardner was in St. John’s Hospital, Santa Monica, on Tuesday, being treated for what a hospital spokeswoman said were recurring respiratory problems. It turned out she had been there since last Wednesday, when she flew here from her London home. She was treated at St. John’s in the fall of 1986 for pneumonia.

The actress is 65.

Unlike one or two others, Robert Stewart remembers clearly what he did on New Year’s Eve. Early on, at least. He stopped by Adams Liquor on Sawtelle Boulevard in West Los Angeles to buy five bottles of champagne, writing a check for $57.40. (Some of the domestic stuff is pretty good.)

Imagine his surprise the other day when he received in the mail a refund of $4.50 and a note from owner Lois Adams, who told him that her 24-year-old son, Tim, recognized he had erred in charging Stewart the regular price for a brand that was on sale.

“I’m not even a regular customer there,” said Stewart, astonished at such honesty.

“We’re new in business,” explained Lois Adams, surprised that anyone was surprised.