People and Events

There was some action on the picket line outside County-USC Medical Center about 7:30 a.m. Thursday when a couple drove up and the woman began calling, “Baby, baby!”

Striking nurse Jane Moore jumped into the car, quickly discovering that the lady knew what she was talking about. The boy was already arriving, perhaps anxious not to cross the picket line.

A non-striking nursing supervisor, Kathy Rubio, came on the run from the emergency room and assisted Moore in the delivery of one Luis Martinez.

A hospital spokeswoman identified the mother as Maria Martinez, 23, who has four other children--all girls.

What a small troupe of Australian aboriginal dancers and musicians thought was going to be a triumphant tour of the United States was stalled in a couple of motel rooms near Los Angeles International Airport on Thursday--but at least they were no longer hungry.

The six-member group arrived a week ago to appear during last weekend’s Australia Day Fair at the Orange County Fairgrounds. That, says their coordinator, Valma Taylor, was to be followed by similar appearances in San Francisco, Portland and Phoenix.

Apparent financial problems forced cancellation of the tour by the promoter, says Taylor, leaving the group with little more than return air tickets. With them were several other Australians who came along to promote such products as boomerangs and emu leather.

The disappointed visitors managed to get to the airport on Monday, but Taylor says they could not bring themselves to leave because “so much had been invested in this exercise.” Although they had not eaten all day, they pooled their funds and rented two $38-a-night rooms for the 13 of them. Continental breakfast was included.

Their plight came to the attention of others and they performed for their supper at an Australian reception at 20th Century Fox. Some have helped with money. An Australian airline executive arranged a studio tour and somebody else got them Disneyland tickets.

“We’ll get along,” Taylor said Thursday. “We just couldn’t go home without succeeding in some way.”

If all goes well and the creek doesn’t rise, Robert Bradford’s five-speed bicycle should turn 100,000 miles on Saturday as he rides home to Lomita from his job at Los Angeles International Airport.

Bradford, a 55-year-old Western Air Lines mechanic, has been pedaling the 32-mile round trip almost every working day since he and his wife, Marjorie, moved here from the state of Washington 15 years ago--during the gasoline crunch.

“If it’s raining too hard,” she admits, “he takes the car.” Otherwise, it’s off to work by pumping the old cycle, more than an hour each way.

How does he know he’s about to reach the 100,000-mile mark? “He keeps records of everything,” his wife says.

Tom Swift and his Picture Phone showed up at the Los Angeles County coroner’s office Thursday. The picture phone arrived, at least. The young genius inventor of those boys’ novels of 50 years ago was not there.

More accurately, the office received a Luma 1000, which is manufactured by Mitsubishi and will enable medical examiners to dial the state Department of Motor Vehicles or any of more than 30 police departments throughout the country for an instant look at a file photograph that may provide the identity of a body.

The device relays a black-and-white photo over a standard telephone line and will save the time it normally takes to receive such pictures by mail.

Chevrolet Camaros and Pontiac Firebirds just aren’t selling well, General Motors explained several weeks ago in asking 3,800 workers at its Van Nuys plant to take a 50% cut in work hours. That did not sit well with most of the plant’s veteran workers, who last weekend dinged the plan. As a result, 1,900 workers without enough seniority are being laid off.

In the meantime, Certified Collateral Corp., a Chicago firm that provides insurance companies with estimates of the market value of vehicles, has identified the most-stolen domestic car:

The 1986 Chevrolet Camaro.