People and Events
One late-model Cadillac is a total loss, one almost new Rolls-Royce was damaged--and one George Derenia was in shock.
“I could hardly believe it,” says the Palos Verdes Estates construction executive, speaking by telephone Friday from his other--totally unscathed--Rolls-Royce. “I thought it was April Fool’s Day a day early.”
Derenia, 53, and his wife, Margaret, 47, parked their cars Thursday morning near their Cessna 421 at Torrance Municipal Airport and took off for Oregon. A few hours later, a single-engine Piper 28-180 crashed on top of the cars and burst into flames.
The Cadillac, a 1985 maroon Coupe de Ville worth $13,000, was smashed beyond repair. And on the Rolls, a white 1987 Silver Spur valued in excess of $120,000, “the whole back end is smashed,” Derenia said.
The white Rolls-Royce--a twin to Derenia’s brown model--was Mrs. Derenia’s car, while the Cadillac belonged to his former wife. He had borrowed it because his own Rolls was in the shop having the telephone fixed.
“We’re good friends,” he said of his former wife. “I’ll have to get her another one.”
Derenia, who flew back to Torrance Thursday evening, said his thoughts are not with the cars, but with Walter Talbert, 55, the pilot of the Piper, who was reported in good condition at Torrance Memorial Hospital, where he was treated for burns and scrapes.
“I’ll go see him,” Derenia said.
California Mart executive David Morse was not feeling so good-humored about what happened to his boat.
On Friday, he tried to return what he calls his 24,000-pound lemon to the people who sold it to him. But they wouldn’t take it back.
Morse says that the Morsel, a 46-foot diesel cruiser, has been a mess from the time he paid $175,000 for it in 1984. “There were continuing problems with the engine, with the fuel systems and throttles,” he said. “I couldn’t get it started and then couldn’t slow it down.”
He filed suit two weeks ago, alleging that the boat’s previous owner, Sidney Jacobson, was aware of the problems when he sold the boat to Morse through a broker in 1984. The suit complains, in fact, that Jacobson himself had sued the broker, Pacific Yacht Sales, and the manufacturers way back in 1982 because the boat was defective.
It did not make Morse feel any better to learn that Jacobson finally reached a settlement with Pacific and the manufacturers.
Jacobson’s attorney, Laurence Strick, says his client assumed that the broker leveled with Morse on the resale. Instead, the broker “told him the boat was working fine,” the attorney said.
Friday morning, Morse draped a string of lemons on the boat and had it trailered to Pacific Yacht Sales. They wouldn’t accept it, so he lodged it at another yacht brokerage nearby and sent word to Pacific and Jacobson to come get it. His suit asks for his money back, plus damages.
Neither Pacific Yacht Sales nor the firm’s attorney responded to calls about the matter.
Someone was feeling mellow enough early Friday morning to leave a splashy mixed bouquet of flowers in a doorway on Spring Street near 2nd Street in downtown Los Angeles. Presumably they were an Easter gift for Richard.
He shall remain otherwise unidentified here, but he arrives in the doorway promptly at 8:30 each morning to sit watching the passing parade and occasionally accepting a small donation from one of those marching to a different drummer. He leaves about 5 p.m.
Richard was still at his post in the early afternoon--even though many others were seizing upon Good Friday to abandon the Civic Center. The flowers were gone. Did he know who had left them for him? He said no.
What had happened to them?
“Somebody gave me 35 cents for ‘em.”
Pacific Bell switching supervisor Alex Kasper was curious enough to check three of the phone company’s offices Friday, April Fool’s Day. By mid-morning, 180 information operators had received more than 2,000 calls asking for the number of the Los Angeles Zoo.
Which meant that a lot of people were going to be getting messages asking them to call a Mr. Lyon or a Mr. Bear at that number.
Zoo spokeswoman Lora LaMarca didn’t count the calls actually received from the gullible on Friday but said a couple of April Fool’s Days ago there were more than 800.
“Some,” she said, “are more inventive, giving out names like Bob Katz or Roy Nocerous.”
The calls usually come in for several days, as people get around to picking up their messages.
The dairy man who usually brings a cow to lead the annual Blessing of the Animals parade has retired, so the Olvera Street Merchants Assn. had to scramble to get another cow for today’s ceremony at noon.
They got one, said association President Vivian Bonzo, through Renta Yenta in Hollywood.
