People and Events

As she has twice before, the principal of South Pasadena’s Marengo Elementary School spent Friday sitting on the school roof because her students devoted at least 20 minutes a night to reading at home.

“It’s a lot of fun to come sit on the roof,” said Marsha Aguirre, 39, as she relaxed with beach chair and cooler, surveying the playground below while nearly 600 students cavorted in the PTA-sponsored Sports Day. “The point is that the kids read.”

Aguirre first challenged the little darlings three years ago and each year has spent a day on the roof because they took her up on it, reading a total of more than a million minutes a year. She says reading scores have improved steadily.

Michael Grant, 10, admitted that at first he was reading at night simply to see the principal go sit on the roof, but “once I started reading at home, I got into it, and I read every night with my dad.”

The South Pasadena Fire Department finally sent an engine company to put up a ladder and let Aguirre climb down early Friday afternoon.

David Spencer rolled into downtown Los Angeles on Friday after a 400-mile trip from Sacramento. It was not an easy junket for the 40-year-old Spencer, who powered himself in a wheelchair. The Grapevine was no cinch.

Spencer, who was graduated from Paramount High School in 1966, was left a paraplegic two years later when a bullet severed his spine in Vietnam.

Accompanied by a constantly changing escort of Vietnam Veterans Motorcycle Club members on their machines, the bearded former member of the 101st Airborne made the trip in an effort to raise $350,000 needed to complete the $2-million California Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Sacramento.

He left there after the ground-breaking a week ago Thursday and arrived Friday afternoon at Los Angeles City Hall to be welcomed by Mayor Tom Bradley, veterans’ groups, a Marine color guard and an assortment of city officials.

More than 1,800 balloons, each carrying the name of a Los Angeles County resident killed in Vietnam and each bearing the address of the California Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, spilled skyward.

A lot of fine things were said about Spencer and Vietnam veterans by the mayor and emcee Johnny Grant. Bradley presented Spencer with a proclamation to promote the memorial.

That was all very well, but Spencer quickly pointed out that no MIA-POW flag was flying from a City Hall flagpole. He said he hoped that could be “rectified soon.”

At least one old paddy wagon needs a little work, Los Angeles police conceded after four narcotics suspects managed to pry up some wooden floor boards and escape.

Somehow, said Lt. Gary Hall of the West Bureau narcotics division, the four looped a shoestring around one cracked board, pried it up and then pulled loose some other boards. They slithered to freedom through a 24-by-30-inch hole and, Hall said, “took off.”

The four had been booked at Hollywood station Thursday evening on suspicion of peddling dope and were waiting to be taken to jail. More accurately, they did not wait.

Two of them did not get far before being recaptured, but two others--Jonathon Veltran, 18, and Hugo Morales, 20--were still being hunted Friday.

“Most of the paddy wagons have steel floors,” Hall said. “They’ll have to put some sheet metal in this one and I guess check them all citywide.”

Hall added, “I suppose it’s embarrassing.”

The escape capped a bad day as far as LAPD equipment was concerned. Earlier, Officers Ed Souza and J.R. Noll had to chase an apparently stolen 1984 Jaguar at high speed through Woodland Hills and Canoga Park, only to have the suspect abandon it and try to sprint away.

The officers overtook him and were putting him under arrest when passers-by called their attention to their patrol car. It was on fire. Citizens with extinguishers were able to prevent a meltdown before firefighters got there.

Having piled up 137,000 miles, the proud old black-and-white had simply overheated.