People and Events

Lily Adams of Venice probably isn’t yet wise to the fact that she gained a moment of fame at the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta.

But then she is only 16 months old.

Lily, the daughter of Cecille Richards and Kirk Adams, organizers for the Service Employees International Union, is the “nearly perfect granddaughter” to whom Texas Treasurer Ann Richards referred in her keynote address Monday evening.

Richards spoke of sitting on the floor with Lily, rolling a ball back and forth and wondering “if she’ll ever grasp the changes I’ve seen in my life. . . . If she’ll ever believe that there was a time when blacks could not drink from public water fountains, when Hispanic children were punished for speaking Spanish in the public schools, and women couldn’t vote.”

Cecille Richards is with Local 399, spearheading the Justice for Janitors drive. Her husband heads SEIU efforts to organize county home care workers.

Although Lily has yet to comment on the speech, she apparently enjoys the spotlight. She joined her grandmother at a press conference in Atlanta on Sunday and smiled willingly for photographers. “She was photographed on the plane coming home from Atlanta this morning and hammed it up there, too,” her father said Tuesday.

Only when the cameras disappear does she get cranky.

Not unlike a lot of other politicians.

After 21 years of being on display at the Museum of Science and Industry, then another four gathering gathering dust in storage, “The Big Map” has arrived at its new home about 30 miles the other side of Indio.

The 5-ton topographical relief map of 50,000 square miles around the Colorado River is on “permanent loan” by the Metropolitan Water District to the Gen. George C. Patton Jr. Memorial Museum, scheduled to open Nov. 11 as a salute to the crusty old World War II general and his troops who learned to drive tanks at the Desert Training Center.

Margit Chiriaco Rusche, daughter of Joseph Chiriaco, who was an MWD surveyor during construction of the Colorado River Aqueduct and who donated the property for the museum, says “The Big Map” probably will be the museum’s “most important feature.”

“The Big Map,” which is the size of a three-car garage, was built in 1927 so engineers could figure out the best path for the aqueduct that now brings water to Los Angeles and the rest of the Southland. At one point the map was hauled back to Washington to sell the aqueduct idea to Congress.

On Monday, an extra-wide Bekins truck delivered it to Chiriaco Summit, alongside the waterway.

Nine students from inner-city high schools were treated to lunch Tuesday at Beaudry’s in the Westin Bonaventure, where maitre d’ David Garcia gave them a brief course in social skills and etiquette. Included on the agenda were such topics as how to write formal invitations and respond to an RSVP.

There was even a lesson in wine tasting--using fruit juice.

Brandi Wilkins said she learned she shouldn’t cut her meat all at once.

George Tsao was pleased to find out that by placing his fork upside down in the center of his plate, he could signal the waiter that he was through.

Ly Kong said he was happy to know how to hold a wine glass.

Proper table settings and attire were on the agenda, so the male guests were expected to wear jackets and ties. But one boy had only a T-shirt, so the Stuart M. Ketchum-Downtown YMCA, which arranged the luncheon with hotel concierge Charlena Ariva, bought him a coat and dress shirt from the Salvation Army.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Pete Schabarum has had it with the elevator sign in the downtown Criminal Courts Building. It says, “Local from 9 to 19th floor, express from 1st to 9th floor.”

Every morning for years, he says, there are people who don’t understand that the lifts to which that sign applies don’t stop on floors 2 through 8. Folks climb aboard, then either scramble to back out--thereby irritating other passengers--or ride to the 9th floor and wait for a strictly local elevator on the far wall to take them back down to 3 or 5 or whatever.

Schabarum aide Judy Hammond, who had the situation called to her attention by a staffer in the district attorney’s office, says her boss has asked that the sign read: “This elevator does not stop on floors 2 through 8.”

That, of course, is probably too simple to be acceptable.

And although Schabarum says the confusion isn’t limited to folks who don’t speak English, he also suggests one that says: “Este elevador no parar en pisos 2 al 8.”