People and Events

It was a real mess when employees arrived for work Monday morning at Key Container Co., a South Gate firm that makes corrugated cardboard shipping cases. “We were vandalized by someone who knew exactly what they were doing,” company executive Bob Watts said.

The intruders dumped more than 40 five-gallon buckets of printing ink all over the floor, then spilled three 500-gallon vats of glue. Warming to the task, they mixed boric acid in the starch vats. “That tells you it was an inside job,” Watts said. That congealed the starch, making it exceptionally tough to clean up.

Still not satisfied, the vandals poured acid over electrical panels that control the corrugating machinery and the flow of steam to vats. Their work done, they took three time cards from the rack--seemingly at random--and punched out.

Then, Watts told South Gate police, they beat the time clock to pieces and left.

That prompts him to think the perpetrators were former employees with unpleasant memories of the place. Asked whether anybody had been fired recently, he said, “In an operation like this, there’s always someone coming and going.”

Few things are more exciting to the folks at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County than a dead whale rolling up on a Southland beach. They can’t get there fast enough. They were particularly thrilled last Friday evening when the carcass of a Cuvier’s beaked whale washed ashore at Marina del Rey.

The museum’s Mary Ann Dunn described it as among “the rarest of all whales” and said not much is known about them because they aren’t seen often. Members of the species hardly ever venture inside the Channel Islands. The museum never had a complete specimen.

Until Friday--when the Whalemobile sped to Marina del Rey.

The Whalemobile is a specially equipped, four-wheel-drive truck with a tilting bed and winch that enables scientists to motor out to the water’s edge and pull a 20-foot, 4-ton whale aboard, hauling it off to a “whale warehouse” in Vernon for autopsy and examination.

Studying whales, dolphins and porpoises is not always easy, the museum’s Cetacea experts say, because the mammals spend most of their time submerged, surfacing only to catch a breath.

The Whalemobile was donated to the museum by the Ford Motor Co. for use in the Mammal Recovery Program. Although it had already made some small pickups, Friday’s whale was its first big one.

Singer Michael Jackson wasn’t on hand, but his chimpanzee was.

Bubbles mugged a bit, but was fairly well behaved during a Hollywood news conference called Monday morning to announce Childhelp USA’s establishment of the Michael Jackson International Institute for Research and Child Abuse.

Childhelp USA is the nation’s largest nonprofit organization set up to combat child abuse. It operates the National Child Abuse Hotline (1-800-4-A-CHILD) as well as an 80-bed residential village in Beaumont where children between the ages of 2 and 12 are treated.

Childhelp officials said they aren’t yet certain where they will put the $5-million center for research into abuse and neglect, but they know Jackson has promised to donate the net proceeds of his Nov. 22 concert at the Los Angeles Sports Arena.

Jackson was in Spain on Monday, so he sent his chimp and a telegram saying how honored he was to have the center named after him.

U.S. Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.) wasn’t at the news conference either, but his wife, Gayle, represented him. She announced that her husband is seeking support for a Senate resolution giving Childhelp a federal charter to honor it for 29 years “of tireless efforts in the field of child abuse.”

Talk about a scary night away from home:

About 40 kids age 10 to 13 are planning to take sleeping bags and flashlights to the Los Angeles Zoo on Friday evening for something new in slumber parties.

The guests, mostly children of sponsoring Greater Los Angeles Zoo Assn. members, will walk around (presumably with adult supervision) to see what animals are stirring in the darkness. In the morning, they’ll make a tour to see the lions, tigers and whatever awaking for the day.

Between expeditions, one is assured by the zoo people, the bunch will bed down inside the Education Center, where they will hear animal and ghost stories beside a mock campfire.

And, if all that is not enough to sustain their interest, there will be telescopes for the viewing of animal-related constellations.