People and Events

Football teams are routinely penalized for unnecessary roughness, holding and illegal procedure . . . but for parachuting?

It happened to Glendale College over the weekend. Late in the second quarter of a game that was shrouded in fog, a young man floated down through the mist, nearly clipping a referee and landing near the 50-yard line. Then, two more chutists fell to earth.

The sky divers who arrived during a break in the action were part of a half-time stunt that began ahead of schedule.

“The first half had run a little long and I guess the plane up there was running out of gas and the pilot evidently told them to jump,” said Glendale Coach Jim Sartoris, who could laugh about it later because his team eventually won 45-27.

But he wasn’t smiling when Glendale, the home team, was penalized 30 yards in a unique case of intentional grounding--15 for chutist No. 1 and 15 for chutist Nos. 2 and 3.

Vernon has always prided itself upon being different. An industrial city just south of Los Angeles, it has a daytime population of more than 50,000 and a nighttime population of about 80 (two dozen or so families live there).

The Chamber of Commerce is unlikely to draw a huge crowd this morning for its annual city tour, which makes stops in a converted Pacific Red Car at such landmarks as Kal Kan Foods’ pet food plant and the city’s Diesel Generating Plant.

But there was a time early in the century when Vernon was one of the hot spots in Southern California, featuring a baseball park for its Pacific Coast League team, a boxing arena with world-class matches and Jack Doyle’s Saloon, which claimed the distinction of housing the “Longest Bar in the World.”

Prohibition pretty much spelled the end of Vernon’s night life, though it went out in a big way. The night before, June 30, 1919, more than 60 bartenders patrolled the 100-foot-long bar, doling out drinks to an estimated 1,000 customers in what was the ultimate Last Call.

Nowadays, the Chamber of Commerce at 38th Street and Santa Fe Avenue occupies the site of Doyle’s watering hole. In a sense, the saloon lives on, though. The historic bar counter was reportedly removed before demolition.

“We understand it’s somewhere in Mexico,” said chamber spokesman Dolores Petullo.

Thieves broke into the car of Santa Monica shoe salesman Steve Katz over the weekend and stole $10,000 worth of the latest designer styles from Europe.

“They must have thought they were getting something great because they went to so much trouble,” said Katz’s wife, Lauren.

But when the thieves examined the several bags of purloined footwear, they were probably ready to kick themselves.

The shoes were all for the left foot.