First there were the pictures of missing...

First there were the pictures of missing kids on milk cartons.

Now it’s come to this: a flyer asking plaintively, “Have you seen this sock?”

The details, accompanied by a recent photocopy of the bereaved solemate: “Last seen in laundromat on 4th and Redondo. Was favorite pair--black, cotton blend--elastic band--size 9-11--if found PLEASE RETURN!”

Answers to the name of Orlon.

When they said “book ‘im” on this case, they weren’t kidding.

A former actor who claims to have found Marilyn Monroe’s long-lost diary (book No. 1) was sentenced Monday to 30 days in jail for making threatening phone calls to the authors of two different accounts (books 2 and 3) of the star’s life and death.

Ted Jordan, 63, once a contract player with Monroe at the 20th Century Fox studio, pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of making threatening or obscene telephone calls and was sentenced by a San Fernando Municipal Court commissioner to the jail term, a $1,000 fine and three years’ probation.

Jordan claimed in 1982 that he found book No. 1--the diary--in a trunk at a friend’s house although he has not produced it despite six-figure offers for it. The targets of his phone calls, officials said, were private detective Milo Speriglio, who published a book titled, “Marilyn Monroe: Murder Cover-Up,” and Robert Slatzer, who wrote “The Life and Curious Death of Marilyn Monroe.”

Speriglio’s attorney, Moton Holt, said Jordan was apparently upset with the controversy the books had engendered. Said Holt, “Ted feels she ought to be able to rest in peace.”

Hope, said the poet, is a thing with feathers.

World-class birdwatcher/author James Clements is exceedingly hopeful. On New Year’s Day he began his yearlong marathon to identify 4,000 different species of birds of the world, and thereby raise the half-million dollars needed to finish up the Ralph W. Schreiber Hall of Birds at the county’s Natural History Museum.

It takes a heap of feathers to make a nest egg for a museum. Clements’ fly-a-thon is on the same principle as a walk-a-thon, whose supporters pledge so much per mile. Clements’ backers have pledged per bird--a penny, a quarter, two bucks or more.

After Day 1 in the Santa Barbara area (where he spotted three bald eagles), Clements is now off on the subcontinent, listening for the bird song of India.

Swell. Now we have people making molehills out of mountains.

Some of it was our fault, in reporting in a story about sunrise hikers that Mt. Hollywood, where a lot of them hike, is the second-highest point in Griffith Park. Now, to couch anything in superlative terms--best, biggest, fastest--is an invitation to somebody out there to challenge you.

Thus, we stood corrected, and said it was the highest point. Again, some people took exception. Mt. Lee, home of the Hollywood sign, is higher, they insisted.

Investigation reveals that what we have here is one of those win-win situations. Mt. Hollywood is the highest point in Griffith Park , at what a geological park map says is 1,625 feet. Mt. Lee tops the clouds at 1,680 feet. That would make it the taller, except the boundary to Griffith Park stops right behind the Hollywood sign, and below the crest of Mt. Lee, which belongs to the Department of Public Works.

Therefore, Mt. Hollywood remains the tallest point in the park, but Mt. Lee is the tallest point in the area.

Now can we talk about world peace?