People and Events

For Don James, the football coach at the University of Washington, recruiting high school players in Los Angeles can be an exciting experience.

He was recently meeting with the family of one prep star in South-Central Los Angeles when several gunshots rang out down the street.

“Other than maybe on a hunting trip I don’t think I’ve ever heard gunshots before,” James said Thursday from his campus office in Seattle.

The day after the shoot-out, James added, “I read in the newspapers that the incident involved Todd Bridges,” the former star of the television show, “Diff’rent Strokes,” who was arrested and charged with attempted murder.

And the student that James was recruiting?

“He signed with us,” the coach said. “I guess he wanted to get out of town.”

Hold the birthday candles for Abe.

While historians generally agree that the 16th President was born Feb. 12, Cal State Northridge won’t observe the occasion until Dec. 29. You’d think an educational institution would get the date right.

Actually, this bit of revisionist history is intended to shift some holidays to days that school personnel generally take off anyway.

“Most people take the last week of the year off,” explained one Northridge official. “So we just decided to make it a five-day holiday and close the campus.”

And what a week it promises to be for Northridge employees, with Christmas scheduled for Dec. 26, followed by Columbus Day (Dec. 27), Veterans Day (Dec. 28), and the birthdays of Lincoln (Dec. 29) and Washington (Dec. 30).

The employees might have to take the next week off just to recover from all those activities.

Stop by sometime after work,” wrote members of UCLA’s Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity to their famous brother.

Such a visit would have been inconvenient when he was laboring in Washington. But Ronald Reagan is in Century City now, so he dropped in on the Westwood frat house Thursday afternoon and brought the members an autographed jar of red, white and blue jellybeans.

During the 35-minute visit, the former President regaled his listeners with tales of the fun he used to have in the town cemetery when he was attending Eureka (Ill.) College.

Reagan said he would “lie down on a favorite tombstone and look at the stars.” Occasionally, “I’d blow my TKE whistle,” he continued, and from the answering whistles, he could tell there were plenty of other TKEs in the cemetery.

Today, Reagan goes from UCLA fraternity brothers to Mother Teresa.

A Reagan spokesman said the Nobel Peace prize-winner will journey to Century City to thank him for his efforts to achieve world peace.

“How to Strip for Your Lover” is just one of the courses offered locally by the Learning Annex, which calls itself a “life-enhancing” adult-education program and leaves its catalogues at restaurants all over town.

“We specialize in classes not found elsewhere,” director Donna Sher said at the firm’s branch office in West Los Angeles. Indeed.

“How to Strip” is a one-time, three-hour class that costs $24. It’s offered to women only, a fact that so far has apparently escaped the attention of attorney Gloria Allred, the equal-rights champion. Other courses include, “50 Ways to Tie a Scarf” ($19), and “Past Life Regression,” offered at a flat rate of $27, no matter how many past existences you’ve had.

Naturally, some smart aleck in the East would have to say it after snow fell in parts of Los Angeles County this week.

The Philadelphia Daily News’ headline on its Southern California weather story read:

“L.A. Sees Another Kind of Flake.”