In its early years, Pasadena was regarded...

In its early years, Pasadena was regarded as so full of rich, retired folks that author Carey McWilliams quipped that a visitor would be unlikely to hear anything within the city limits other than “the ticking of the clock or the hardening of one’s arteries.”

Well, staid ol’ Pasadena is livelier--and apparently weirder--these days.

For the eighth year in a row, the Pasadena Humane Society has seen fit to ban the adoption of black cats from Oct. 16 to Nov. 1 to protect them from being mistreated by cultists or Halloween pranksters.

Spokeswoman Denise McElroy says that, perhaps because “of the publicity given our policy,” the society has had no requests for black cats this week.

Other Southern California agencies, though careful, are more flexible on the black cat question. But they report few signs of a rush on that variety of feline anyway.

The L.A. Humane Society received one such request but the “individual’s clothing indicated he might be involved in cult activity, so I refused to sell it to him,” said Sgt. Dave Havard of the Los Angeles Humane Society.

“We haven’t gotten any requests but we don’t have any black cats right now anyway,” said Rona Sullivan of the Santa Monica Animal Shelter.

“All we’ve had is some gang-bangers who were trying to adopt pit bulls,” said Officer Tori Matthews at the Humane Society’s Hawthorne office. “We turned them down.”

“Usually, the only requests we get for black cats around this time of the year,” said Dyer Huston of the L.A. Animal Regulation Department, “are from TV crews that want to shoot pictures of them.”

The least popular nonfiction reading among residents in the Hacienda-La Puente Unified School District appears to be their property tax bills. Or, in the case of this year’s bills, perhaps we should say the least popular fiction reading.

The state discovered a “clerical error” in 29,211 property tax bills sent to the area earlier this month. So, it’s sending out corrected tabs that will reflect a reduction of $125.32 for every $100,000 of assessed value.

The error wasn’t all that surprised county officials. It was also the fact that only a few taxpayers complained before the mistake was detected.

“We encourage all taxpayers to read their tax bills,” said David J. Collins, the county’s assistant treasurer and tax collector, “but I can only assume they don’t.”

From “70 Facts About Los Angeles City and County,” published in The Times in 1886 (cont.):

“No. 48. Los Angeles county has the first ostrich farm in America, the only other being in San Diego county. It is highly successful and will be greatly enlarged this year.”

Ol’ Blue Eyes’ orbs were gleaming. “I’m honored to have my name associated with freedom of choice and people’s dreams for a better choice,” said singer Frank Sinatra in Beverly Hills.

He was responding to Soviet spokesman Gennady Gerasimov, who said that Moscow was shedding the Brezhnev Doctrine in favor of “the Sinatra Doctrine. . . . You know the Frank Sinatra song, ‘I Did It My Way’? Hungary and Poland are doing it their way.”

Still no comment from Moscow on the sentencing of Zsa Zsa to the Los Angeles County Gulag, though.