Obviously, this wasn’t what Jan and Dean...

Obviously, this wasn’t what Jan and Dean had in mind when they sang about sidewalk surfin’.

A gunman walked into the office of a Santa Monica service station the other night, robbed the cashier of $300, and made his getaway on a skateboard. The suspect, who was in his early 20s, then “proceeded southbound down an alley,” police said.

Nor has the holiday spirit infused everyone in Venice. A thief stole a boxful of 36 teddy bears sitting outside the office/home of Jerry Rubin, director of the Alliance for Survival.

The bruins, donated by Dakin Toys, were going to be mailed to residents who had turned in their war toys to the anti-war group earlier.

Rubin said he left the bears outside the building while he made a quick run to his clothes dryer. “I was gone for eight seconds!” he said. “It was like something out of the ‘Twilight Zone.’ ”

Another argument for the right to arm bears.

This seems to be the year of pest infestations. First came the dread white ash fly, a tree-eater with no known predator. Then Medflies started popping up all over. And now, lawyers. The State Bar reports that almost 60%--or 4,161--of the applicants on the latest state examination were successful. That increases the number of barristers buzzing around in the state to 122,300. Fortunately, unlike the ash fly, lawyers do have natural enemies--themselves.

Hollywood has its Walk of Fame. And Huntington, W. Va., will soon have a Walk of Common Folk.

Anyone who donates $40 to Huntington can have his or her name engraved in a brick in a sidewalk in the city’s Riverfront Park.

That’s right, anyone--even people who have been shunned by the Hollywood Walk, such as Paul Newman, Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep.

While on the subject of fame, our slim list of well-known people born in L.A.--headed by Marilyn Monroe, Adlai Stevenson and Earl Warren--should also include Iva Toguri D’Aquino.

Like Stevenson, the late governor of Illinois, and Warren, the late chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, D’Aquino isn’t usually associated with L.A. And she’s better known by a nickname.

D’Aquino spent World War II in Japan, where she broadcast pop music and Japanese propaganda to U.S. servicemen on Japanese-controlled stations. Back in America afterward, she claimed that she’d been trapped in Japan while making a visit and forced to make the broadcasts.

Convicted of treason, she spent six years in prison. Later, President Carter pardoned the L.A. native better known as . . . Tokyo Rose.

Frank Saraczewski of Hollywood writes to ask why the loose, postage-paid subscription cards in magazines invariably contain a check-off box that says: “Payment enclosed.”

“How,” he asks, “do you enclose payment with the card?”

Obviously a wise man, Saraczewski adds: “Maybe I should write to Cecil Adams in the L.A. Reader. He seems to know everything. He answers you six months later in his column (‘The Straight Dope’).” While you’re at it, Frank, ask Adams about Newman, Hoffman and Streep too.