When the first annual Police and Fire...

When the first annual Police and Fire Invitational Shoot-Out was scheduled, it seemed a bit unfair to have law enforcement types competing against personnel who stamp out blazes for a living.

Then again, maybe not. Overall winner of the trap and skeet shoot-out in Redlands was the Long Beach Fire Department.

We don’t know if that makes us feel good about the Fire Department or nervous about the police.

Another contribution of the L.A. car culture: Owners of expensive jalopies can now install in their garages hydraulic platforms that will lift their treasures 12 feet off the ground, presumably putting them out of reach of thieves.

The inventor, Car Stacker West of Redondo Beach, charges about $4,500 to put one car in the air and about $8,500 for a double lift job.

Think of the possibilities: With the car on the rack, you could change your own oil or rent a grease monkey.

And you could brag about your new architectural style: Mark C. Bloome Moderne.

Considering the purpose of the form, you can’t really blame Wolcott’s stationery store downtown for posting this announcement on its counter:

“No bankruptcy kits sent out C.O.D. (cash on delivery)--except to law firms.”

When we reported Friday that some local history buffs have formed the Millard Fillmore Bicentennial Commission to prepare for the 13th President’s 200th birthday on Jan. 7, 2000, you might have been tempted to ask:

But why should I care about Millard?

Well, it was Fillmore who signed the bill admitting California as the 31st state on Sept. 9, 1850. There was, however, no celebration that day in L.A., which was then a dusty pueblo teeming with about 1,800 people (the exact count on any day depending on how many people had been killed at the gaming tables the previous night).

In fact, news of statehood didn’t reach L.A. for weeks because the town had no telegraph, railroad or fax machines.

Talk about ingratitude: L.A. nearly left the state in the mid-1850s, writes author Midge Sherwood in her recently published “Days of Vintage, Years of Vision.”

At the urging of the southern counties, who felt they paid an unfair burden of the taxes, a bill was introduced into the state Assembly that would have divided California into three states: Shasta (the northern portion), California (the central), and Colorado (the southern, including L.A.).

The bill was approved by the Assembly but died in the state Senate. Had it passed, USC would be the University of Central Colorado today. An oft-used expression would be: “It never rains in Colorado. . . .” And singer John Denver no doubt would have been inspired to write “San Gabriel Mountain High.”

Did anyone get the license number of that mattress?

Sonia Duran of Long Beach was directing traffic while her company’s float--a bed--was being wheeled into position for the funky Belmont Shore Christmas Parade. But someone lost control of the bed and it crashed into her, spraining her ankle.

Said Duran: “My doctor told me, ‘I’ve heard about people falling out of bed, but never someone getting run over by a bed.’ ”

Did anyone get the license number of that fireball?

Still no word on the identity of the large, greenish mass that flashed across the sky Thursday night and prompted hundreds of calls from residents and pilots.

It wasn’t a missing aircraft, said Federal Aviation Administration officials.

It wasn’t a spacecraft, the North American Air Defense Space Command said.

It wasn’t indigestion, doctors interviewed by The Times agreed.

Whatever, museum guide Rick de la Cruz of the Griffith Park Observatory didn’t seem worried about this ambiguous omen for the new decade. He said the phenomenon prompted about 10 calls.

An unusual number?

“We get hundreds of calls more about our Laserium shows,” he added.

KNX radio’s Tom Sirmons predicts that the complaint of the ‘90s mother to her grown children will be:

“You don’t write, you don’t call, you don’t fax. . . .”