Noting our mention of the downtown worker...

Noting our mention of the downtown worker whose morning commute from Woodland Hills took longer than the SR-71 Blackbird’s 68-minute flight from Palmdale to Washington, Laurie Guember of West Covina recalled a similar experience in 1962:

“When astronaut John Glenn took off on his historic flight to circumnavigate the globe,” she writes, “I started off to my dental assistant’s job on Hollywood and Vine from our home in West Covina. As he finished circling the Earth the first time, I pulled into the parking lot.”

Time for one trip around the world--or one trip across the San Gabriel Valley: about an hour and a half.

La Verne doesn’t smack of Hollywood--please don’t confuse it with the character in the TV series “Laverne and Shirley”--but the city’s United Methodist Church did have a supporting role in the movie, “The Graduate.”

It appeared in the scene in which Dustin Hoffman pounds on the glass door of a church to thwart the wedding of his beloved to another suitor.

Unfortunately, the church didn’t stand up so well to the pounding of the Upland quake the other day. A large window pane was knocked out.

It’s sort of ironic when you remember that a character in “The Graduate” whispers to Hoffman that the word of the future is: “Plastics.”

Civic Center resident Jack Biggs writes that he’s noticed something alarming about the TV show “Alien Nation,” which is set in L.A. in 1995 following the landing of thousands of creatures from outer space.

“No one ever rides a subway,” noted Biggs. “Do the producers know something--that maybe Metro Rail still won’t be finished by 1995?

“Even with help from another planet?”

Here’s the good news, though. The show also gives no indication that the Raiders will still be in L.A. in 1995.

Despite the continuing snub by “Alien Nation,” Metro Rail unveiled its new logo the other day. No doubt you’re wondering how such a wild, glitzy symbol was designed. (How did they ever come up with that letter?)

Well, the press release from the L.A. County Transportation Commission and the Rapid Transit District reveals the answer:

“LACTC’s Ann Roubideaux designed the logo with input from LACTC graphic designer Larry Gallagher and a joint committee composed of LACTC and RTD staff . . . Sanchez Kamps Associates Design, the designer of Metro Blue Line signage, also participated in the process. Top management of the LACTC and RTD both approved the final design.”

Another memorable example of art by committee.