Sierra Madre, the hamlet at the base...

Sierra Madre, the hamlet at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains, is evidently a bit quieter than L.A.

The Sierra Madre News “Police Blotter” lists mostly infractions such as bicycle thefts, public drunkenness and an occasional house burglary. There was not a single entry for June 8, though.

As the newspaper explained:

“No major crimes were reported.”

More in keeping with the spirit of the Big City is the Southern California Business Opportunity Guide, a compendium of job and investment opportunities. The publication depicts a gunman on the cover.

L.A. school board members at their Monday meeting postponed discussion of a proposal to keep sessions from going past 9 p.m. Reason: They didn’t have any time to discuss it. The board, wrestling with the 1990-91 budget, met until 10:45 p.m.

“Who wears short shorts?” was the philosophical question raised by the Royal Teens in their best-selling record of 1958. Now the issue may go to court.

Venice attorney Stephen Yagman filed suit after he was denied entrance to the California Institute for Women at Frontera to take a deposition from a client. The state--in a 64-page answer to Yagman’s suit--said the attorney was wearing “short shorts” in violation of prison rules.

Yagman, who is asking that he be reimbursed for his expenses in preparing for and traveling to the aborted session, says he was clad in “khaki L. L. Bean walking shorts, whose inseam (measures) 11.5 inches . . . the bottoms of which are three inches from the tops of my knee caps . . . hardly ‘short shorts.’ ”

No word on whether the Royal Teens will be called to testify.

Joe Eisaman of Beverly Hills found an eye-catching misspelling on the corner of Beverly Glen and Sunset boulevards (see photo). What’s really sad is that the booboo is just a few blocks from UCLA--and the eyes of all those impressionable students.

Mention here of the 1928 Newhall train robbery, one of the last in the state, stirred memories for George Drabble of Sherman Oaks.

On a Boy Scout camp-out back then, he got a thorn in his leg that required treatment in the nearby town of Acton. On the hike “down the mountain, we met a horse and rider,” Drabble recalled. “He asked us for directions to Big Tujunga. Like good Boy Scouts, we knelt in the dirt and drew him a map. He thanked us and took off. . . .”

That night, back at the campsite, “we were awakened by horses, flashlights and armed men. It was a sheriff’s posse looking for a train robber. They described the man we had assisted. He had stolen a horse from a Saugus ranch. . . .

“You can imagine the unmerciful ribbing we took. There was talk of a special merit badge for train robbery, but it was never approved!”

miscelLAny:

L.A. County reaches its lowest point in Wilmington, part of which is nine feet below sea level.