We wondered aloud the other day about...

We wondered aloud the other day about a reference in a 1941 L.A. tour guide to a former “pest farm” in Chavez Ravine. Irene Dalrymple of Gardena knew what it was: A hospital for contagious diseases.

“I was an inmate there when I was 12,” she writes. “There was an outbreak of smallpox in the summer of 1924. My sister and I and a number of kids from St. Cecilia’s grammar school at 42nd and Normandie caught the disease. I remember being a little frightened when the ambulance arrived.

“However, it turned out to be more like a summer camp. We had a great time playing in the sun, clad only in a pair of coveralls so the pustules would dry up. We slept in dormitories and ate at long tables. Our parents visited us behind a high wire fence across a strip of no-man’s-land.”

Fortunately, the sisters recovered within two weeks. Summer camp was over for them.

The board game “U.S.C.opoly,” which we discussed the other day, makes a crack about the school’s tradition of crooked student elections.

“U.C.L.A.opoly,” which we must mention in journalistic (and civic) fairness, jokes about Bruin students ditching class for the beach, the lack of campus parking (“You’ve been towed! Lose one turn”) and rowdy fraternities (“You are assessed for room damages . . . “).

The UCLA game outsells the USC version, says Bill Schulte, a spokesman for the manufacturer. But he noted that in Orange County, home of about 20,000 USC alumni, “We have stores tell us they wouldn’t consider carrying the UCLA game.”

Hence, the area’s nickname: Baja USC.

Cyndi Mitchell, the Westchester woman who placed 500 signs on city poles appealing for information on her three lost dogs last week, still hasn’t heard whether the city will follow through on its threat to fine her $1,000. The signs were on city poles in violation of the law.

She’s since removed most of the signs. “And I’ve stopped receiving calls from people who think they’ve seen them,” she added.

The dogs--a black Doberman mix, a gray German shepherd and a white cocker spaniel--are still missing. But her searching hasn’t all been in vain. She said she was able to return five other stray dogs to their owners.

When they placed an 1840s-style covered wagon outside their entrance, the owners of a country music saloon in Long Beach unwittingly exposed the vehicle to some 1990s-style hazards, notes resident Barry Colman.

The canvas of the wagon has been covered with gang graffiti.

With a full moon on Dec. 1, and another scheduled for Dec. 31, we could be in for some wacky behavior. Maybe that explains why two guys were punching it out in the fast lane of the Hollywood Freeway during a traffic jam Thursday morning.

miscelLAny:

Among the 305,939 newcomers issued driving licenses in L.A. County during a recent 12-month period, there were 32,328 from Orange County, 7,670 from New York, 642 from the Soviet Union, 629 from Mississippi, 135 from Italy and 3 from Barbados.