Ah, the Christmas spirit: John Wilson of...

Ah, the Christmas spirit: John Wilson of Venice spotted a hand-printed sign off the San Diego Freeway that said, “Trees for Sale, Cheap as Hell.”

It’s been a big week for bizarre freeway obstructions. The Artesia was closed the other night after some suspected armed robbers threw a couple of hundred dollars out their windows during a chase.

Nighttime traffic also slowed near the Pomona’s Euclid Avenue off-ramp in Ontario. The problem: Motorists were slowing to gaze at a huge Christmas light display at one residence.

And then there was what KNX traffic reporter Bill Keene calls his “first ever ‘Dog-Alert.’ ”

A pack of wild dogs charged onto the Glendale Freeway north of the Echo Park area, causing the freeway to be shut down for about 15 minutes while authorities rounded up the intruders.

Keene called it: “A six-pack of curs.”

Jeff Daniels of Playa del Rey wonders if the mutant chicken described in the accompanying ad has two heads or, maybe, three wings.

Friday marks the 50th anniversary of the death of F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose final (unfinished) work, “The Last Tycoon,” is considered one of the best novels about Hollywood.

Fitzgerald, 44, died of a heart attack in the West Hollywood apartment of his lover, Sheilah Graham, a few blocks from his own residence on North Laurel Avenue.

In her book, “Beloved Infidel,” Graham reminisced about how she and Fitzgerald (who was on the wagon) would go “shopping at night in the supermarkets on Sunset Boulevard, or spend an hour in Schwab’s drugstore.” Fitzgerald enjoyed reciting Keats as they walked in the darkness and “sometimes a passerby stared at us and I would burst out laughing, but Scott would maintain a stern demeanor.”

A few months ago, a group on a literary tour of L.A. made a pilgrimage to Fitzgerald’s old apartment, only to be shooed away by the current tenant, who said she was weary of the novelist’s admirers knocking at her door.

And so we beat on . . .

Santa Monica, which is a bit different, may be the only city that can boast that its last three mayors have been arrested at anti-nuclear demonstrations in Nevada.

miscelLAny:

In 1948, Emmanuel Lutheran Church in North Hollywood became the first place of worship to inaugurate drive-in services. About 120 cars gathered on the church playground while ushers walked from driver to driver, passing out hymnals and taking collections. The drive-in services were discontinued about two decades ago.