Odds & Ends Around the Valley

Mapping It Out

The war in the Persian Gulf is causing a run on map stores.

Brian Draper at Geographia in Burbank said that gulf-related maps have been “flying out of my store” and that every other customer or caller is asking for one.

“It started with people in the media coming in and buying them, and now it’s people with friends or family over there,” he said.

Draper’s best sellers are the Hammond Middle East Crisis Map at $5.95, Bartholomew at $9.50 and a gulf map with a blowup inset of Iraq for $19.95.

He said many of his customers are waiting for the Rand McNally map coming out soon; it is a copy of the Defense Mapping Agency production.

Debbie Tibor, owner of Maps etc in Canoga Park, said her store is experiencing a lot of activity as well and that it’s been hard keeping up.

“It started about September, when the President started sending troops to the gulf, and things really escalated around Jan. 15,” she said.

One of her best sellers is the Mideast Crisis Map put out by Chusa; it sells for $7.95 on paper and $12.95 laminated.

The other is the Desert Shield Operations Map, distributed by USA Maps, which sells for $11.95 laminated.

Tibor said most of her customers have friends or family over there, or just want to understand things.

She has had to disappoint people who want a street map of Baghdad, and the one who wanted a map showing nerve gas and nuclear installations.

She also said she helped a man who rushed in saying he was from a national magazine and needed to fax a map of the area to a correspondent who was there.

Carting Away

People generally take shopping carts from supermarkets because they are on foot and have bought more than they can carry.

Vons supermarket in Tarzana estimates that about 40 carts are taken off its premises every day and have to be rounded up by box boys or girls, or by a wrangler.

The market uses the services of Radar, an independent contractor, to go around the neighborhood and collect the carts, picking up $10 to $12 per truckload.

It gets to be expensive, store manager Vince Eichten said, but it’s cheaper than having to buy new carts.

Stores such as Vons, Lucky and Mrs. Gooch’s pay between $90 and $150 for each of these little mobile luggers, and have between 75 and 250 at each location, so the investment is not inconsequential.

Most stores say the carts are taken by old people, people who don’t have cars and sometimes by homeless people who live out of them.

Most people could empathize with that, but some of the other reasons don’t generate much sympathy.

Eichten said people sell the carts for scrap, and others peddle them to mom-and-pop stores that don’t have carts of their own.

Carolyn Simpson at Mrs. Gooch’s in Northridge said she has heard that youngsters steal them for the wheels and use them for go-carts.

Meredith Anderson, a spokeswoman for Lucky, said the problem is so serious that the chain is initiating a pilot program at several stores, including its market on Central Avenue in Glendale.

The program, already under way, assures that the carts never leave the stores.

After you shop, you bring your car to the loading area and a bagger puts your groceries into your car.

If you don’t have a car, you have to carry the stuff out of the store.

Focus on Homeopathy

If you have friends who are in the know, or somewhere in the vicinity, you have probably heard about homeopathy.

Homeopathy is what trend beasties call the new medicine. It is also known as holistic medicine.

New-Agers and many movie stars are fond of homeopathy. Can the mainstream medical professionals be far behind?

Some of us don’t run with trend beasties and wouldn’t know homeopathy from a lug nut, so Harry F. Swope of Studio City--who describes himself as a doctor of naturopathic medicine--said he can set us straight.

Homeopathy, he said, does not seek to suppress symptoms but to restore the balance of health by reinforcing the healing powers naturally and gently.

He talks a lot about getting the body and mind into alignment and the sort of stuff that’s meant to sound soothing and old-fashioned, yet revolutionary.

The translation is that this guy isn’t going to give you any pain pills, stuff to get you up or down or anything else that will jolt the system.

He’ll tell you to eat right, exercise, get plenty of sleep and knock off stressing out.

That means self-discipline and self-control.

The world probably just isn’t ready.

Overheard

“The expression deja vu doesn’t make me smile any more.” --Diner at Le Cafe in Sherman Oaks