The teen-age suspect was brought into the...

The teen-age suspect was brought into the vice principal’s office at Glendale Hoover High, where she recognized nearly a dozen of her co-conspirators, all looking crestfallen. The others had already confessed to participating in a senior class tradition of decorating the quad area with such items as toilet paper, an old couch, a canoe and myriad business and construction signs “borrowed” from the community.

“Where were you that night?” Vice Principal Kevin Welsh demanded.

“You know, like I was, like, you know. . . .”

“This isn’t ‘The Wonder Years,’ ” Welsh said. “You better come clean with me.”

After confessing, she and the others were told that they would, of course, return all the property and pay for any damage that they might have caused.

In addition, the students would be suspended for five days, and then transferred to Glendale High--their bitter rival.

“But it was just a prank,” the girl said.

Welsh smiled.

“And this is my prank,” he said.

Her classmates, each of whom had undergone the same questioning, burst into laughter.

Browsing in a music store, Linda Reid of West L.A. came upon a display of $12 tapes of several rock albums-- sans vocals.

“There was a sign that said something like, ‘You be the lead singer,’ ” she continued. The display included a tape of a Milli Vanilli album.

“Gee, I guess they’d need to buy one of their own tapes,” Reid said.

No sooner did we clear up the dispute over whether cowboy star Tom Mix’s horse was Old Blue or Tony--he actually rode both--than we were bucked off our computer by a reference book that said Dale Evans’ mount was Buttercup.

We published that statement, and Sarah Drake of Hollywood and other readers pointed out that her horse was Butter milk . Another sour chapter for Only in L.A.

Donna Feix of the Roy Rogers Museum tried to comfort us.

“You aren’t the first one to make that mistake,” she said. “One trivia book has it wrong and one has it right. We get several calls a week from people all over the country. People are always making office bets about it.”

Buttermilk (1941-1972), by the way, is in the Victorville museum along with Trigger, Trigger Jr., Bullet (Roy’s dog) and Nellybelle (sidekick Pat Brady’s jeep).

Life must have been hard for Dale’s horse in some ways. After all, Buttermilk was a he.

miscelLAny:

Old-timers no doubt recall when L.A.’s 63-year-old City Hall was the tallest building in the city, and the sole exception to a 150-foot limit for buildings. That law was lifted in 1959. Nowadays, the 28-story, 454-foot landmark ranks 24th in the city in height.