What company would hold seminars titled “Leaving...

What company would hold seminars titled “Leaving L.A.” for people who wish to move to the Pacific Northwest?

Greener Pastures Institute, of course.

“We don’t make any recommendations,” said founder Bill Seavey. “But we find there are a lot of people who are worried about the quality of life here.”

What Seavey discusses is “how to transition without being conspicuous. For instance, don’t buy the biggest house on the block. In fact, it’s better to rent first.”

He warns about cities like Seattle, where “an ex-Southern Californian is likely to be ostracized, if not have his car trashed.”

Seavey, who charges $15 for single adults and $28 for couples, will hold his next seminar Jan. 30 at Neighborhood Church in Pasadena.

He left L.A. himself once, moving to Oregon, before resettling in Sierra Madre. “I’m just not a snow person,” he explained.

Does Seavey plan to stay here?

“In California,” he said. “But there’s a definite possibility that I’ll move elsewhere in the state.”

Why?

“Quality of life.”

It sounds like the sort of story that wacky weatherman George Fishbeck would tell. But this comes from Fishbeck’s counterpart at Channel 9, Carl Bell.

A Christmas card addressed to the Weathers family arrived at Bell’s home in Westlake Village and he opened it, figuring it was from “somebody being cute.”

It was a picture card, “but I didn’t know the family,” Bell said. “So I left it for my wife, figuring she knew them.”

His wife, Tracy, didn’t know the family either. But she noticed that the letter had been misdelivered. It was actually addressed to a residence just up the street--the home of the real Weathers family.

“My wife took it over (to the family) and apologized,” Bell said. “You can imagine what they must have thought when she explained, ‘My husband’s a weatherman and and he opened your Christmas card because it was addressed to the Weathers family. . . .”

Pepperdine College, which opened in 1937, adopted “Waves” as the nickname for its athletic teams, a curious choice since it was then located about eight miles from the beach--at Vermont Avenue and 79th Street.

“Waves,” according to a school history, was proposed by some students from Tennessee who were captivated by a trip to the ocean.

The nickname was, of course, retained when the college moved to Malibu in 1972 and became Pepperdine University. But the school has decided to redesign the costume of its unsightly mascot, Willy, who is supposed to resemble a human wave (see unsightly photo).

Some critics have compared the current character to “a fuzzy Smurf,” said Pepperdine spokesman Jeff Bliss. “Some say he looks like a furry banana.”

Perhaps this Willy can find a home at UC Santa Cruz, home of the mighty Banana Slugs.

miscelLAny:

During 1991, there was an average of slightly more than 15 bank robberies per week in the city of Los Angeles.