<i> Snapshots of life in the Golden State.</i> : You May Spell <i> Potato,</i> but State Spells <i> Potatoe</i>

Did Dan Quayle learn how to spell the word potato by studying the official State of California telephone directory?

Right there on Page 39, the state’s potato marketing advisory board is listed as the “California POTATOE Research Advisory Board.”

Board manager Jim Melban, contacted by The Times, said he had not noticed the phone directory misspelling. “We never phone ourselves,” Melban said, by way of explanation.

The spud czar theorized that the spelling goof “is an easy mistake to make” since the to in potato sounds the same as “the toe at the end of your foot.”

“Not that I’m one to make excuses for the vice president,” Melban added. “He makes enough excuses for himself.”

SANTA BARBARA STORIES

Road signs: “Fat Point” is dead but “Dead Indian” is still alive in Santa Barbara.

The City Council voted unanimously to change the name of a block of Punta Gorda Street to Calle Puerto Vallarta. “The name (Punta Gorda) is not particularly appealing when translated into English,” said Mayor Sheila Lodge.

However, a concurrent request to change Indio Muerto Street--where the body of an Indian was found in 1851--to Indio Vivo (Live Indian) Street was rejected unanimously by the council.

Neighborhood residents and city planners had opposed the change, saying it would prove an inconvenience and that it flew in the face of historical fact.

Countered social activist Melissa Ramsey: “This hideous street name reflects the ‘only good Indian is a dead Indian’ school of thought.”

Leather in the lair: For months, footwear had been disappearing at a dizzying pace from doorsteps and yards in an oceanfront neighborhood of Santa Barbara. “Everybody was losing shoes,” said abalone diver Gary Johnson, who had soccer cleats, tennis shoes and a pair of Air Jordans pilfered.

Finally, Johnson decided to act, rigging a pressure switch to a shoe and connecting it to an electric horn in his bedroom. At midnight the buzzer blared and after a brief search, Johnson found a young red tail fox crossing the lawn, shoe in its mouth.

In a nearby canyon, Johnson uncovered a fox lair--containing 84 pairs of shoes and 130 singles, as well as baseball mitts and copies of the Santa Barbara News-Press, the Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal.

State Fish and Game Warden Natasha Lohmus theorized that the fox turned to thievery to satisfy a craving for nutrients. “Sweat is very salty,” Lohmus said. “If they’re not getting enough salt in their diets, they’ll find other sources.”

She had no idea, however, why they took the newspapers. “They’re just mischievous.”

Cattle Rustling

Cattle are still being rustled in California, although it is more likely to be done by truck and trailer these days than with a horse and lasso. Some cattle are stolen, others slaughtered for parts in the field. Below are the numbers of beef and dairy cattle reported rustled over the last three years:

NUMBER YEAR OF CATTLE VALUE 1991 1,477 $539,106 1990 2,041 $893,936 1989 1,937 $925,453

Source: California Department of Food and Agriculture, Bureau of Livestock Identification, Sacramento.

--Compiled by researcher Tracy Thomas

FAMILY FEUDS

Discombobulating dynasty: California’s most visible family feud--the one pitting former San Francisco Mayor Joseph L. Alioto against his children and granddaughter--has taken a turn for the worse.

The Aliotos, once viewed as the Bay Area’s answer to the Kennedy clan, have been ripped apart by public money squabbles that began with a lawsuit by granddaughter Michela Alioto against the former mayor.

Michela, 24, is seeking to recover $1.9 million she says was loaned to her grandfather’s law firm from a legal settlement stemming from a ski-lift accident when she was 12 that left her unable to walk.

Now, for the third time in three years, an Alioto son has quit the patriarch’s law firm--once among the largest antitrust practices in the nation--to set up his own firm.

In this case, son John announced the breakaway in a San Francisco legal newspaper ad that stated that the office of Alioto & Alioto had changed its address. The next day, the senior Alioto countered with a larger ad, claiming that the name Alioto & Alioto belonged to him.

At last check, receptionists for both law firms were answering their phones the same way: Alioto & Alioto.

EXIT LINE

“When you look at life in California through a glass darkly--or, some would say, through a glass clearly--what you see is earthquakes, drought, floods, sex crimes, drive-bys, plagues, bikers dealing methamphetamine, smog, insect infestations, pesticide raining from the sky, pollution, traffic jams, schools that would make Mississippi blush, fatal undertows, jackknifed big rigs, toxic derailments, shellfish quarantines, mind-eating cults and Monopoly money housing prices. (And) those were the good old days.”

--columnist Bill Mandel in the San Francisco Examiner.