The chain unbroken: A dealer came into...

The chain unbroken: A dealer came into the Sherman Oaks Antique Mall with some pieces of jewelry to sell, including a gold-plated, sterling silver bracelet.

“I had a bracelet like this once,” commented Lois Queener, a saleswoman at the store. Queener looked at it more closely. “This is my bracelet,” she said. She pointed out the inscription, “Lois, 6-8-45,” a reference to the year she graduated from Northeast High in Kansas City, Mo. The bracelet, a gift from a boyfriend, disappeared years later.

Queener remembered that one link had been broken. “I just had that link repaired,” said the surprised dealer, who had purchased it at a thrift shop in Wisconsin.

The bracelet is back in Queener’s possession now. Her boss, Rick Johnson, was so touched by the story that he bought it for her for $60. The dealer was so touched by the story that she dropped her original asking price of $75.

The one, the only: Zsa Zsa Gabor was one of several celebrities who attended a Skid Row Christmas party thrown by the Fred Jordan Mission. Gabor wished the children, “Feliz Navidad,” then added: “I don’t know how to say Happy New Year in Spanish but I can say it in French.” Say good night, Zsa Zsa.

Equal time: Three high school students appeared at a meeting of the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority to read award-winning essays on why the airport is important to the community. Afterward, one of the airport’s persistent critics collared a Times reporter and offered a statement to “counter what was said up there.” Too bad he was too old to enter the contest.

When turning the other cheek doesn’t work: In a neighborhood newspaper ad, Mrs. Kaz Tanaka of L.A. found more evidence of the cultural diversity of L.A.

Recommended marquee reading: Near USC, Barry Sloan of Sherman Oaks found what he believes to be the longest short story to appear on a movie marquee, a tale about a besieged Mohican communicating in the darkness (see photo). Sloan’s all-time favorite marquee story, however, was:

She’s Having a Baby

Batteries Not Included.

miscelLAny:

Old Route 66, created 66 years ago, was the inspiration for “a chain of service stations in the 1960s (that) hoped to capitalize on the mystique . . . with their Phillips 66 stations,” writes L.A. city historian John Fisher. “Their logo displayed the ‘US’ shield. Apparently, the management was unaware of route simplification enacted in 1964 that would result in a renumbering of routes throughout the United States. By the 1970s, Phillips 66 disappeared faster than the route itself.”