He had a civil explanation: Police rushed...

He had a civil explanation: Police rushed to an elementary school in Chatsworth to check out a report that a man wearing Army fatigues and carrying a rifle was parked across the street. Later, says television newsman Bob Tur, the police radioed back that the rifleman had actually been invited to the school as a guest speaker. He was dressed in a Civil War costume.

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Further proof that there’s no free lunch: Robert Singer thought it odd when a man claiming to be a food critic for The Times phoned his restaurant and announced that he (1) would be dining there and (2) expected Singer to pay for his meal.

“I’d never been asked to comp a meal by a reporter before,’ said Singer, owner of the Cheese and Olive Trattoria in Marina del Rey. (Most newspapers, including The Times, require food critics to pay for restaurant meals.)

When the self-professed writer arrived, he produced a (fake) Times I.D., which gave his name as Gerald Dalton. (No such person writes for The Times.) When Singer asked for more proof, the impostor excused himself to phone his boss--and never returned.

So, be on the lookout, maitre d’s. A man using the same fake I.D. also tried unsuccessfully to mooch a meal off a Los Feliz restaurant the other day.

Looking back on the incident at the Cheese and Olive, Singer said that what really him tipped off was the impostor’s reaction when the owner refused to give him a free $29 bottle of wine.

Singer recalled: “He said, in that case, he’d have a beer.”

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Scuba, scuba don’t: No doubt ex-Bradley aide Tom Houston would have been pleased at the outset of his mayoral campaign if someone had told him that he would be mentioned in a prominent national magazine along the way. Unfortunately, when it happened, the magazine was Sports Illustrated and the story focused on his abortive attempt to stage an underwater news conference in scuba gear.

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Tall order: Ever since Dooley’s announced it would be shutting down, the owners of the 73-year-old Long Beach store have been receiving calls from buyers, renters and giant lumberjack fans.

That last category includes those interested in the company’s two-story, Bunyan-esque mascot.

“We don’t know what to do with it,” said part-owner Randy Nisbet. “A lot of people phone and say they’ll give us $100 for it and haul it away themselves. We’d sooner just leave it here (for whoever takes over the property).”

The lumberjack has identical siblings at a golf course in Carson, a gas station in East L.A. and a tire store in Van Nuys, among other spots. But the big guys, manufactured by a Venice fiberglass firm a quarter-century ago, are a fading species, mostly because of more restrictive sign ordinances.

It would be a shame to see the lumberjack buried in a landfill. Hard to believe that there isn’t a single Old Mascots Home in the area.

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Two centuries later, motorists trying to reach the San Fernando Valley from downtown L.A. face the same question: What’s the best route? When the Spanish expedition of Gaspar de Portola left the L.A. basin in 1769, it reached the Valley via the Sepulveda Pass (now the 405), rather than the Cahuenga Pass (101). Traffic was light that day.