It did seem like a strange place...

It did seem like a strange place to stash a stolen car: The police radio frequency crackled with the report of a stolen 1992 Honda Accord. Fortunately, it was equipped with a LoJack alarm system. Officers in a patrol car vectored in with the directional-finding equipment and tracked it to a parking lot . . . at the West Valley police station in Reseda.

The pursuing cops said they would stake out the joint.

But they soon discovered that the car was not stolen, after all. LoJack spokesman John Raber said it had been towed there by parking enforcement officers. What had happened was that the distraught owner, unaware of the towing, had reported it to police as stolen, triggering the LoJack signal.

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The Hat was back . . . But, alas, only temporarily. L.A. resident Don Manning snapped a photo of a mock version of the Original Brown Derby in the celebrity haunt’s old perch--on Wilshire Boulevard across from the defunct Ambassador Hotel. The occasion was the filming of a movie about a 1950s director.

The Original Brown Derby--built in 1926 by a restaurateur who reputedly bet he could sell good food out of a derby--closed in 1980.

The original Original hasn’t disappeared completely, though. Like a once-famous star now reduced to bit roles, a portion of the derby sits atop a Korean restaurant in a mini-mall around the corner.

The quotable Reagan: Adam Meyerson, editor of the conservative Heritage Foundation magazine, recently charged that the latest Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations virtually ignores Ronald Reagan, who merits only three pearls.

One concerned the Republican Party, one the evils of government and one was about hunger: “It’s difficult to believe that people are starving in this country because food isn’t available.”

The ex-President receives more extensive attention in another quotation book. A dozen Reaganisms, including, “When you see one redwood, you’ve seen them all,” are lovingly recounted in “The 776 Stupidest Things Ever Said,” by Ross and Kathryn Petras.

And, yes, Bill (I Didn’t Inhale) Clinton also gets a mention.

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List of the Day: Some entries featured in “Driveways of the Rich & Famous ‘Recipe Booklet, Vol. 1, No. 1’ ” by John Cunningham, intrepid host of the “Driveways” public access TV show:

* “George Burns’ Gardener’s Tacos”

* “Peter Falk’s Housekeeper’s Peanut Butter Cookies”

* “Bette Davis’ Doorman’s Sloppy Joes”

* “Shelley Winter’s Neighbor’s Rum Cake”

There’s more here than the drama over what ingredients the neighbors and associates of stars use, too. Oh yes.

“Those who tuned in last time will remember an interview with Shelley Winters’ neighbor,” Cunningham notes. “When it aired in Beverly Hills, she (Winters) spoke out quite loudly to her cable company about it. In the new episode of ‘Driveways,’ find out the details of that angry call and hear again from the neighbor, who offers his apologies to Shelley with this family recipe for rum cake.”

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Strip or treat: One Long Beach resident was surprised on Halloween night when a youngster handed her an item. It was a check she had written a few hours earlier to a male stripper who had performed at a bridal shower at her house. The stripper had apparently dropped the check on the front lawn as he was leaving, perhaps because he didn’t have any pockets.

miscelLAny:

A mail survey by Opinion Research Corp. of Princeton, N.J., found that 82% of the residents of L.A. rate the U.S. Postal Service as excellent, very good or good. We assume, of course, that all the filled-out entries that were mailed to the survey company’s headquarters reached there.