Mind if I chew? We’re proud to...

Mind if I chew? We’re proud to report that Southern California’s eaters are the target of a full-page ad in Newsweek magazine. “When dining in L.A. restaurants where smoking’s not allowed,” the pitch suggests, “take along Wrigley’s Spearmint gum.”

Fine. But if this alternative catches on, we hope that restaurateurs will have the courtesy to set aside a no-gum-snapping section. The ear damage from secondhand popping should not be underestimated.

And we assume that diners will follow the old schoolroom dictum that if one person brings gum into a restaurant, he or she will also bring gum for everyone.

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Smokey, bear: Just the other day we were discussing whether the U.S. Forest Service’s symbol has a middle name--mainly, “the.” After all, a famous song refers to him as “Smokey the Bear.” But the lyricist appears to be in the minority.

We’re siding with Caltrans, which recently re-christened Hungry Valley Road near Gorman off Interstate 5 as Smokey Bear Road.

Considering the agency involved, we consider the name change a reminder to be careful in forests as well as on freeways, which are patrolled by CHP officers in Smokey the Bear hats. Pardon us, Smokey Bear hats.

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The controversial Mrs. Smokey: Not that anyone would doubt Caltrans, but we are also in receipt of a note from Wiley Barker, who declares: “It is Smokey Bear, just as it is Steve Harvey, not Steve THE Harvey.”

Barker speaks as an authority because, he says, it was his uncle, a game warden, who bestowed the name upon the burned cub found clinging to a blackened tree in New Mexico in 1950.

An icon brought to life, Smokey moved to Washington, D.C., where he died in 1976 at the age of 26. For a bear (or a rock ‘n’ roll star), that’s about the equivalent of 70 in human years.

Smokey, like many celebrities, didn’t enjoy a fully satisfying life, sad to say. He was mated with a female named Goldie in 1962 but theirs was a cool relationship. She even socked him at his public retirement ceremony in 1975.

Then, again, when they became a couple, Smokey was 11 and Goldie was 1. Talk about robbing the cradle.

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No sowing: We think of Pasadena as a staid, reserved sort of place. So we weren’t surprised by the shot of the sign that Edwin Schander sent along. But Schander explained that the warning actually refers to a nearby health food store called Wild Oats, whose customers were allegedly parking illegally in the lot.

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More tributes to the English language: Sherry Gottlieb of Santa Monica found a glaring omission from our list of beautiful passages that deserve to be included in KLSX radio’s coming “Poetry of Rock” exhibit of “handwritten, signed lyrics to classic songs.”

In her novel, “Love Bite,” Gootlieb recalls this line from the song, “Witch Doctor”: “Ou-ee, ou-ah-ah, ting-tang, walla-walla bing-bang.”

Which is a good way to sign off.

Until Thursday, this is Steve The Harvey.

miscelLAny:

We spotted a truck owned by one discount chain that said: “Driver carries only 99 cents.” Funny, but we can’t remember the name of the chain.