Was the forecast for scattered votes on...

Was the forecast for scattered votes on Election Day? John Hetts of L.A. wonders whether the Nov. 8 election should be invalidated on the basis of a “B.C.” cartoon strip that ran two days earlier.

In that feature, an incumbent named Pete keeps opponents from voting by bringing rainy weather to their cave openings.

“Well, I guess I’ll skip it (the election) this year,” says one Cro-Magnon fellow who had helped erect such signs as “Delete Pete” and “Oust Peter.”

“It seems a bit coincidental, given the miserable weather here in L.A. on Election Day and the reelection of Gov. Wilson,” Hetts says. “Perhaps an investigation into improper contributions from Gov. Wilson’s campaign to the local meteorologists is in order.”

Johnny Mountain and Dallas Raines and you others better not leave town until this is cleared up.

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We hear that Huey, Dewey and Louie are known ticket-scalpers, too: You’ll be seeing a lot of a duck from the Northwest now that the University of Oregon football team has won a Rose Bowl berth.

If the team’s mascot looks suspiciously like Donald Duck, it’s because he is. But don’t worry about the game being held up by an injunction filed by Disney’s ever-vigilant lawyers.

More than half a century ago, Oregon Athletic Director Leo Harris received informal permission from his friend Walt Disney to use Donald as the school symbol. After Walt’s death, Disney’s legal eagles drew up a formal licensing agreement to get a cut of the Oregon Duck souvenir sales.

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Gasoline L.A.: Instead of pounding the steering wheel the next time you’re in a traffic jam, you should feel proud of this area’s contributions, as cited in “The Prize--The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power,” by Daniel Yergin. Some examples:

* “California, and specifically Los Angeles, was the true incubator of the modern service station.” (Yergin points out that “east of the Rockies, such facilities were called ‘filling stations’; west of the Rockies, they were known as ‘service stations.’ ”)

* After the Signal Hill oil strike in the early 1920s, “the next-of-kin of persons buried in the Sunnyside Cemetery on Willow Street would eventually receive royalty checks for oil drawn out from beneath family grave plots.”

* “By 1920, Shell of California was providing free uniforms to attendants and paying for up to three launderings a week. It prohibited the attendants from reading magazines and newspapers while on duty, and its manual forbade the accepting of tips: ‘Air and water is a gratuity which we are expected to render the public.’ ”

Puzzled young readers should ask parents or grandparents to explain what service station “attendants” were.

miscelLAny:

Touting its skiing possibilities, a billboard for Mammoth Mountain brags, “More Face Than Jay Leno.”