They must be referring to another Los...
They must be referring to another Los Angeles: The Plano, Tex.-based J.C. Penney Insurance Co. sent out computerized letters across the nation, inserting each resident’s name and city into its ominous pitch. The theme might pack punch in towns the size of Plano, but out here, the Marinelli family wasn’t exactly jolted by the message. It read:
“Joseph Marinelli, it’s a sad fact that accidents can happen any time, anywhere . . . without warning. Even in LOS ANGELES. . . .”
Says Marinelli’s wife, Jean: “And I thought it was so safe here.”
So did we, but then we were shocked that there was gambling in Rick’s Cafe in “Casablanca.”
*
Fire when ready, Frosty: Lenard Mairs of El Monte, a collector of military antiques, has displayed a Civil War-era cannon on his front lawn for 26 years. This holiday season, as Michael Lucas’ photo shows, he summoned a well-known Snowman to active duty, as well as Santa and a couple of aides-de-Claus.
*
You don’t think Only in L.A. is influential?A few weeks after this column published a photo of the unusual car phone at Hampton’s Hollywood Cafe--it’s a 1959 Nash made into a phone booth--a similar item appeared in the National Enquirer.
*
Scales of justice: Several cats and dogs, not to mention one frog, showed up in West L.A. the other day to have their photos taken with Santa Claus at a fund-raiser for the Friends of Animals Foundation. The croaker, an Australian tree-hopper, was accompanied by Mike Harges of Santa Monica. When the foundation’s Mildred Traeger mentioned that she might kiss the critter to see if she could transform it, Harges replied: “That’s OK--but if it turns into a prince, you have to take him home.”
*
Miracle on Los Angeles Street: Well, perhaps that’s a bit of an exaggeration. But it was an early Christmas at the Midnight Mission for several hundred street people who were given $10 each by two car dealers known only as the El Dorado Elves.
The $15,000 handout was a continuation of the 12-year holiday tradition started by a colleague known as Cadillac Santa, who died in 1992.
“For weeks, people have been coming up to me saying, ‘Is Santa coming today?’ ” said mission director Clancy Imislund. “Every day I’d say, ‘No.’ Today when I said, ‘I don’t know,’ the word went out on the street. They knew this was the day.”
Imislund said the line outside the mission was the most orderly it had been all year.
“I found out about the visit after I got to work today,” Imislund quipped. “I didn’t even have time to get my old clothes on.”
miscelLAny The intracity rivalry never stops. No sooner did we run a photo of a crumbling UCLA sign that said “RUIN WALK” than we were informed that a multiplex theater in the shadow of USC is playing, “Dumb and Dumber.”
