NAME GAME: When Glendale resident John Cochran...

NAME GAME: When Glendale resident John Cochran calls, people listen. . . . The 57-year-old finance executive is constantly mistaken on the telephone for O.J. Simpson’s defense attorney, Johnnie Cochran Jr. So far, it’s actually helped business. Says his wife, Karen: “When he makes calls across the country, he usually gets calls back right away. They want to know if it’s the Johnnie Cochran.”

WOODSMAN, SPARE . . . : Environmentalists were outraged to discover developers of a Valencia shopping complex had chopped down 105 oak trees. “I feel like I lost my friends,” said Lynne Plambeck after seeing the downed trees. The developers point out they won a court battle over the issue, legally entitling them to cut the trees (B4). . . . The tree-cutting permit, however, requires them to plant twice the number of trees destroyed.

APOLLO LANDING: It’s no moon walk, but former astronaut Fred W. Haise Jr. finally has made a walk of fame. . . . Best known as the lunar-module pilot in the true-life drama that inspired the movie “Apollo 13,” Haise, above, will be inducted with five other pilots to the City of Lancaster’s Aerospace Walk of Honor on Sept. 17. Haise, who never made it to the moon, is expected to attend.

HIGH STAKES: It was no surprise when Dalton Backus went on television to warn consumers about counterfeit credit cards. He was, after all, a North Hollywood plastic-card manufacturer. But then Backus was arrested last week . . . for allegedly handing over 500 fake cards to a Secret Service informant. The arrest topped an investigation into credit card fraud in California, which accounts for about 25% of such fraud worldwide (B1).

FAMILY TIES: When Ellen Geer decided to do a play on Hollywood blacklisting in the 1950s, she didn’t have far to look for inspiration. Her father was blacklisted. . . . Geer’s play, “. . . and the Dark Cloud Came,” opens tonight in Topanga (F1).