It could be worse:While you sweat out...
It could be worse:
While you sweat out the heat wave, you can take solace in pioneer Boyle Workman’s description of 1870s L.A. “Artificial ice was unknown,” he wrote. “Natural ice was shipped down from Truckee and stored in the ice house on Main Street, and it was very expensive.”
THE BIG CHILL: The cold stuff was more prevalent by the 1930s, as you can see in the accompanying photos from Thomas Pleasure’s 1995 Venice Beach Historical Calendar. Yes, even back then, Venice was offbeat.
INQUIRING MINDS: A friend of ours received a phone call from the Auto Club, which is his insurance carrier.
“Was that your voice on the answering machine?” the Auto Club rep asked.
Taken aback, our friend said it was. But why did the Auto Club want to know?
Well, the rep explained, some people are untruthful when they state on their insurance forms that they’re the only drivers in their household.
“What if I had David Letterman’s voice on my answering machine?” our friend asked. “Would I have to pay for his insurance, too?”
“No,” the Auto Club rep answered. “But we would question you about that.”
THE NEWS REPORTS ARE DEPRESSING ENOUGH: Repeats of the TV programs “Baywatch” and “Lou Grant” this week coincidentally dealt with budget-cutting by the L.A. County Board of Supervisors.
THE MAURICE TAPES: We reported that if you slow down the tape of “Beauty and the Beast” in the scene where Crazy Old Maurice is lost on horseback, you’ll see that he comes to a signpost with arrows pointing toward Newhall and Valencia. (It was a little joke on the part of the Disney animators.)
We didn’t think that any readers actually would check up on us. (Is there no trust left?) But, sure enough, Michelle Walker of Calabasas and Ivan Keithley of Northridge had to see for themselves. And each noticed that there’s also a third arrow pointing toward . . . Anaheim.
OK, OK. We didn’t mention it because Anaheim’s out of our jurisdiction. Besides, we’ve never forgiven Anaheim for stealing the Rams.
FAULTY PREMISE?The Los Angeles Marketing Partnership, which was formed to improve the city’s image, received a telephone message from a helpful resident. It said: “The media should stop covering so many earthquakes because it’s bad for property values.”
L.A. BY THE NUMBERS: When Herbert Medina, an assistant math professor at Loyola Marymount, made a phone list for his calculus class, he discovered he had students with numbers in the 213, 310, 714 and 818 area codes. “Only California, Illinois, New York, Texas and Pennsylvania have more area codes than our class of 14,” he pointed out.
THAT PERSONAL TOUCH: “You mentioned a reader who received a form letter addressed to ‘No Name,’ ” writes Jan Haas of Pacific Palisades. “I think I can match that: I got a piece of junk mail addressed to ‘End of Roll.’ ”
miscelLAny One of the sponsors for local TV re-runs of “Dynasty” is Rubber Tree, a Long Beach store that dispenses adult sexual items. We doubt that Alexis would be shocked.
