OUCH: Flu season looms, along with those...

OUCH: Flu season looms, along with those pesky flu shots. . . . The county (652-5918) has 12,000 doses available this year, aimed at the elderly, those with chronic medical conditions, and certain health-care workers and care-givers. If that’s not you, call the Livingston Memorial Visiting Nurse Assn. [(800) 616-SHOT], and they’ll inoculate you for $10. . . . Lin Glusac, immunization coordinator for the county, says the biggest misconception about the shots is that they can cause the flu. “You can get side effects--feel kind of lethargic or have a small temperature--but you cannot get the flu. It’s a killed vaccine.”

SPORTS PROBE: Robert Troy Caron, the Oxnard sports agent accused of NCAA rule violations, was a standout Ventura High School football player who has kept his will to win, his friends say (C1). . . . “Bobby is so competitive, he would push the envelope to the max,” says Phil Passno, a former business partner of Caron and a former Ventura College football coach. Caron denies making any illegal payments to players.

TOURING TEACHERS: A dozen instructors from an El Rio elementary school are on a mission--to get parents more involved by visiting them on their own turf (B1). . . . Joined by Principal Garry Galvan, they fan out once a week, knocking on doors and introducing themselves to let parents and guardians know that school isn’t a scary, authoritarian place. . . . The effort educates teachers as well as parents, Galvan says. “My objective is not only to get the parents in, but to get the teachers out.”

IN THE NEWS: One of the editors of tonight’s “Dateline NBC” show--that’s the one with the O. J. interview--is Santa Paula resident Jean MacDonald (A1). . . . The hourlong interview, which will air from NBC’s Burbank studios during an 8 to 11 p.m. edition of the show, could attract one of the largest audiences in TV history.