Pole position:Ski Demski’s biggest World Series thrill...

Pole position:

Ski Demski’s biggest World Series thrill came when he unfurled his 300-by-160-foot American flag before the fifth game in Cleveland. The Long Beach superpatriot was assisted by 265 local school kids in carrying those giant Stars and Stripes.

“They even got a shot of me on TV,” Demski said. “I was wearing a headdress uhat had a feather from my pet bird, Ruby.”

But one honor has eluded Demski in his own hometown--permission to have his ashes interred in the flagpole in his front yard when the Great Scorer calls his name.

“The City Council said no one can be in there because it [the pole] would have to be classified a cemetery,” Demski recounted. “I said, ‘What about Maloney?’ They said, ‘Who’s Maloney?’ ”

He turned out to be Clem Maloney, a deceased Air Force buddy, whose ashes had already been placed in the pole so they could sit beneath the large American flags that Demski flies.

Maloney’s staying. And Demski hasn’t given up hope in his own case. He said another friend, Long Beach newspaper columnist Tom Hennessy, recently promised him a quick burial service. “He [Hennessy] told me, ‘I’ll have you in that pole before the city even knows you’re dead,’ ” Demski said.

Demski also plans to inter Ruby there, by the way.

WELL, THEY BOTH WORE UNIFORMS: Steve Propes noticed it on a local TV newscast--an item about a welcome home party for Laurence Powell, the ex-cop convicted in the Rodney G. Kingbeating case. The station displayed a photo of another Powell--Colin.

COWABUNGA, DUD: We were all set to award prizes to phone caller Jim Russell and fax sender Tom Cigno for being the first to identify “The Howdy Doody Show” as the TV program that originated the nonsensical expression “cowabunga.”

Then we heard from Tom Ogden, who sent us an excerpt from the book “Howdy and Me,” in which co-author Buffalo Bob Smith says that the term was “kawabonga.” Cheez Louise. Does this mean that readers who suggested a later show--”Soupy Sales,” “Gidget”--are technically the winners? Well, we’ll send the prizes--copies of a documentary on the life of Angelyne the Billboard Queen--to Russell and Cigno and hope the attorneys don’t have a cow.

THUNDERSTRUCK: Oh, yes. John Iverson phoned to say that the “Doody” character who uttered the “kawabonga” exclamation was not Chief Thunderdud, as we said, but Thunderthud.

HINT, HINT: Someone put a “for sale” sign on a car that has been illegally parked in Los Feliz for several days. The sign carries a phone number--for the local police station.

IT’S USUALLY AIMED TOWARD HOLLYWOOD: The police work in the Heidi Fleiss case isn’t the only encouraging sign in the campaign against prostitution. We were also pleased to learn about the detection device on Mt. Wilson: the Hooker Telescope.

miscelLAny In “Howdy and Me,” Buffalo Bob takes issue with the rumor started by “some chowderhead . . . that ‘kawabonga’ signified a profanity, and that when kids at home muttered ‘kawabonga,’ they were cursing. Believe me, I’d never teach a kid a secret way to curse.” Now about, “cowabunga. . . .”