Custer’s last strip:The Gene Autry Museum is...

Custer’s last strip:

The Gene Autry Museum is holding an exhibition through Sept. 2 on Gen. George Custer, and “exhibition” is the right word. A display case holds the “personal undergarments” of the ill-fated Indian fighter, which “remind us that beneath his buckskin veil, Custer was as real as anyone else.” The artifacts include a pair of his socks and his “suspensory,” better known these days as a jock strap.

OFFERS THAT’LL KNOCK YOUR SOCKS OFF: The photos in today’s Only in L.A. Super Shopper layout illustrate the amazing array of items for sale or rent in the Southland these days, from a single guy and a palm tree stump to a telephone company.

A SUBURB BARES ALL: Some things you probably didn’t know about Lakewood, as recounted in “Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir,” by D. J. Waldie. The author grew up in Lakewood, incorporated in 1954 and one of the first planned cities of the post-war era.

* The houses in the original tract (priced at $7,000 to $8,000) came with such optionals as an O’Keefe & Merritt gas range, a Norge refrigerator and a Bendix Economat washing machine. The price: An additional monthly charge of $9 per appliance, added to the mortgage.

* Every house had a garbage disposal, prompting developers to claim it was “the only garbage-free city in the world.”

* The city named streets after gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, radio-TV characters Amos and Andy (Amos Avenue and Andy Drive intersect), comedian Buddy Hackett, First Lady Mamie Eisenhower and Freckles (“a dead cocker spaniel, run over by a car”).

* Builders of the Lakewood Mall envisioned a system of colored lights at the end of each row of parking places that would alert drivers when a spot was available. The plan was later abandoned.

* The city no longer sends mail to 18 people, such as the man who returned his letters “unopened and stamped with a bewildering number of biblical and political exhortations.”

* An ordinance requires a city-funded tree in every front yard. Waldie, a public information officer in Lakewood, says some residents dislike the blossoms or the shade and kill their tree by various ingenious methods. The city will replace a dead tree twice. After the death of a third tree, the space is left vacant.

By the way, you can’t rent a tree in Lakewood.

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Efren Cabrera of Duarte ordered some items from an Orange pet supply shop and was shocked to see the following line on the bottom of his receipt: “May your summer be flea-infested.”