Snapshots of life in the Golden State. : Elusive Reptile Fuels Bay Area Newspaper Feud

The elusive baby alligator or whatever it is residing in San Francisco’s Mountain Lake has now become a pawn in the never-ending publicity war between the city’s dueling newspapers, the Chronicle and the Examiner.

Two weeks ago, the Examiner ran a “Name the Gator” contest. Then, the Chronicle hired professional alligator hunter Jim Long, flying him out from Florida to search for the reptile.

Claiming that the Chronicle’s gator guy was “a reptile hit man,” the Examiner sent its own executive editor and a reporter in scuba gear to rescue the reptile, only to be turned away at water’s edge by police. (No swimming in the lake.)

But, no, that wasn’t enough. A week ago, the Chronicle started a “Gator Watch.” The Examiner said it was contacting a psychic.

So far the gator has trumped all of them, including the professional gator hunter. Meanwhile, gator-mania continues to spread. The San Francisco Boys Chorus showed up on the muddy banks of the lake to croon “Puff the Magic Dragon”--to no avail.

In the midst of all this, San Francisco Zoo officials who are charged with actually locating the mystery animal, which could be a caiman, have stopped searching until the commotion subsides. “One of our keepers said he can pretty much sense the vibrations,” said Nancy Chan, director of public relations for the zoo.

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Found any plaid skirts yet? When renovation started on the landmark building across from Mission Dolores in San Francisco, an archeologist was on site, as required by law, to evaluate just what might be dug up. But no one guessed that the turn-of-the-century building would reveal a surprisingly intact treasure trove of artifacts from a post-Gold Rush era Catholic girls school.

“It’s a snapshot in time,” says Miley Holman, a San Francisco archeologist and consultant.

It turns out that the site had been home to a Catholic girls school possibly dating to the 1850s. That school was torn down and rebuilt in the 1890s. But when the 1906 earthquake ignited a fire that raged across the city, the building was dynamited to serve as a firebreak.

“The entire contents of the girls school as of 1906. Zap. In the basement,” Holman says.

The building now under renovation was erected on part of that old foundation. It, too, served as a girls school run by the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur until 1981. Among the discoveries so far: porcelain dolls, a rosary, a hair comb, a nail file with an elaborate ivory handle, the carbonized remains of handwritten sheet music, tin dishes--and a poker chip. “What was that doing there, huh?” Holman mused.

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Food Stamps in California

The welfare reform bill that President Clinton signed last week reduces individual food stamp allotments by 3% for all recipients. Here are the counties with the most people receiving food stamps in May of this year and the average amount received per person.

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AVERAGE MONTHLY COUNTY RECIPIENTS ALLOTMENT 1. Los Angeles 1,030,812 $72.07 2. San Bernardino 218,194 $69.08 3. San Diego 202,673 $67.53 4. Sacramento 166,740 $66.58 5. Orange 145,613 $64.27 6. Fresno 137,439 $62.18 7. Riverside 125,601 $66.52 8. Alameda 120,229 $68.35 9. Santa Clara 94,375 $67.50 10. Kern 90,475 $69.82

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Source: California Department of Social Services, Sacramento

Researched by TRACY THOMAS / Los Angeles Times

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Take two pills and call a politician in the morning . . . In a long line of political gimmicks, now comes this one from Democrat Gerrie Schipske--a prescription bottle of “pills” that she intends for Steven Kuykendall, her Republican opponent from Long Beach in the 54th District Assembly race. The label reads “Tobacco cash withdrawal pills.” She suggests he “take one with each offer of large amounts of cash by tobacco lobbyists.”

Schipske, a health care attorney and nurse practitioner, borrowed the idea from her work with nurses. “I used to have customer relations complaint pills to give to nurses after every complaint.” In this case, she uses the pills--really just jelly beans--to tweak Kuykendall for taking $125,000 from Philip Morris right before his 1994 election.

“We’re not too concerned about how Gerrie Schipske is going to spend her money on these little novelty items,” says Kuykendall’s communications director, Alan Gafford. “Steven has proven to be very independent. When tobacco and smoking issues have come up, he has voted consistently for health issues.”

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In case of disaster: When the occasional winter avalanche hits the Sierra resort of June Lake, it generally takes out the town’s single access road and strands visitors. So Mono County is planning to build an avalanche bypass road--and call it just that. So far, they intend to be more upfront than nearby Mammoth Lakes, which dubbed its secondary access road “Mammoth Scenic Loop.” Apparently, the town’s promoters didn’t think “Earthquake and Volcano Escape Route” was bucolic enough.

EXIT LINE

“Over the years people have become aware of the emotional element that comes with working with a cadaver.”

--Berkeley anatomy professor Hugh A. Patterson, after a classroom memorial to the two cadavers medical students spent the summer dissecting.

California Dateline appears every other Friday.