A candidate who dancesaround the issues:The kids...

A candidate who dances

around the issues:

The kids in one classroom at Fremont Elementary in Long Beach were discussing the school’s coming election. After one 4th-grader made a campaign speech, the teacher asked if anyone could cite the planks of her platform.

After a couple of moments of silence, someone offered: “She said she can dance the Macarena.”

The teacher said that was fine but was that really a reason to vote for a candidate?

The Macarena expert was elected.

OFFBEAT LANDMARKS OF L.A.: The story goes that during construction of USC’s Student Union Building in the late 1920s, the workers grew tired of the many unsolicited offers of advice from USC Chancellor Rufus B. Von KleinSmid. So, three floors up on one side, an artist sculpted a monkey to show Von KleinSmid what the builders thought of him. Von KleinSmid, as you can see, seems to be paying no attention--too busy perhaps surveying another part of the edifice.

THOSE DOO DAHS THAT HE DID SO WELL: Gypsy Boots, L.A.’s original hippie, called to say that he’ll be unable to attend the Nov. 24 Doo Dah Parade, which will mark the first time he’s ever missed the parade.

The bearded, clean-living Boots, as old-timers will recall, was one of the inspirations for the Nat King Cole post-war hit, “Nature Boy.”

And why is Boots canceling out? Well, he’s 86 now and his health is a factor.

His good health.

He says he’s never felt better and he’s going to be in San Jose lecturing on fitness the day of the Doo Dah.

“I can still throw a football like Joe Montana,” Boots added.

FROM DOO DAH TO DOGGIE DO: A former editor of a now-vanished South Bay weekly says Hermosa Beach’s announcement that it’s going to get tough on dog owners who fail to clean up after their hounds is proof that “the more things change the more they stay the same.”

“Twenty years ago, nothing got the readers’ attention on our newspaper--not politics or culture or skateboards--like dog leftovers,” he said.

He said the paper used to be inundated with letters on the subject, one of which included a “photo of a dog toilet that was being tried out in Paris.”

We believe that’s one that never made it to Pasadena’s annual Invention Convention. Or the Doo Dah Parade, for that matter.

DUELING SIGNS: As if driving isn’t stressful enough, George Wells of Pomona found a couple of signs that are arguing about how to instruct motorists.

STILL AHEAD OF FRESNO, THOUGH: Travel and Leisure Magazine unveiled its readers’ rankings of their 25 favorite cities and we figured there must be a mistake when the list omitted L.A., City of Headlights.

We phoned the magazine. L.A. came in at No. 80.

HOW ABOUT: “WE’RE NO. 80?” Down Orange County way, OC Weekly’s “Best of O.C.” edition has a list of “Top 10 pick-up lines” of its readers.

No. 7 is: “I’m not from L.A.”

miscelLAny

After Jerry Clark of Glendale challenged other schools to match the alumni list of Manual Arts High (painter Jackson Pollock, war hero Jimmy Doolittle, Gov. Goodwin Knight, etc.), we heard from the grads of several other schools. The callers from Van Nuys High were the most incensed. Of course, that school’s big claim is that the future Marilyn Monroe spent a year there. Not that she could do the Macarena or anything.