From Rogers to Rugs: That Entertaining Legislature!

Can’t stay awake for Leno? There’s always the Legislature:

On the day he honored Mr. Rogers’ 30 years of soothing, well-mannered children’s TV, departing Speaker Cruz Bustamante entered the august Assembly chamber in a gray cardigan sweater that could have come right out of Fred Rogers’ wardrobe. Said Speaker Pro Tem Sheila Kuehl, “It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood.”

Speaking of the neighborhood, there it goes, or so Assembly Republicans seemed to signal. When California Chief Justice (and Wilson appointee) Ronald George showed up to deliver the State of the Judiciary speech to a joint legislative session, 46 of the Legislature’s 66 Democrats were there, but only 23 of its 51 Republicans. Sez one Assembly Republican in attendance, “George ticked off a lot of Republicans” with his judicial vote against requiring parental consent for minors’ abortions.

And there is veteran and inveterate liberal John Burton, sworn in last month as the new state Senate president pro tem. His is a personality made for spawning good tales, a quality that’s getting harder to come by among bland, just-visiting term-limiters.

One tells of a day in years past when Burton approached a reporter for his hometown San Francisco Chronicle newspaper. “Hey, what do I have to do to get in your rag?” he asked. “Well, John, you could get indicted,” the reporter replied. Burton nodded and walked away. A moment later, he returned. “What day would be good?”

Out on the campaign trail, where so many legislative roads lead back to, some staffers of Republican Assemblyman Curt Pringle’s campaign for state treasurer have, among themselves, taken up the slogan “Dust the Rug,” in reference to the hairpiece of Pringle’s primary opponent and fellow Republican, Assemblyman Jan Goldsmith.

If that’s the sharpest criticism they can muster, it’s practically an endorsement. . . .

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Never mind: They left in 1995, having had it up to here with recession, quakes, crime, yadda yadda yadda. They went to . . . Vegas. They gazed at the stars. They met their neighbors. They bought a personalized license plate to rub it all in: ADIOSCA.

And now--you guessed it--they’re back.

Mark Bacon, a Valley boy born and bred, and his wife, Anne, abandoned the Ship of Golden State and spent several years in Las Vegas before a merger cost her her job as a bank president.

The couple came back, as have thousands of other repentant Californians--with this difference. As the Riverside Press-Enterprise reported, Mark Bacon has written and self-published “The California Escape Manual,” an outta-here how-to guide with techniques for rating new destinations.

Soon he may be putting his own book to the test; the Bacons told the paper that another bank merger means they expect to be moving yet again, by the end of the year.

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Rain, Rain!

California last battled the full effects of an El Nino current in 1982-83. Rainfall since last July has surpassed the comparable period in 1982-83.

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Normal ‘82-’83 ‘97-’98 City season* season** season** Redding 33.30 39.25 46.37 Eureka 37.53 40.49 44.00 San Francisco 19.71 23.73 38.68 Sacramento 17.52 22.56 24.67 L.A. Airport 14.77 12.53 23.97 Santa Maria 12.36 17.04 23.55 L.A. (Civic Center) 12.01 14.83 22.83 Long Beach 11.80 9.02 21.69 Fresno 10.60 15.45 16.78 Bakersfield 5.72 10.22 15.84 San Diego 9.90 8.88 13.72

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* Rain season is measured from July 1 to June 30 of the following year.

** Through Feb. 25

Source: WeatherData Inc.

Researched by TRACY THOMAS / Los Angeles Times

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One-offs: Some California prison inmates who must hack off their long tresses to meet new grooming rules are donating their lost locks to the making of wigs for ailing kids. . . . The last picture show at the soon-to-be-shut Union City Drive-In in Alameda County will be a quadruple feature including the steamy-windows shrieker “I Was a Teenage Frankenstein.” . . . El Dorado County is warning skiers and snowboarders who wander disastrously out of marked runs and routes that they may have to pony up the costs for those dramatic and expensive rescues. . . . A minister resigned from a Bakersfield interfaith ministers group after the association welcomed a practitioner of the Wiccan witchcraft faith. . . . A good Samaritan who took in an Oakland homeless family turned away from an overflowing church shelter allegedly had her car stolen at knifepoint by the family’s father. . . . A Pleasanton photo-flasher is scattering snapshots of his genitals on driveways and walkways for women to find. . . . Death row’s population has broken the 500 mark and now stands at a state and national record: 501.

EXIT LINE

“If you’ve not been part of a mainstream culture, a test cannot effectively measure your level of ability, skill and intellect. . . . Everybody ought to be able to follow the same nozzle process. But you’re talking about a kid who comes from a different culture. He won’t know what the hell you’re talking about when you say ‘nozzle.’ ”

--San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, on why he agrees with a proposal to end ranked written tests for firefighter candidates. Quoted in the New Yorker.

California Dateline appears every other Friday.