Resident Squawks Over Noisy Lovers

A Seal Beach resident complained about “a loud chirping bird that she believed was a tape recording” intended to “disturb the peace of others,” a local newspaper recently reported.

It sounded sinister and police investigated. However, the News-Enterprise in Los Alamitos added, officers “determined the sound was nightingales mating.”

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MAYBE IT’S THE APPROACH OF THE MILLENNIUM: The police logs of the News-Enterprise indicate there have been some other strange goings-on in its circulation area, which also includes La Palma and Rossmoor (not to be confused with Roswell, N.M.)

Consider these cases:

* The driver of “a blue pickup truck taking photographs of the area was a real estate agent.”

* “A woman screaming, ‘No! Don’t touch me!’ ” inside a building “was practicing her acting lessons.”

* A resident “called police after she was struck by a dog biscuit her neighbor threw at her house.”

* “A man’s legs sticking out from under a dark gray, mid-sized car were not moving because he was asleep.”

And, finally:

* A resident “reported an unknown suspect put birdseed on her car.”

Don’t laugh. It could have been a plot to attract those noisy nightingales.

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ANGELENOS ON THE ROAD: With summer (and vacation time) approaching, Sally Mathews of Redondo Beach sent along a traveler’s advisory in the form of a snapshot she took outside Phoenix (see photo).

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FASHIONABLE PARKING: Reporter Gail Eichenthal of radio station KNX (1070-AM) wrote that she “wanted to call to your attention this strange requirement for parking at a mall” off a street identified as “Olimpyc” (see photo).

“You have to know how to sew clothes,” Eichenthal said, noting the “costumers” reference. “Now does this seem fair?”

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TALES OF HOLLYWOOD: Lately, I’ve been receiving letters from readers talking about their Tinseltown experiences. Fred Ledeboer of Thousand Oaks, for instance, found summer work driving a tractor at Universal Studios in 1955.

One day he was taking a smoking break in front of a row of dressing rooms when a young man named Bernie “sat down and asked if he could bum a cigarette. I said sure, and while we were chatting, a tour bus stopped about 20 yards away and the tourists leaned out the windows and waved at us. Bernie waved back and nudged me and said, ‘Wave at them,’ which I did.

“The bus went on its way and I asked Bernie what that was all about. He started laughing and said he could picture a busload of people spending the rest of the day wondering who was that guy sitting next to Tony Curtis. I laughed, too, and to this day, I am still a great fan of Bernie Schwartz, a.k.a. Tony Curtis.”

Ledeboer added that even though the actor had introduced himself as Bernie, he knew it was Curtis all along.

MiscelLAny:

On the subject of neighborhoods with street name themes, David Beasley of Boyle Heights wrote: “I used to move pianos in the 1980s. And I went to a part of Lake Forest (in Orange County) where all the streets are named for ‘Sesame Street’ characters.” They include Big Bird Lane, Grover Lane, Oscar Way and Cookie Monster Road, in addition to Sesame Street. “No way I could live on Cookie Monster Road,” Beasley added.

At least there’s no Miss Piggy Street.

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Steve Harvey can be reached by phone at (213) 237-7083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com and by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, Times Mirror Square, L.A. 90053.