She Forgot to Bring Her Own Handcuffs

In the stupid-criminal-tricks competition, Sgt. Richard Longshore of the L.A. Sheriff’s Department nominates a woman he pulled over after she made a reckless left turn that nearly caused a collision.

The motorist told him she didn’t have her driver’s license, which prompted a warning from Longshore that if she didn’t have some form of I.D., he would have to arrest her.

“She thought for a moment, then, smiling brightly, told me that she had a letter addressed to her,” Longshore recalled. “She handed me the envelope, which contained a letter from the L.A. Municipal Court informing her that her driver’s license had been suspended for too many outstanding traffic warrants.”

Longshore asked her to get out of the car and “she did, revealing a bag of cocaine that she had been sitting on.”

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WHAT ABOUT THE NERDS? Sondra Light, while visiting from Miami Beach--now there’s an Only in L.A. contributor for you!--snapped a shot of an L.A. school that seems to have special facilities for its football players (see photo).

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DON’T SING WITH YOUR MOUTH FULL! Ed Johnson of Panorama City found a karaoke/hash browns emporium that caused me to wonder: Would the management allow a substitute of Dee Dee Sharp’s “Mashed Potato Time”? (see photo)

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GROUND TURBULENCE: It’s not an uncommon sight to see baggage being tossed around by airport personnel. But here’s a new variation. Wendy Werve was aboard an airliner about to take off for L.A. from Oakland when the pilot killed the engines. He then explained to the passengers that there’d be a little wait. Turns out the force of the engines had blown the bags off a cart near the plane.

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SOME OH-WHAT-A-NIGHTS: “What song do you associate with your first kiss?” radio historian Don Barrett (“L.A. Radio People”) asked assorted local deejays, talk-show hosts, traffic reporters and writers. Here are some responses:

* Jim Thornton: “Barry Manilow’s ‘Weekend in New England’. . . by the way, my excuse for listening to Barry Manilow is that I was in the sixth grade.”

* Diana De Ville: “ ‘Ben,’ by Michael Jackson. I was 13 at the time and I had a crush on a boy named Ben, who I used to see at the skating rink. The song was actually about a rat . . .”

* Bo Donovan: “Cherish,” by The Association. As a disc jockey for a Palm Springs station, Donovan had persuaded the young lady (now his wife) to go out on a date by “rigging little station giveaways in her favor . . . soft drink six-packs, movie passes, etc.”

* Steve Propes: “Probably ‘Oh What a Night’ by the Dells or ‘Earth Angel’ by the Penguins--all I can remember is enough braces to set off a metal detector.”

* Gene Thayer: “The Del Vikings’ ‘Whispering Bells’ . . . in the back seat of my brother’s 1952 Chevy convertible. . . . Later, the damned Chevy wouldn’t start. The battery was run down from the draw of the 5-tube radio.”

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WHAT-A-NIGHT (CONT.): Gary Franklin nominated the Canadian national anthem, which was playing the night he and his girlfriend were caught making whoopee in the back of a car after a hockey game in Montreal. Franklin had borrowed the car from his father, a doctor. Suddenly, Franklin said, “I felt something wet running down my neck. It was a horse’s saliva. On top of the horse was a mounted cop.” The officer told Franklin, “Sorry, doctor, you can’t do that here.”

miscelLAny:

Some readers wondered about the fate of Stanford’s Tree mascot, which was stolen several days before the school’s recent game with USC. The thieves, apparently Cal students, returned the shrub. But it was declared tainted, and during the USC game it was sacrificed to a wood chipper on the sidelines while a trumpeter played “Taps.” I’d have chosen “Willow Weep For Me.”

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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.