Memorable Mother and Child Reunion

The drama began with a mother struggling to board an MTA bus while holding a 5-month-old baby under her arm and pushing a stroller. A stranger on the sidewalk offered to hold the baby while the mother put the stroller aboard.

Suddenly, the bus pulled away with the mother but without the baby.

The mother claimed that the driver refused her plea to stop, saying he was behind schedule, according to a recent edition of The Blue Line, the Los Angeles Police Protective League’s newspaper.

She got off at the next stop and walked back to the previous stop, but the baby and stranger were gone.

The stranger, it turns out, had boarded the next bus on that run, trying to find the mother. Unsuccessful, the stranger called police. So did the mother, who was eventually reunited with her baby. But there was still a bit of tidying up left. The baby needed a diaper change.

“In the highest traditions of the ‘full service’ concept,” Blue Line quipped, LAPD “Officer John Derouen sprang into action and found nice nurses at a nearby clinic to help with the ‘cleanup.’ ”

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EBENEZER SCROOGE, CEO: George Pisano sent along a frank letter from a company that said its supplemental dividend was “a small way” of sharing its success with shareholders (see accompanying). Small way, indeed.

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IT FITS DRIVERS TO A TEE: Who says that gas stations don’t offer much in the way of personal services anymore? On his way to broadcast a game at the Sports Arena, KNX radio’s Rory Markas noticed a station where you can even have the mechanics of your golf swing checked (see photo).

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HECKUVA NOTE: The radio campaign of a car dealer in Claremont admits that listeners probably wonder “where the [musical bleep] is Claremont?”

I’m not sure if this approach is related to the fact that the recent biography of Claremont McKenna College alumnus Robin Williams states that Claremont is located “35 miles north of Los Angeles.” (Try “east.”)

But old-timers may recall the whimsical bumper sticker campaign of a couple of decades ago in Riverside County that asked the question, “Where the Hell is Norco?”

It prompted a local church to start a campaign, “God Knows Where Norco Is.” Which can be read a couple of ways, depending on which words you emphasize.

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AND WHERE IS IRVINE, AGAIN? A publicist for rock singer Lenny Kravitz announced in a press release that Kravitz’s national tour would begin April 23 “at Los Angeles’ Irvine Meadows.” You can park at the Coliseum and walk the rest of the way.

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FREEWAY MAIL: It was inevitable, I guess. You can now e-mail news of traffic snafus to KFI radio at traffic@kfi640.com. And reporter Mark Denis disclosed, “I had a guy e-mail me from his car on the Grapevine one day.”

I only hope the driver wasn’t talking on his cellular phone at the same time.

miscelLAny:

I grumped that the book, “Weird Florida,” tries to rob L.A. of its title as the “king of nuttiness.” Not to worry, says Molly Longley, who points out that L.A.’s original name was El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles--The City of Our Lady, Queen of the Angels.”

Said Longley: “We are the queen of nuttiness!”

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Steve Harvey can be reached by office phone (but not car 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.