Tough for This Teen Angeleno to Drive Home Point

When Rosamond Eggebroten, 17, attended a religious camp for high school students in the Rocky Mountains a while back, the “big topic of conversation was cars, because everyone had either just gotten, or was preparing to get, their driver’s license.”

She mentioned to a couple of fellow campers that she had a car but quickly added that it was only for driving to school, inasmuch as she has a 45-minute commute from Santa Monica to North Hollywood.

“Commute?” asked one of the campers. “What does that mean?”

In retrospect, Eggebroten says, “It made me realize how much a part of our lives commuting is in L.A.”

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CHUGGING FORWARD: While she has the floor, Eggebroten also notes that in other areas of the nation “watch for” signs on roadways usually warn of dangers that are not man-made: wandering wildlife, falling rocks, etc. Not here, of course. Going through the Sepulveda Pass on the San Diego Freeway, Eggebroten noticed a sign that read, “Watch for Stopped Vehicles.”

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NO HARD FEELINGS, EVIDENTLY: I saw an advertisement for Michael Connelly’s “Angels Flight,” a mystery about two passengers killed on the trolley, hanging near the ticket booth of . . . Angels Flight.

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DINING GUIDE FOR THE ADVENTUROUS: Today’s selections (see accompanying) include cold frankfurters, some shellfish that are both ghostly and alive (submitted by Milt Long), an egg dish that sounds as though it belongs in a board game (Edward Kormondy) and an odd end cut of swordfish (James Jones).

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NO FIGHTS IN THESE LINES: My colleague Janet Eastman has written an entertaining book, “Simple Indulgence,” which consists of brief essays by women about “easy, everyday things to do for me” to reduce stress.

In one chapter, Valerie (no last names are used) revealed she likes to attend boxing matches.

“There’s never a line to get into the women’s restroom,” Valerie pointed out.

“I wave at the guys who are waiting in their line as I go into the women’s room and when I come out, I ask, ‘Are you still in line?’ That in itself is worth the price of admission.”

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WHICH REMINDS ME: One of the professed factoids floating about on the Internet holds that “the first toilet ever seen on TV appeared on ‘Leave It to Beaver.’ ”

An important milestone such as this deserves scrutiny. So I turned to the San Fernando Valley Folklore Society, which examines urban myths. The society’s verdict: There is a “small kernel of truth” in the statement.

The script for a 1957 episode of “Beaver,” it turns out, centered on the efforts of Wally and the Beav to hide an 8-inch pet alligator from their parents in the toilet tank. (The boys, who had obtained the critter via mail order, ruled out their bedroom.)

Alas, back then, “the networks pretended bathrooms didn’t exist, much less toilets,” said Folklore Society proprietors David and Barbara Mikkelson.

CBS approved the script only after it was filmed so that viewers would see the toilet tank but not the toilet itself.

miscelLAny:

The first toilet flush heard on television occurred a quarter-century ago on “All in the Family.”

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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.