Concrete Reasons for Forging Ahead

The city of Paramount’s newsletter reveals that a road maintenance crew was checking a newly laid concrete sidewalk when a young bicyclist pedaled into the wet stuff and became stuck. The crew asked the youth why he ignored the yellow caution tape that bordered the area. He responded: “You mean the finish line?”

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WOULD YOU BUY A CAR FROM THIS MAN? (CONT.): Alice Davis of Irvine found my discussion of car salesmen on late-night TV incomplete without the mention of Chick Lambert and his dog Storm.

“I worked the night shift in the early 1960s and when I got home about 1:30 in the morning I turned on the TV,” she said. “There I found Chick, who was terribly earnest and had bad grammar, and his dog Storm, an equally earnest large German shepherd. When Cal Worthington started doing his dog Spot commercials (with elephants, leopards, etc.), I think he was doing a takeoff on Chick.”

I also mentioned Madman Muntz, whose car pitch was “I’d give them away but my wife won’t let me--she says I’m crazy!” Dave Konigsberg said I forgot to mention Muntz’s competitor next door, Wild Man Prichard, whose motto was “Blow your

horn. We buy by ear.”

Sic ‘em, Storm!

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SUCH A DEAL: Some strange shopping opportunities were uncovered by Dakota June Elliott (a Christmas tree that some might not consider such a “giant”), by Wendy Wagner (a CD player whose price “excludes free installation”), and by Ken Grimwood (a hot mat that had been “insulted”) (see accompanying photos).