Memories of Love, Meat and Potatoes

For its 75th anniversary, the Original Pantry asked customers to dish up personal memories of the downtown restaurant. Several, including Victoria Gavoian and Kathy O’Connor Harrigan, recalled meeting their future husbands there.

And then there was this tribute from Virginia Blacha, a customer for 62 years: “I was seeing a man a few years back who went to dinner at the Pantry with me and said he didn’t care for it,” she recalled. “I dumped him.”

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LET’S NOT GET CARRIED AWAY: As another aspect of the celebration, Mayor Richard Riordan, the Pantry owner, invited several celebrity chefs, including Wolfgang Puck, to cook breakfast there Friday morning.

No, no, no, Mr. Mayor--you just don’t understand.

The Pantry is, if anything, the anti-Spago. It’s not about fancy dishes that no one can pronounce. The only sauces at the Pantry come in Tabasco bottles. The Pantry is about basics.

Better you should have invited the chefs from the Kosher Burrito, Pink’s Hot Dogs, Fatburger and the Tail o’ the Pup.

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MY PERSONAL PANTRY MEMORY: I once took a date to dine there, only to have her tell me she disliked the food. We got married anyway.

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DUELING FOR SOULS: John Fatini of Chino found a bus bench that was strategically placed near an adult entertainment area (see photo). Or is God watching Dilbert?

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IT’S GREEK TO ME: Lew Weiss of Winnetka noticed that a local newspaper seemed to have given the weather forecast in Roman numerals (see accompanying).

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DRIVERS, TAKE NOTE: Film characters killed in car accidents after taking their eyes off the road to fiddle with cassette or CD players:

* Reporter Michelle Ziegler (played by Mary McCormack) in “True Crime” (1999).

* Scientist Marcus Wolf (Charles Martin Smith) in “Deep Impact” (1997).

* Businessman Daniel Miller (Albert Brooks) in “Defending Your Life” (1991).

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UP IN THE AIR: After seeing the list here of memorable cracks by flight attendants, Jack Swank of La Verne recalled the time he was forced to sit on a plane in Phoenix for several minutes. Finally, an attendant announced, “If anyone back there knows how to fly this thing, please press your call button and maybe we’ll be able to get on our way.” (The pilots knew how to fly it; they just hadn’t shown up.)

And Dennis Pickens of Long Beach says a friend swears he was on a flight where a passenger repeatedly asked an attendant, “Is there any chance of being bumped to first class?” Finally, the exasperated attendant growled, “Right now it is full, sir, but if we were to fly into a mountain at 600 mph, I’d say your chances would be pretty good.”

miscelLAny:

The LAPD’s newest press pass is yellow, which prompted journalist Henk Friezer to recall when a similarly hued media card was issued several years ago. Lt. Dan Cooke, a police spokesman who liked to spar with the press, described the color as “journalism yellow.”

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 L.A. Times, Times Mirror Square, L.A. 90053.