Ice Scraper a Truly Foreign Object
Writer Hank Rosenfeld reports that Tom Carey, a friend who just moved here from Minnesota, was pulled over for driving the wrong way down Spring Street over the weekend.
While writing the ticket, the officer spotted a suspicious looking object in Carey’s glove compartment. “Excuse me, sir, is that a sheathed knife?” the officer said.
“No, officer,” Carey said, “that’s an ice scraper. I guess you don’t have much use for that out here.”
Adds Rosenfeld: “Nor, until recently, for windshield wipers, either.”
TASTE OF STARDOM: Even though this is Southern California, I’m still surprised at some of the places where stars turn up.
On the package of a bag of bean and barley soup mix, for example (see accompanying).
Mary Rasmussen sent me the label (though she kept the soup mix, doggone it). I believe the label was supposed to say pearl “barley.”
It wasn’t that long ago that Andrea Calhoun noticed that consumer reporter David Horowitz appeared to be among the ingredients of a chicken plate in a Santa Monica restaurant.
Others in my collection include a reminder on a company’s bill that struck customer Steven Foonberg as sounding more like a reference to a 1950s movie actress.
And then there was the brochure contributed by Steve Gerber that referred to Barney Fife’s alter ego (instead of Don Kott). I don’t believe Sheriff Andy let Barney drive very much.
CUCAMONGA CULTURE WATCH (CONT.): Looks as though I sold Rancho Cucamonga short the other day when I cited just four works of art in which it plays a starring role, the latest being the movie “Next Friday.” A resident in that film pronounces it “Chook-amonga.”
Jim Elder of Calabasas recalled that after singer Johnny Horton recorded the hit “Battle of New Orleans,” Homer and Jethro came out with a takeoff, “Battle of Kookamonga.” (They had trouble with the spelling.)
The name could have disappeared a few years later when the towns of Alta Loma, Cucamonga and Etiwanda combined to form a city. The name Rancho Cucamonga was chosen. But Kevin Mason of Mar Vista says, “At the time, some thought the new city should be ‘Alta Cuca Wanda.’ ”
MORE KOOKY STUFF: Mason recalled an “Abbott and Costello” episode in which “Lou Costello lives in a farmhouse in an orange grove. He listens to a record that is a correspondence course in selling vacuum cleaners door to door. The record tells him to go to the biggest city nearby. I think he says, ‘Cucamonga.’ The record says, ‘No, bigger.’ He says, ‘Pomona.’ The record says, ‘No, bigger.’ He says, ‘Los Angeles,’ then heads off and the high jinks begin.”
And Mason recently saw an episode of “The Simpsons” in which Homer goes to Krusty Clown College. Krusty tells the students to “memorize these funny names of cities” and holds up cards that include “Walla Walla,” “Cucamonga” and “Seattle.” Homer cracks up over Seattle.
Concluded Mason: “Cucamonga keeps cropping up all over the over the place.” OK, but what about Etiwanda?
H-E-E-E-E-R-E-S RICHARD! Amid all the talk about finding a temporary replacement for David Letterman, no one has mentioned L.A. Mayor Riordan, which is surprising. After all, His Honor’s stand-up comedy act won him fourth place in the mayoral division of Comic Relief VII a few years ago at the Universal Amphitheater. OK, so there were only eight entrants.
And Riordan has appeared on Letterman, once drawing a big laugh when he suggested this civic slogan:
“Los Angeles: Floods, Fire and Fun.”
OK, it was created by Letterman’s writers.
The real slogan, of course, is: “Los Angeles: Just 40 Miles from Cucamonga.”
miscelLAny:
Beau Yeakel of Santa Barbara writes that the local news media should refer to the St. Louis team in the Super Bowl as “the Scrams.” I’m not going to get angry over the Rams’ defection, especially after that new report that shows a link between baldness and heart problems. I’M STAYING CALM, I TELL YOU! CALM!