If There’s a Bridge, Maybe It’s for Sale

The column item here about goofy questions people ask the Catalina Visitor’s Bureau (i.e. “Do you know California time?”) rekindled a memory for Joni Watkins of Whittier.

Watkins was tending bar in Hawaii, when “a lady from the Midwest . . . asked me, ‘Where’s the bridge?’ I had no idea what she was talking about and asked what bridge? She said the bridge to the other islands, like to Maui.

“I told her there was no bridge. She wouldn’t believe me. She tried to enlist support from some of my other customers, all locals, who had been listening and were almost hysterical with laughter.

“ ‘What’s so funny, dammit?’ she finally asked. ‘What is it, a secret you’re not allowed to tell us tourists?’ ”

NO QUICK GETAWAY HERE: A prime candidate for Stupid Criminal Tricks honors is the young man a sheriff’s deputy observed spray-painting graffiti on a brick wall in Paramount.

As the officer approached, the suspect “looked to the right and to the left, as if seeking some escape route,” Paramount’s City Talk newsletter reported. “In the end, resigned, he told the deputy, ‘You caught me.’ ”

Not a tremendously difficult collar, because the suspect had one leg in a cast and was on crutches.

SPEAKING OF EXIT STRATEGIES: A Long Beach weekly alerted readers that it had advanced a discarded theory on avoiding killer bees (see accompanying).

At least the running part was correct.

FATHER’S DAY GRINCH? Martin Donabedian of Van Nuys received a card in the mail that seemed the very antithesis of a Father’s Day sentiment (see accompanying). When he turned it over, however, he realized it was a query about selling his house.

NOT TO RAIN ON AL’S PARTY BUT . . . I was reading accounts of the last parade that L.A. threw for a world champion team (the Dodgers), a parade that was so long ago that one of the vendors at the event was trying to sell “Dukakis for President” buttons. Trying, but not succeeding, the report said.

Come to think of it, 1988 was also the last time anyone named George Bush was elected President. Hmmm.

THE REAL POOP: Lois Rufer of Fountain Valley came across this plaque in a neighbor’s front yard:

“Here lies stiff and hard/The last damn cat to poop in my yard.”

Possibly the homeowner doesn’t realize that cats generally don’t take their owners along when they gallivant through the neighborhood.

Now, signs directed at dogs and dog owners, I understand. One of the cleverest was put up by Milton Kagen of Hollywood, who warned that the plants on his front lawn were sprayed with “dioxinleucomaine.” Suddenly, he said, mutts were no longer leaving deposits on his grass.

And what is “dioxinleucomaine”? Kagen confided he made up the word.

miscelLAny:

A few days ago, I mentioned that the EBay Internet site was offering a “7” lapel pin allegedly worn by former KABC reporter Larry Carroll.

At that point the highest bid was $6.49. Since then, the bidding has risen to $36. Sometimes this column is so powerful it scares me.

Steve Harvey can be reached at (800) LATIMES, Ext. 77083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, 202 W. 1st St., L.A., 90012 and by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com.