Trojan Horseplay and Stewin’ Bruins

Did you read about the disappearance of the UCLA band’s instruments during a flag football game against USC’s musicians? Something like this always seems to happen the week before the real USC-UCLA football game.

Over the years, the cross-city rivalry has inspired bogus versions of each other’s newspapers, fake fliers announcing the cancellation of pregame rallies, the kidnapping of mascots (such as USC’s late canine, George Tirebiter) and the splashing of paint on campus symbols.

One of the most daring operations, staged in 1958, involved an attempt by UCLA partisans to drop fertilizer from a helicopter onto the statue of Tommy Trojan. Alas, they misjudged the wind and the stuff blew back in their faces.

LOS ALAMITOS CONFIDENTIAL: Ruth Freedman’s students at Weaver Elementary School raised the specter of a balloting snafu before the election--though in a different context.

When Elmo Kreitenberg, 8, spotted a misspelled street sign (see photo) a few weeks ago, Freedman turned the resolution of the problem into a class project.

The students wrote to Los Alamitos City Councilman Ron Bates and asked: “How would you feel if on the ballot it said Ron Bats instead of Ron Bates?”

Bates batted the problem over to City Manager Robert Dominguez, who found the sign was actually in county territory. It was removed, and the county has promised to get it right this time.

P.S. I didn’t hear of any ballot problems in Los Alamitos, and Bates was reelected.

UNCLEAR ON THE CONCEPT: William Selditz of West L.A. found a sign just where he wouldn’t have expected to see it (see photo).

WILL THEY WRAP IT TOO? One wonders what the delivery time would be for the object in an ad spotted by Maida Maynard of West L.A. (see accompanying).

BUMMER: Surfer, the Dana Point-based magazine, warns in its Letters to the Editor section: “Letters may be edited for any reason. Those with more than 30 misspellings or grammar mistakes will be hung on the office refrigerator for all to ridicule.”

OH RATS: The anonymous lawyer who writes The Rodent column for the L.A. Daily Journal points out it has become fashionable to associate his kind with rats.

“Gary the Rat,” an animated TV program, is in the works about an attorney who wakes up to discover he’s a man-sized rat.

Then there’s Dax, another rat/lawyer, who will soon star in an online comic strip.

The Rodent noted that a University of Wisconsin law professor, who specializes in legal humor, traced the rat image back to the 1980s and offered this early joke:

“Why do laboratories use lawyers instead of rats in their experiments?”

Answer: “Because lab assistants don’t get attached to a lawyer and there are some things a rat won’t do.”

miscelLAny:

Cliff Dektar points out there are two places called Engine Co. No. 28 in L.A., but only one delivers. The newest is a city fire station in the Porter Ranch area of the San Fernando Valley. The original 28, built in the early 1900s, has been transformed into a restaurant on Figueroa Street.

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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.