Beverage of Champions: French Wining Beat Olympic Prohibition

In the spirit of NBC, which is tape-delaying the entire 2000 Olympics, here’s a flashback from David Wallechinsky’s “Complete Book of the Olympics.” During the 1932 Games in L.A., prohibition was in effect in the United States.

But one team from a foreign country received permission to bring along several thousand bottles of wine, maintaining that it “was an essential part” of the athletes’ diet. The country: France. A good party country.

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THE PARTY’S ALMOST OVER OUT HERE: The college football rankings are on the sports page. But college lifestyle rankings, based on interviews with students, are listed in the Princeton Review. Here are categories in which Southland schools placed in the top 20:

Quality of life: Claremont-Mudd, No. 7 in the nation (Dartmouth was No. 1).

Happiest students: Pomona College, No. 5; Pitzer College, No. 10; Pepperdine, No. 15 (St. Bonaventure was No. 1).

Best food: Pepperdine (No. 19) (College of the Atlantic was No. 1).

Worst party schools: Caltech, No. 3 (BYU was the No. 1 dullard).

Best party schools: UC Santa Barbara, No. 19 (Louisiana State was No. 1). Can’t believe my old school, USC, was unable to crack the top 20.

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ELSEWHERE ON THE ROAD: Last week this space showed a Minnesota cafe/bait shop with the slogan, “Eat here and get worms!”

Now Karlyn Musante of Malibu sends along a shot of a sign for a unique family business in Delaware: The husband runs a shop for fishermen, and his wife has a beauty shop (see photo).

HOW’S THAT AGAIN? Nancy Smith of Orange noticed an ad for a worker who rips your clothing the old-fashioned way (see accompanying).

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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.