Let’s Change Partners and Drive
For today’s edition of Stupid Driver Tricks, Joyce Glenn of Yorba Linda recalled the time she and friend Nancy Schulkey were escorting some Japanese visitors to LAX by chartered bus.
A student driver stood at the side of the regular bus driver “as we were heading east on the 91 freeway at about 70 mph,” Glenn said.
Suddenly, the two traded places.
“Didn’t stop,” Glenn said. “Just traded places! Fortunately, we did not crash and are still alive to tell the tale.”
A HALF STOP? As if stupid drivers don’t make motoring adventurous enough here, the Southland offers innumerable sets of bewildering traffic signs, such as these snapped at an Oak Park intersection in Ventura County by Larry Barton (see photo).
UNREAL ESTATE: Today’s tour of eye-catching properties (see accompanying) includes:
* A house that apparently has barrel piping but no place to put a rug (submitted by Patricia and Jerry Bacon).
* A mansion that is “in a class by itself”--no exaggerated description inasmuch as it must be the world’s skinniest structure judging from its square footage (from Paul Feldman). Let’s hope this one has a floor--a strong floor.
* Finally, a house that is dirt cheap, evidently in one of the shabby sections of Irvine (from Gloria Sever). A bargain, floor or no floor.
THROWING THE BOOK AT SPELL CHECK: The discussion here about misspelling “it’s” got Palmdale attorney Ross Amspoker to muse about spell check pitfalls he has noticed as a Superior Court referee.
He saw one legal brief, for instance, that said a defendant in a car accident “awfully” exited the alley. Amspoker says the driver’s attorney “obviously meant to write ‘lawfully,’ but ‘awfully’ was correctly spelled and accepted by spell check.”
Another attorney “wrote in a motion that her opponent ‘had the gaul’ to make a certain argument,” Amspoker recalls. “I asked her if she knew that all of Gaul was divided into three parts. She looked at me blankly.”
Spell check cares little about the physical safety of attorneys’ clients.
“In a case in which the issue was the date the defendant was served,” Amspoker says, “a lawyer in his brief consistently used the word ‘severed’ for ‘served,’ e.g., ‘the defendant was severed on June 9, 1998.’ ”
Awfully sad for that to happen to anybody.
LET’S DO LUNCH! A survey about the sociability of Americans by Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam found L.A. folks seem to have the welcome mat out less than residents elsewhere in the nation.
The poll found that over a 12-month period, Angelenos:
* Played cards or board games with others 8.7 times (compared with 11.9 in the U.S. as a whole)
* Visited relatives in person or were visited by them 20.1 times (25.3, U.S.)
* Socialized with co-workers outside of work 10.2 times (14.4, U.S.)
* Had friends over to their home 18.5 times (22.5, U.S.)
What about a category Angelenos are really good at--like air-kissing?
ATTENTION, SHOPPERS! The Seal Beach Sun reports that during a recent storm, the San Gabriel River washed more than 25 shopping carts onto that city’s beach.
miscelLAny:
In case a blackout should roll over Inglewood’s Hollywood Park, management will give pocket flashlights to all fans attending the racetrack’s opening night, April 20. Most of the horses I’ve bet on over the years have had their own energy problems, but that’s another matter.
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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.