San Diegans: Insecure, Bored or Smug?

San Diego, which unabashedly calls itself “America’s Finest City,” posted the following billboard message on L.A. freeways a while back:

Welcome to L.A.

Population--Way Too Much

That one’s gone now. But San Diego’s tourism folks have infiltrated L.A. with this message:

“There isn’t an attitude we can’t adjust.”

Except, obviously, smugness.

Fashion risk: At least the unruly guy outside a Seal Beach saloon wore a piece of apparel that tipped off others to steer clear. The Los Alamitos News-Enterprise’s police log says he “was wearing yellow caution tape around his head.”

A penny for Blue Shield’s thoughts: Harold Hartman of West L.A. is puzzled over the notification he received of a debt of minuscule size, ancient age and mysterious origin (see accompanying).

Here’s the drill: Dr. Chesley Houske has a thematic sign for drivers outside his dental office in Torrance (see photo). Houske added that when roses were growing in his landscaping, and passers-by were snatching them, “we put up a sign that said, ‘Free Root Canal With Every Rose Picked.’ ”

No smoking on the frontier: Some rules of the road for 19th century passengers, listed in Maury Hoag’s new book, “Stagecoaching on the California Coast--The Coast Line Stage from Los Angeles to San Juan”:

* If ladies are present, gentlemen are urged to forgo smoking cigars and pipes, as the odor of the same is repugnant to the weaker sex.

* Gentlemen passengers must refrain from the use of rough language in the presence of ladies and children. This does not apply to the driver, whose team may not understand genteel language.

* Don’t use your fellow passenger’s shoulder as a pillow. He or she might not understand and friction could result.

* Topics of discussion to be avoided have to do with religion, politics and, above all, stagecoach robberies or accidents.

* Gentlemen guilty of unchivalrous behavior toward lady passengers will be put off the stage. It is a long walk back to Santa Barbara.

A winning hand: In his stagecoach history, Hoag recounted a story of robbers who waylaid a stage carrying a gambler, a widow with savings of $30, her son and a minister, among others.

When the passengers were told to surrender their valuables, the gambler took one robber aside and whispered something to him. The gunman promptly demanded the widow’s $30. After the robbers departed, the minister assailed the gambler for informing on the widow.

Whereupon the gambler reached into his boot and pulled out a big wad of cash. “He counted out $300 and handed it to the widow,” Hoag continued, “saying that he always gave a third of his winnings to whoever staked him to the game.”

miscelLAny: The list here of controversial nude artworks in L.A. was missing “the male and female headless torsos outside the Coliseum,” writes Jim Mentzer of L.A.

Mentzer recalled that one of the complaints during the 1984 unveiling was that sculptor Robert Graham, “by making them headless, was suggesting that athletes were brainless.’JW *

Steve Harvey can be reached at (800) LA-TIMES, 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.