Case of Mysterious Markings Is Solved Before Deputies Can Dive Into It

A resident called the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department to say she had returned home to find strange orange markings in her yard. She was worried that they might be satanic or hate symbols. But, reported the Star News, a sheriff’s publication, the markings were actually left by a contractor who was going to install a swimming pool there.

Dim view: My colleague Patt Morrison was leading a tour through L.A.’s downtown library--OK, the Richard J. Riordan Central Library--when the group encountered an antique light fixture saluting the nation. It displayed a bulb for each state, but its radiance was marred by one bulb that had burned out. “Look,” said a member of the tour, drawing closer. “That’s the California bulb.”

Taking no stock in proper grammar: Beverly Doran of Glendale received a postcard from an alleged New York Stock Exchange member that really needed a copy editor more than a speaker (see accompanying).

What if you want to keep them in one piece? Bonnie Friedrich of Orange isn’t so sure that she’d want the specialty offered by one nail salon (see accompanying).

Getting carried away with the theme: A company that installed three waterless urinals as a test at Plummer Park in West Hollywood referred to the site as “Plumbers” Park in a letter to a local city council member.

Ticket to park: On KNX-AM (1070), radio commentator Dave Ross had some critical words for the once-a-year offer by the city of Lewiston, Maine, to tear up parking tickets for meter violations. (All car owners must do in return is write an apology.)

Anyway, Ross declared that Lewiston--and the nation, in general--have it backward. People should be encouraged to park as long as possible, he said. In fact, he proposed that parking tickets be eliminated completely, pointing out that “cars trying to move” are the big problem, not cars that are stationary.

I think Ross has something. Instead of metering parking places, vehicles could be metered so that they could be in motion only a few hours a day.

Sure it’s a radical idea. But no more so than waterless urinals.

In other park items . . .: The series here about intersections with interesting names brought a snapshot from Dick Harmon of San Juan Capistrano, who found a street corner with a deep meaning in Laguna Niguel (see photo).

miscelLany:

I regret that I was out of town and missed that street festival celebrating the renovation of Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood. What a bash it must have been. A neighborhood newspaper reminded residents beforehand that Harper Avenue, Croft Avenue and Kings Road would be closed “100 miles north of the event.”

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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.