Drat! Right in the Middle of Doing the Wave, He Gets a Cell Phone Call

Stupid Laker Fan Tricks: As you may recall, I’ve called on all motorists to take down their Laker flags--the party’s over.

My plea prompted Linda Whelan of Oceanside to write about the unusual flag arrangement she saw on the Santa Ana Freeway, luckily in slow traffic. A driver, who had no plastic holder, was waving the flag with his hand out the window. And the window was rolled up to his wrist. (Why? The air-conditioning was on? Less noise? But we’re getting sidetracked here.)

Suddenly, Whelan said, “He had a decision to make. His cell phone rang. I saw him control the steering wheel with his knees while he answered the phone with his right hand.

“Apparently, the call was important. He cradled the phone to his ear with his shoulder and used his right hand to roll down the window as he was talking and carefully bring in the pennant, all the while steering with his knees.”

Which leads me to amend my request: When you take down the flags, fans, don’t do so while you’re driving.

Hazardous driving (cont.): No Southern California sites made State Farm’s Top 10 list of the nation’s most dangerous intersections, not even the Traffic Circle in Long Beach.

But the latter was mentioned in a museum-sponsored billboard--with the honorific “dreaded” (see photo). I’ve also included a Traffic Circle sign to give you an idea of the navigational problems in case you’ve avoided it up until now.

So infamous is that stretch of asphalt that Long Beachites have long told the (mythical) urban folk tale that the Traffic Circle’s designer was killed in a collision in that same intersection.

Other L.A. attractions: I was wrong when I said there are no public monuments to fictional characters here to match the “Rocky” statue in Philadelphia and the bronze of bus driver Ralph Kramden (“The Honeymooners”) in New York.

Actually, there’s a likeness of that famous cartoon dimwit Bullwinkle holding pal Rocket J. (Rocky) Squirrel on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood.

The 40-year-old landmark was the whimsical idea of creator Jay Ward, whose office was nearby. Ward wanted to do a takeoff on a Las Vegas hotel billboard that showed a giant statue of a showgirl on a rotating base. Sexy Bullwinkle!

No less an authority than the book “Roadside America” has included the Bullwinkle edifice among its “beautifully tasteless and wonderfully weird leisure-time tourist attractions.”

Traveler’s Advisory: Alex Baker of Upland wants you to know that if you need to use the facilities in Georgia’s Okefenokee Park, there are plenty available (see photo).

miscelLAny: Talk about low-tech communication. Kelli Zaehringer of Ventura saw a car with a dirty windshield on which someone’s finger had traced this suggestion:

WASHME.COM.