Weed My Lips: This Guy Made a Real Hash of Getting His Photos Developed
Sometimes a gardener can be too proud. Take the case of the L.A. man who was arrested after he took a roll of film to a drugstore. Seems the photos documented the growth of his marijuana crop.
Traveler’s note: After reading mentions here of the villages of Barf, England, and Orgy, France, Judi Birnberg wrote: “I drove through a Portuguese town called Chaos, although things seemed quite peaceful at the time.” Speaking of unusual names, Fred Miller was motoring through rural Pennsylvania when he saw a street sign that was in need of a checkup (see photo).
From Barf to blah: While Sara Olberg of Tujunga noticed a somewhat derisive page heading in a San Fernando Valley phone directory, I’m sure the publication wasn’t implying that the Valley is a less-than-exciting place (see accompanying).
Twins separated at birth? Catherine Karklyn snapped a shot of two banks that occupy the same building on Fairfax Avenue and could be having identity crises (see photo). California National Bank moved in after it bought People’s Bank.
Webbed sight: It was Marilyn Cagle who notified this column about the mother duck that brazenly walked across the San Diego Freeway with a dozen young ones in West L.A. one recent morning. While a California Highway Patrol officer was halting traffic for the feathery jaywalkers, she was amazed at how calm commuters were. (By “she” I mean Cagle; the mother duck seemed to show no concern.) Anyway, Cagle got to wondering afterward what happened to the creatures.
She phoned the CHP and was told that the officer had released the ducks on their own recognizance to the Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area in Baldwin Hills. That proved a bit of an adventure too. “After the officer drove off,” Cagle said, “he heard some peeping in his car. Evidently, one of the ducklings had hidden under the seat, so he had to return and let him out with the rest.”
Dog daze: Marilyn Stein, an athletic-looking resident of Pacific Palisades, was shopping there when a woman asked her: “Who’s your trainer?” The woman meant who was the trainer of Stein’s dog, Sammy. This is an L.A. trend that Stein hadn’t heard about: dog trainers who are making house calls.
What struck Stein as somewhat absurd is that Sammy is hardly a designer dog, being a mutt--and one who is not all that slim. In fact, Sammy required no training to learn a favorite trick: begging at the dinner table for scraps.
miscelLAny: I thought The Times picked an appropriate day--Monday, April 15--to publish Tom Maugh’s fascinating piece about King Scorpion of ancient Egypt. It was Scorpion who may have ordered the development of writing more than 5,000 years ago. Why? One theory holds that he wanted to record the payment of taxes by his subjects. I wonder if the king allowed extensions?
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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.