26 Miles Across the Sea, Santa Catalina Is the Place for Wacky Tourists to Be

It’s that time of the year, when the tourists descend on Catalina, dressed in their funny clothes and asking their funny questions. “My favorite is, ‘Do the buffalo migrate?’ ” said Sherri Cline of the Landing Bar & Grill in Avalon. “We tell them, ‘Yes, they swim across the channel [to L.A.].’ ” Cline said the island, which is a part of L.A. County ( not a sovereign nation), draws such wacky queries as:

“Where do I go to have my currency changed?”

“Is the water in the bay saltwater?”

“What freeway exit do I take to get to Catalina?”

And: “What time does the 4 o’clock boat leave?”

Catalina (part II): Then there are the unusual observations by tourists. Cline once saw a visitor point to San Clemente and tell his child it was China. And the smoke from an incinerator used to draw attention in the old days. “People would say it was a live volcano,” Cline recalled.

Second lives: Mention of a Straw Hat Pizza becoming a Raw Hat Pizza inspired readers to recall other cases where signs had been recycled for new businesses. “I played at Pike’s Verdugo Oaks in Glendale in 1980-81,” musician Gary Myers wrote. “When it was sold, it became Mike’s Verdugo Oaks.”

Then there was Little Annie Fannie’s, a South Gate joint that became Little Annie Wannie’s for reasons that weren’t completely clear. Eric Sandberg of Diamond Bar recalled a Comfort Inn in Monterey Park that “got buzz-sawed into the Come On Inn.” And Deb Chandler of Upland remembered “a Lamp Post Pizza that became Lamp Pot Pizza. What is a lamp pot?”

Accountable: Steve Kile of Downey noticed a phrase on a marquee that was either a movie title or a room for patrons who show up at the theater without any money (see photo).

Thanks for the warning! For $2 million-plus you’d think a house would have a bit of warmth, style and grace. But not the one spotted by William and Lisa Dalmatoff of La Mirada (see accompanying). Guess it’s really a seller’s market.

Speaking of warmth: In Arkansas, Fred Booth came upon a church marquee that promised some spiritual cooling (see photo).

MiscelLAny: The California Sumo Assn., which wrestles weekly at the John Wooden Center at UCLA, has members weighing as little as 105 pounds. Observed the L.A. Business Journal: “It figures that in L.A. even sumo wrestling is for the thin.”

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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.