Monastery Memento Drives Home Importance of Knowing Your Territory

Members of the media who toured the new Pao-fa Buddhist monastery in Irvine were given unlikely mementos that were inscribed with the monastery’s name: commuter mugs. Of course, driving is the one religion common to everyone here.

Words imperfect: My new concept for a sure-fire-hit TV suspense series is “Missing Letters,” which would follow the dramatic search to repair these items in my collection (see photos), including:

* A tire sign that inadvertently imparts a cheerful message (Nancy Warrick of Costa Mesa).

* Miles apart signs that add up to one Wells Fargo logo.

* A devilish commentary on urban life.

* And, finally -- in the category of Those Rascally Commuters Are At It Again! -- a movie log from Dana Alexander of Santa Barbara in which all the Ps are missing.

Fore! I see where the Agriculture Department denied approval to a company planning to sell a “bioengineered super grass” for golf courses. Because weedkillers don’t affect the stuff, the Associated Press said, some environmentalists feared that the grass might escape the golf courses, “wreak havoc on schoolyards and neighborhood lawns” and be impossible to control.

Such, interestingly enough, was the basic plot of “Greener Than You Think,” a 1947 novel by Ward Moore. The roots of the disaster were in L.A., of course -- specifically, a frontyard in Hollywood where a chemist soaked a dying lawn with an additive. The resulting Bermuda grass spread with a vengeance “through the Cahuenga Pass ... toward the fertile San Fernando Valley. Steadily it climbed to the hilltops, masticating sage, greasewood, oak, sycamore and manzanita with the same ease it bolted houses and pavements.”

Nothing stops it, not weed-burners, oil or even aerial bombing by the National Guard. The devil grass eventually swamps the entire nation. The Soviet Union attacks America, but its soldiers become trapped in the weeds and starve. By book’s end, the grass has jumped to other nations, and most of Earth’s inhabitants have taken to living on the sea. I can’t recall if the inventor of the additive was a golfer, but I wouldn’t be surprised.

Understatement of the day: Bennett Mintz of Chatsworth spotted this headline in an outdoors publication: “Lyme disease can spoil your outdoor fun ... “

New undertaking? The Monrovia-based Baseball Reliquary collects offbeat baseball treasures such as a “fragment of skin purportedly from the inner left thigh of [baseball pioneer] Abner Doubleday, found in a refrigerator in the basement of the Hall of Fame in 1948 and apparently deemed to have been too disturbing for public exhibition.” The reliquary just announced its latest (less sensational) find: the gold-plated shovel used by original Angel owner Gene Autry during groundbreaking ceremonies for Anaheim Stadium on Aug. 31, 1964.

Fine, but with the Angels’ World Series chances seemingly dying, I hate to see any mention of a shovel in connection with the team.

miscelLAny: Diana Steshko of Lake Forest came across an herbal supplement that was billed as a “powerful men’s performance enhancer.” The label warned that a user should first consult a doctor “if you are pregnant.” And then be sure to call the National Enquirer.

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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