Warning: A Life of Crime Can Serve Up Some Distasteful Consequences

Don’t join a gang, an L.A. County sheriff’s deputy was telling some elementary school kids in Paramount. You could wind up in jail -- a dark, ugly place where you’re served bad food. At that point, related City Talk, Paramount’s newsletter, a kid piped up: “Man, that’s terrible. I don’t want to go anywhere they serve vegetables.”

Speaking of crime: Connie Merritt Hughes of Laguna Beach saw a police log item in the city’s Independent newspaper that caused her to wonder just what was going on atop one building (see accompanying).

Death of romance here too: Terrence Hartwell and Phil Proctor each spotted a misspelled notice in Studio City (see photo), leading Proctor to say: “They’ve closed down another kissing booth in the Valley.”

The Nebraska right turn: “A relative was driving us in the little town of Ord, Neb.,” said Jack Stimson of Pasadena, “and went right through this stop sign without stopping. When we called him on it, he took us back to show us ... “ (see photo).

Now, I’m wondering if that bottom sign is posted at numerous intersections in Southern California. That would account for all the people I see kissing off stop signs.

Slightly west of Nebraska...: Inland Valley Bulletin columnist David Allen noted that, on the season finale of HBO’s “Six Feet Under,” a mordant comedy about a family-run mortuary in L.A., the character Dave asks his brother Nate where he’s been the past few hours. Just “out for a smoke,” says Nate. Retorts Dave: “Where, Pomona?”

Reflections on Pomona: There’s something about that name -- the fact that it rhymes with “moan-a”? -- that prompts screenwriters to use it as a punch line.

When Gloria Swanson mentions an awful script she’s been writing in “Sunset Boulevard,” boyfriend William Holden wisecracks, “They’ll love it in Pomona.” In “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” Katharine Houghton tells Sidney Poitier about a former beau, adding, “If he’d played his cards right, you’d have never met me. But he fell for some girl from Pomona.” Says Poitier: “That’ll teach him.” Finally, in “Athena,” Debbie Reynolds sings:

Would I love to see Paree?

Oui!

But I never felt better

So Pomona suits me.

I prefer Diamond Bar but that’s just me.

miscelLAny: The marquee at a Carson auto dealership said, “Don Kott Ford Welcomes the Galaxy.” I thought, “They’re bringing back that Ford model after a quarter-century?” But Kott was referring to a soccer team. And, yes, I’d forgotten that the car was misspelled Galaxie.

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Reach Steve Harvey at (800) LA-TIMES, Ext. 77083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by mail at L.A. Times, 202 W. 1st St., L.A. 90012 or steve.harvey@latimes.com.