Girlfriend Takes Flight After Scenic Drive in L.A.

Tom Greene of L.A. remembered well the 1998 incident in which a local man inadvertently taped his own carjacking. Greene was an onlooker, under rather ironic circumstances.

As I’ve written, the victim, Timothy Cole, was sitting in heavy traffic on Sepulveda Boulevard when a fleeing felon jumped into his car and forced him out. Before leaving his house, Cole had watched the beginning of the pursuit of the same felon and had put a tape into a VCR so he could watch the rest later.

Which brings us to Greene, who had picked up his girlfriend, a Hawaii resident, at LAX that day. Greene was trying to persuade her to move to L.A.

“She was very gun-shy (literally) about the idea,” Greene said. “She thought this was a city of drive-bys and riots.” Suddenly, the two of them were looking at “a bunch of police cars, with lights flashing, and a man running through traffic. Then only about 50 yards in front of us, we watch as he jumps into a van, and the next thing we know, the poor driver of the van is being forced out of the driver’s side ...

“The driver runs right by us as the van and the police race by. My girlfriend looked at me, her mouth agape.”

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Postscript: Greene’s girlfriend demanded that he turn around and drive her back to the airport. “She got out, changed the ticket to the next flight to the islands, and I never saw her again,” he said. “It did make me laugh to remember that day.”

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For drivers of muscle cars ... : Paul Cate found just the menu (see photo).

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Speaking of pit stops: On an olive jar, David Dawson noticed some small print that illustrated that nothing is certain in this life (see photo).

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No fun at all: Robert Ylinen snapped a sign in Montana that was put up by a real killjoy (see photo).

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Isn’t it the pits? “When I ran some errands the other night, gas prices in Hollywood had risen an average of 8 cents in the eight hours since I’d been out earlier,” reports Rick Mitchell. “Is that a record?”

If so, let’s just hope it isn’t broken.

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miscelLAny: The “Twisted”/”Passion of Christ” movie pairing pictured in my last column reminded Maggie Bell of Dana Point of an amusing, long-ago theater marquee: “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon” and “Selected Shorts.”