Winning Raffle Was Child’s Play

Would you accept a Ford Mustang prize from this man? Well, there was some question in the case of the La Habra Corn Festival raffle. A raffle rep phoned Princess Calderon, the winner of the car, “for over a month and she never returned the calls,” the Star Progress reported.

Of course, there was an explanation. Princess was 18 months old at the time of the raffle.

“Her father Avelardo [Calderon] purchased the ticket and never mentioned it to his wife, Gabriella,” the newspaper explained. “When Gabriella received the phone calls that Princess won a car, she thought someone was just trying to sell her a car.”

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Guide to Adventurous Dining: The items du jour (see accompanying) include:

* A place that sounds ideal if you have a sprained ankle or an empty stomach (submitted by Sharon Parker);

* A store’s semiannual discount dinner (Jim Arndt);

* A cafe that’s just the spot if you “enjoy” inside or outside noise (Shirley Sutton);

* A fortune cookie that indulges in some unfortunate name-calling (Brian Nunes).

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Someone should have smelled trouble: A tussle broke out between two women in a Manhattan Beach gym, said the police log of the Beach Reporter, after one “sprayed eucalyptus in the sauna area.”

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Don’t feel left out, San Diego: I mentioned the book “The War Between the State -- Northern California vs. Southern California,” which is full of insults that Angelenos and Friscoites have shot at each other.

Whereupon Jody Fox dug up a clip of a column by Don Freeman of the San Diego Union-Tribune, who recalled the time the late San Francisco columnist Herb Caen referred to San Diego as “beautiful but dumb.” Freeman’s column, by the way, ran several weeks before a financial crisis sent San Diego’s bond ratings tumbling.

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Is Oscar the Grouch a suspect? The Seal Beach Sun said police heard from a caller who “reported hearing a clicking at the window, which turned out to be a penny attached to a string, possibly puppeted by a male” who got away “in a maroon Toyota.”

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miscelLAny: I initially felt deeply honored when I received an e-mail telling me I had been recommended for “The A List L.A.” Odd thing, though, is that the publishers also asked that I tell them “the following things about you. Your name____. Occupation___” Gee, my sponsor didn’t know either of those two things about me? I hope someone isn’t trying to puppet me.

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Steve Harvey can be reached at (800) LATimes, 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.