An Angel Who Attracted Her Own Posse of Guardian Angels

Longtime Superior Court Judge Harry T. Shafer, who died the other day, liked to tell the story of the time he handled the divorce case of one of the glamorous stars of TV’s “Charlie’s Angels.”

Shafer asked an L.A. County sheriff’s captain: “How come you provided me with only two deputies when I received a death threat, and I counted eight deputies surrounding Farrah Fawcett during her divorce trial?”

“I only assigned two then, too,” the captain replied. “The other six were volunteers.”

Accidental wit: Shafer included the Fawcett story in his book “Howls of Justice,” a collection of legal humor co-written with Angie Papadakis.

One section dealt with “actual accident explanations to the court,” including:

* “I collided with a stopped truck coming the other way.”

* “I thought my window was down, but I found out it was up when I put my head through it.”

* “I pulled away from the side of the road, glanced at my mother-in-law, and headed over the embankment.”

* “I told police I was not injured, but on removing my hat, found that I had a fractured skull.”

* “An invisible car came out of nowhere, struck my car, and vanished.”

* “A pedestrian had no idea which way to run, so I ran over him.”

Sign o’ the times: Time was, Raymond Kissack of Santa Monica points out, “panhandlers needed money for food.” Now it’s for a liquid that is sold by the gallon (see photo).

Some people don’t mind being low on gas: In a small town in Russia, wrote Bob Elliott of Granada Hills, “I was initially taken aback by a sign advertising water with or without GAS until I realized that the gas being referred to is probably carbon dioxide” (see photo).

The good news ... : Jean Holt Koch of L.A. learned she was getting a refund from the IRS. The bad news ... (see accompanying).

miscelLAny: And, finally, this thought for the day, passed on by Jack Wexler of Westchester:

“Aoccdrnig to a rscheearer at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig, huh?”

Wish I had had this message to pass along to my eighth-grade English teacher.

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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., Los Angeles, CA 90012, and by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com.