Who Owns This Money? The Answer Is Blowin’ in the Wind

Journalist Don Ray was driving home from an assignment the other day when he suddenly realized money was blowing about in the street in front of him.

“It looked like confetti from a distance,” he said, “but it was real.

“No one else seemed to notice it. I got out and started gathering it up, just like in a strange dream. Then I drove a half-block downwind and there was more of it.” In the amount of hundreds of dollars.

Ray, a reporter for the L.A. Daily Journal, phoned the LAPD and Sheriff’s Department but neither had heard about a robbery or any other loss of money.

He posted a query on Craigslist.org without mentioning the money, and heard back from two people who had lost things: a satchel of digital videotapes and a shopping bag of merchandise.

So he thought of Only in L.A. “I figure there’s a chance someone might tell you the right story,” said Ray.

If no one comes forward with the pertinent details -- such as amount, date and location -- he may give it to charity.

“This is a civics lesson for my stepson David,” he said. “I want to teach him that when you find something, it’s not necessarily yours, and when you lose something, it’s still yours even if you can’t find it.”

More strange sights: Is another scandal facing the city of San Diego?

While jogging at South Pasadena High, Henk Friezer of Eagle Rock noticed a sign “that had been put up because of the reseeding of the football field” (see photo). Yes, it appears that the Port of San Diego is trying to annex South Pasadena, even if it is quite a bit inland. Be on your toes, Alhambra; you could be next.

Such a deal: Ron Fineman appreciated the offer from one real estate company but, with all due modesty, figured his house was worth more than $5,000 (see accompanying).

I beg your pardon! Oldsters like me do have a “mid drift” area, but I’m not sure that’s true of the waitresses at the joint where Diane Luicciardi of Westchester noticed a dress code announcement (see accompanying).

miscelLAny: After the U.S. Postal Service released a 37-cent stamp honoring the late Caltech physicist Richard Feynman, the Pasadena Weekly reports, Caltech pranksters transformed “the Hollywood Walk of Fame into the ‘Illustrious Scientists Walk of Fame,’ ” covering 500 celebrity stars along Hollywood Boulevard with the names of acclaimed scientists such as Feynman, Isaac Newton, Stephen Hawking and Marie Curie.” Sure, maybe those folks accomplished a few things, but were they ever paid $20 million to make a movie?

*

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.