A Survivor’s Guide to the Southland

Dear Convention Visitors:

On Tuesday, this column cautioned you about signs in the area that shouldn’t be taken literally (i.e. “Cruise Ships Use Airport Exit” on Interstate 5). Now, here are some signs that mean what they say (see photos).

There really is:

* A Pacoima used car dealer who makes grandiose claims--in reverse.

* A store in Garden Grove operated by what could be the most modest duo you’ll find.

* A Downey park named after a cartoon figure in the 1960s, when the kid starred in a sitcom.

* And at least one area in Southern California--belonging to a Venice casting agency with a small parking lot--where actors aren’t privileged folk.

PIZZA NUTS: I had mixed feelings upon learning that a column item of mine was featured on the Web page of the San Fernando Valley Folklore Society (https://www.snopes.com). After all, the society’s business is exposing urban folk tales.

But it confirmed the item about a group of some 60 FBI agents who, while investigating records inside a psychiatric hospital in San Diego, attempted to have pizza delivered to them. The telephone conversation went like this:

Agent: Hello. I would like to order 19 large pizzas and 67 cans of soda.

Pizza man: And where would you like them delivered?

Agent: To the Southwood Psychiatric Hospital.

Pizza man: To the psychiatric hospital?

Agent: That’s right. I’m an FBI agent.

Pizza man: You’re an FBI agent?

Agent: That’s correct. Just about everybody here is.

Pizza man: And you’re at the psychiatric hospital?

Agent: That’s correct. And make sure you don’t go through the front doors. We have them locked. You’ll have to go around to the back to the service entrance to deliver the pizzas.

After a few more exchanges, the pizza man hung up.

LEFTOVERS: Until I read the folklore society’s subsequent interview with FBI Special Agent Wayne A. Barnes, I never knew what the agents did about dinner. They did have pizza. But they picked it up themselves.

MORE PHONE HUMOR: Adding to a list of GTE goofs that appeared in this space, Dan Sulzinger points out that the San Bernardino directory lists Maxine Waters (D-L.A.) as the local congressional rep. Hey, L.A. isn’t that sprawling.

ATTENTION--STANTON AND BUENA PARK: “CYPRESS--Katella Avenue, 6900 block, 2:37 p.m.: A bearded man in his 30s was seen running east with a towel wrapped around his waist,” the police log of the Los Alamitos News Enterprise reported.

miscelLAny:

Some good news of a sort for Long Beach, which was characterized as the city “of long shots, of mothballed dreams” in Garry Trudeau’s “Doonesbury” strip. Men’s Health magazine lists Cal State Long Beach as one of the 10 “most male-friendly colleges in America.” Reason: Meeting women is not a long-shot proposition. The school’s male/female ratio is 42/58.

caption FOR Trader Vic’s