Couple Put Hearts, Souls Into Marriage Day

Dave and Marilyn Fitter are betting that married couples can be as romantic as young lovers who are not married.

If they’re wrong . . . well, then they’re going to have a lot of room on their hands this Sunday.

The Fitters--he’s a bottled water salesman and she’s a medical secretary--have rented the El Cortez Convention Center from 3 to 6 p.m. on Sunday for a public display of romance among husbands and wives, even though they’re not sure anybody’s going to show up to join them.

The event is called World Marriage Day. Since 1980, it has been celebrated all over the United States on the Sunday before Valentine’s Day. It’s designed to give married couples the opportunity to show the world that in an era of alternative life styles, a lot of folks are unabashedly in love the old-fashioned way.

For the San Diego affair, the Fitters have lined up music for dancing (thanks to the Padres’ popular organist, Danny Topaz), a “couple-of-ceremonies” (KFMB radio ham Joe Bauer and his wife, Cindy) and a wedding cake big enough to serve 1,000 people. It’ll be like a huge wedding reception; everyone who is married is invited, and everything’s free.

Alger and Esta Bryant of El Cajon, who have been married for 76 years, will be honored as the county’s longest-committed couple, and the Cupid Award, a local gimmick invented to honor the most romantic TV commercial, will be presented.

But the romantic frosting on the wedding cake will come when a priest, a minister and a rabbi share the nondenominational podium to lead everyone in the renewal of their marriage vows.

Better make sure you’re holding the right person’s hands.

Goat Sanctuary in Ramona

The much-ballyhooed goat rescue on San Clemente Island is not without its local angle: The young men and women who work at the California Conservation Corps camp in Escondido went to the island last week to set up corrals to hold the goats until they are taken off the island by barge. And, today and Wednesday, the CCC’ers will be in Ramona, setting up more pens to hold the rescued animals until they are adopted.

The goats are being taken off the island because they’re eating endangered plants. The Navy, which uses the island for target practice (apparently they’re such good shots they don’t hit the endangered plants), was going to kill the goats to save the plants, but the New York-based Fund for Animals got the chance to capture a bunch of the goats and bring them mainland for adoption before the wholesale goat-shoot begins.

One of the goat refugee camps is being set up at the Animal Trust Sanctuary in Ramona.

Tom Miller, who administers the CCC camp in Escondido, said the work on San Clemente Island went without a hitch. “We were on and off the island so fast, we didn’t even get to see a single goat,” he said.

Work supervisors noticed that one young man wasn’t working quite as fast as the others, who took a 30-minute helicopter ride to the island for the two-day job.

“We asked him what his excuse was,” Miller said. “He said he had jet lag.”

Gutsy Crime at City Hall

Someone has stolen the TV set that serves the 10th-floor offices of the San Diego City Council.

And, in swift and calculated response, the powers that be have increased security on the 10th floor by installing digital lock gizmos on the doors that lead from the lobby into the back rooms. Now, if you want to get by the receptionist and go back into the council members’ offices, you first have to punch in the right series of numbers.

But that sort of begs the question of how the TV was stolen. “It was a good 19-incher,” said Joe Davis, an aide to Councilman Bill Mitchell. “It’s not something you’d just stick under your shirt.”

The TV was taken over a weekend.

“Imagine,” reflected Councilman Mike Gotch. “Someone had the guts to go up to the 10th floor, unplug the cable, and walk down 10 floors. That’s chutzpah!”

Mouthful of Cabbage

Just when you thought there was nothing more to be said about Cabbage Patch dolls, brace yourself.

Dr. Don Graham, a Lakeside orthodontist, puts braces on soft-sculptured dolls. He has fitted braces on more than 100 dolls since before Christmas.

The idea came from one of his assistants, and the parents of his patients love it, he said.

“They’d buy a doll that looks like their child, then they’d come in here to have braces put on, for that final signature,” Graham said.

He does the service free for regular patients, and charges $5--to cover the cost of the braces--for non-patients.

Graham glues real orthodontic braces to the doll’s mouth, punching the two ends of the wire into the corners of the mouth to hold them in place.

And the dolls never complain.