The LAPD’s recent photo ad in The...

The LAPD’s recent photo ad in The Times, which showed officers rescuing two youngsters from a fire, brought back memories for Times photographer Lou Mack. He snapped it three decades ago while working on the old L.A. Examiner.

Mack and reporter George Sorgatz were in the Kagel Canyon area of Lakewood Terrace when they spotted the children.

“Just as we got there, two motorcycle cops came flying down,” Mack said. “The flames were coming right over us. The cops said later they felt like their backs were on fire.”

Sorgatz jumped out to help while Mack got off his one and only one shot, without focusing.

“A second later, the mother drove up crying, ‘My children!’--she couldn’t speak English very well--grabbed the kids, and drove off,” Mack said.

He won several awards for the shot, which the LAPD used for recruiting.

The incident happened so fast that Mack didn’t have time to get the officer’s names; a call to the LAPD’s press relations office Wednesday failed to solve that mystery.

And the mother and children?

“We never got their names either,” he said. “That was the last we saw of them.”

List of the Day:

Civic slogans that you don’t hear anymore:

1--Lomita: “Celery Capital of the World.”

2--Pomona: “Home of the American Olive.”

3--Bellflower: “Twenty-Nine Churches, No Jails.”

4--Downey: “Home of the Apollo.”

5--Paramount: “Hay Capital of the World.”

6-Glendale: “The Fastest-Growing City in America.”

The April Fool’s jokes are still coming in. Ken Kurtis says he heard from several interested readers after the Reef Seeker, his Beverly Hills scuba-diving publication, ran an April 1 article, “Dive Disneyland.”

“Have you ever been waiting in line for the Submarine ride,” the story began, “and marveled at the clarity of the lagoon’s water and wondered what it would be like to dive there? Well, now you can find out if you join us for our special ‘Dive Disneyland Day.’ It only costs $40 . . . For an additional $10, you can schedule (another) dive at Splash Mountain . . .”

One caller, informed by Kurtis that it was a joke, responded: “It’s a good idea. I think we should do it, anyway.”

Tom Panages of Silver Lake was shocked to read in The Times Wednesday that former Gov. Deukmejian had referred to L.A. as “the City of Angeles “ in his one-sentence entry in “The Great American Novel.” A pen company’s promotion, aimed at making the Guinness Book of World Records for most co-authors for one novel, it’s open to the public at Century City.

Panages pointed out that people either say, “Los Angeles” or “City of Angels.”

Of course, Deukmejian is a Long Beach guy.

miscelLAny:

Store owner Fred Segal opened the nation’s first jeans-only boutique on the Westside 30 years ago.