Outage Left Her at Starting Gate

Jenny Platt, one of Gil Chesterton’s students at Beverly Hills High, phoned the school to say she’d be late for a very 90210-ish reason. Because of a power outage, the electronic gate at her residence wouldn’t open, trapping her car.

It’s the most colorful excuse Chesterton has heard since another student told him she couldn’t get out of her driveway because it was blocked by the media, who were checking on the condition of her next-door neighbor, Frank Sinatra.

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SHIPS PASSING IN THE NIGHT: I grew up in L.A. in the 1950s and ‘60s during the Westside’s Golden Age--when there were three Ships. They were 24-hour coffee shops that offered a do-it-yourself toaster at every table. Founder Emmett Shipman had installed them because it irritated him to eat in breakfast joints where the toast arrived cold.

My favorite Ships was in Culver City, where waitress Lee Riling worked the graveyard shift with a brass whistle around her neck. “The drunks would come in and we weren’t allowed to touch them,” she once said, “so I’d have the busboys get behind them and I’d get in front and blow my whistle to wake them up.”

Ah, memories. The Culver City Ships is now a Starbucks, the Westwood Ships is a parking lot, and the La Cienega Ships is a, well, it’s a Ships, complete with old logo. But it’s a truck rental business (see photo).

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SHIPS (cont.): The name wasn’t retained for sentimental reasons.

New owner Jay Zaman said he was told by the city that if he gave the company a different name, its signs could only be 20 feet tall. The Ships signs are 40 feet tall.

So Ships was not mothballed.

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A MOUTHFUL: Ships’ rebirth reminded me of the transformation of the old Penguin Cafe into a dental clinic in Santa Monica (see photo). Not many dentists adopt a toothless mascot.

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NOW THAT’S SERVICE! I recently printed a note from Mel Whitmore of Brentwood who had written to Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski about potholes in his neighborhood. The letter had been forwarded to the Bureau of Street Services, which promised the problem would be handled in the “2010-2011 Resurfacing Program.” Goodness knows how deep the pothole would have been by then. But Whitmore wrote here to say that the crew was out to repair it the other day, 10 years ahead of schedule.

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MAKE UP YOUR MIND: Michael Leviton of Encino received a slate mailer from Democratic Voters Choice that recommended a “Yes” vote on Prop. 26 on one side and a “No” vote on the same proposition on the other side.

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YOUR CASINO DOLLARS AT WORK: Sharon Dirlam of Santa Barbara received four mailers from backers of Prop. 1A, the tribal gaming issue, on the same day. Each mailer said, “You don’t need a detective. If you need to know where to vote, look no further. Your polling place is. . . .”

Mailer No. 1 listed Free Methodist Church, No. 2 listed St. Joseph Catholic Church, No. 3 listed Craig Hall, and No. 4 listed American Legion Hall.

Sort of a roll of the dice.

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SOMETHING WAS MISSING: “What Is Your Most Unusual Client Experience,” the L.A. Daily Journal asked several attorneys.

Sid Wolinsky recalled the time a client, who was an inmate at San Quentin, was asked in court about the authenticity of an exhibit of a prison cell there.

The convicted felon “repeatedly said that it did not accurately represent a San Quentin cell,” Wolinsky said. “When pressed by the judge, he said the scale model wasn’t accurate because it didn’t smell.”

miscelLAny:

Art Cohen of L.A. noticed that an envelope he received from the IRS reminded him: “If you are filing electronically, do not use this envelope.” Remarked Cohen:

“They are probably afraid of clogging the phone lines with paper.”

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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, Times Mirror Square, L.A. 90053 and by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com.