To Catch a Thief--San Diego-Style

Without further adieu, our good news story of the day:

A fellow was window-shopping inside Kobey’s Downtown last Wednesday afternoon when he asked to see a tray of jewelry from one of the tenant jewelers. Then he grabbed the goods and bolted out the door onto Broadway.

Two of the sales clerks chased him, yelling, “Stop that guy! Stop him!”

Well, folks, this isn’t New York City, where pleas for help fall on deaf ears or generate hey-don’t-look-at-me gazes. A dozen or so pedestrians heard the cries and, hardly without hesitation, gave chase.

They ran down Broadway. Next, the thief turned up 4th Avenue and they were still chasing him. He dropped his backpack and was running like the devil. Then he started to drop the jewelry and they were still chasing him.

A cop saw all this and threw on his red lights. The guy was arrested--you can score one for the Good Guys.

Back down the street, other pedestrians were carefully picking up the jewelry--and turning it over to the two beaming sales clerks.

Stop Signs and Lights

If that was nice, then consider these non sequiturs along the same law-and-order vein:

- San Diego Councilwoman Judy McCarty last week offered her solution to a problem brought to light during a neighborhood meeting in the Allied Gardens neighborhood.

The problem: Street signs that were installed more than 30 years ago have begun to fade, but the city won’t install newer, easy-to-read signs unless existing signs are vandalized or stolen.

“That’s no problem,” McCarty quipped. “I guess we just have to organize a vandalism party.”

- During a recent lunch hour, downtown pedestrians crossing the street at 5th and Broadway scurried back to the curb to get out of the path of a speeding car that ran a red light.

There’s nothing very unusual about that urban scene, given the increasing frequency with which traffic signals are ignored. But the incident did lend some irony to the lettering on the back of the white, official government car: “Traffic Collision Investigations.”

Penn Pals Switched

Then there was the item on Channel 8’s noon news last week about sassy actor Sean Penn being sentenced to jail for some unruly conduct.

At the end of the newscast, the station apologized for the picture it showed of Penn. No, that was not Sean Penn you saw on your screen, folks. It was Sagon Penn, the Southeast San Diego man on trial on charges of killing a police officer.

Two Cents’ Worth

Everyone, it seems, is a critic.

Consider, for instance, the penciled remarks by a reader that are found in the San Diego Library copy of the James Patterson suspense novel, “Black Market.”

Our friend has taken pencil in hand and underlined and corrected a dozen or more real and imagined grammatical errors. On page 336 alone, for instance, there are three notations including praise for how Patterson successfully handled--or is that, handled successfully?--a split infinitive.

On the book jacket are a couple of legitimate critiques. Author John MacDonald describes the book as “tough, wry and eloquent.” Our critic has added his unsolicited review, writing in pencil that Patterson is the “Master of the Split Infinitive.”

Ask a Silly Question . . .

In case you haven’t noticed when you pay your bills every month, the major utilities, department stores and bank cards have those computer-readable bars on the envelope for your payment.

Those bars tell the post office’s computer where to send your check.

It doesn’t matter whose address shows through the little window of the envelope; no matter what, it’s going to go to where the bars tell it to go, period.

So why, then, do companies like SDG&E; still have envelopes with little windows for their address to show through?

SDG&E; spokeswoman Karen Duncan gave us her most honest answer: “I don’t know.”

She tried to find out, and pulled some muckety-muck out of a meeting for an answer. “He looked at me like I was insane for asking, and said, ‘I don’t know.’ ”

So she and some other folks decided there must be an answer. Maybe, she conjectured, “so customers can look through the window and be sure they have included their invoice in the envelope.

“Maybe it’s in case the post office’s computer isn’t working, so they can still get the mail to us.

“Or maybe because we had thousands of envelopes with windows already on hand, and they used them instead of ordering new ones . . .

“Or maybe because people need an address to show through because they can’t bring themselves to send their money to a bunch of bars, and no name.”

Now, That’s Service

An Escondido homeowner went into a panic last week when he got notice that water was going to be shut off on his street for the day because of a new tie-in. He had just planted his backyard in grass seed and if the nurseryman had told him once, he had told him a thousand times: Keep it wet!

So he called Rincon del Diablo Municipal Water District with his problem: How can he keep his backyard wet during the heat of the day, when the water’s shut off?

He was advised to hook up a long hose to an unaffected neighbor’s spigot, given the neighbor’s permission.

“If you can’t, let us know because there’s always Plan B,” the water folks said.

On the day of the water shut-off, the neighbor’s water was tapped. But Rincon didn’t leave anything to chance. In the driveway pulled up Plan B: a huge water truck, garden hose attached.