People and Events

How big is Deborah Johnson’s love? Try 600 pounds.

That’s what boyfriend Ernest Beasley weighed in at when he visited his Inglewood doctor’s office Friday for a checkup on his stomach staples.

Beasley had tipped the scales at 657 pounds when he underwent vertical banded gastroplasty surgery April 7 to lose weight. Steel staples and a nylon band sealed off a portion of his stomach to restrict the amount of food he can digest.

Fifty-seven pounds later, Beasley says he’s feeling better. Johnson says he’s looking better, too.

Beasley says he decided to slim down after Johnson sold him some Avon products and they started dating. “I want to look my best for her, and I will,” the 6-foot, 2-inch Beasley says.

The couple say they plan to marry when Beasley sheds another 360 pounds.

“My goal is 240. I’m gonna make it, too. I figure it will take about 18 months,” he says.

Beasley’s surgeon says his ambition is to get Beasley down to 350 pounds and “get him walking around and functioning.”

Before the operation, “I could put away four double Whopper hamburgers, two shakes and two orders of large fries at one sitting,” Beasley says. These days, “a kiddie burger will do.”

“It took a lot of pressure and pushing to get him to have the surgery,” Johnson says. “He was scared.”

When he reaches his weight goal, “we’re gonna party hearty,” Beasley says.

“I mean boogying, dancing. Not eating.”

The latest person to try to make a buck as a matchmaker?

It’s Gil Escontrias, whose business is going to the dogs. And when he gets there, he tries to match one of them up with his customer.

For a $150 fee, Escontrias searches out canine companions for clients afraid to trust their luck by picking out just any pooch at the pound. The cost of the dog is extra.

“Some people don’t understand the responsibility that goes with owning an animal,” Escontrias says. “They see a dog, see the trendiness of it. They like the way it looks but don’t know anything about its personality. . . .”

The matchmaking is done after Escontrias prepares a profile of the would-be dog owner. He evaluates the client’s personality, life style and financial situation before recommending specific dog breeds and sizes.

The consulting business, called Canine Corps, is a part-time thing for Escontrias, 29. His regular job is that of a Los Angeles police officer.

Happily for him, one of his satisfied clients is his boss, Police Lt. George Reming. Reming says he turned to Escontrias because dogs he’d previously owned had been untrainable.

Escontrias didn’t cop out of the assignment. He matched Reming up with the perfect police dog.

A German shepherd.

Eight students from Taft High School in Woodland Hills hope to clean up when trophies are handed out at a national academic decathlon that started Friday afternoon in San Antonio, Tex.

So they aren’t letting the maids clean up their rooms at the hotel where they’re staying.

The students, who won the right to represent California in statewide competition last month, have been holed up in their rooms, hitting the books since they arrived in Texas on Wednesday, says team coach Arthur Berchin.

“In some of the rooms, the kids didn’t want any of the maids to come in because they had books everywhere,” Berchin says.

The maids might not understand. But mothers of teen-agers will.

Sean Holland is circling the world on his bicycle. But he’s doing much of it in quarter-mile circles.

The 27-year-old West Los Angeles law student is trying to ride his bike around the running track in every arena that has been used for the summer Olympics.

On Friday, Holland took a leisurely noontime spin around the spongy rubber track at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, which was the site of the international competitions in 1932 and 1984.

Since starting his bike ride last year in Olympia, Greece, he has ridden 5,300 miles and pedaled through stadiums in Athens, Rome, Munich, Paris, London, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Berlin, Stockholm, Helsinki and Mexico City.

Holland says he has another 4,200 miles and six arenas to go before he finishes at the Seoul, Korea, Olympic stadium this fall.

Only the Soviet Union has refused to allow him and his bike in, Holland says. He usually bikes to his destinations, but he was required to travel by rail in East Germany last summer to reach the Berlin arena.

When he removed his bicycle from the rail car, its door closed and clamped tightly on the bike’s frame as the passenger coach started moving, Holland says. He raced alongside until people on board helped him pry the door open.

That’s called Olympic train-ing.