It wasn’t his tendency to snap at...

It wasn’t his tendency to snap at superiors that prompted the U.S. Navy to discharge Frumpy.

Rather, the 3-year-old snapping turtle had just grown too large for service as a mascot aboard the Pasadena, a nuclear attack submarine.

“Every millimeter aboard a submarine is precious,” pointed out Norm Schneider, a spokesman for Cal Poly Pomona, the school that eventually opened its arms to Frumpy.

The adoption process wasn’t simple. The state considers Frumpy a dangerous character.

“The Department of Fish and Game doesn’t allow the importing of snapping turtles because they’re considered predators,” Schneider said. “We had to promise that we would never allow him in state waters. He needed a special permit just to enter the state.”

Frumpy was then flown by jet from a Navy base in Connecticut to San Diego and by helicopter to Cal Poly, where he moved into a water tank on the roof of the College of Science building. He’ll make guest appearances as a live exhibit in science classes.

Schneider said that, in contrast to the reputation of snapping turtles, Frumpy “seems to be calm and friendly. The only thing he didn’t like was the flash of the camera when he had his picture taken.”

Maybe his service duty left him shell-shocked.

A quiet man, Tom Bradley enjoyed four relatively peaceful terms as mayor of Los Angeles.

But since his reelection to a fifth term in April, revelations about his personal finances have received extensive media coverage and prompted investigations into his conduct.

In reality, though, the last few months of Bradley’s reign have been more in keeping with the tradition of controversial L. A. mayors.

A few examples:

* Mayor Sam Yorty gained national attention with his unsolicited advice to President Lyndon Johnson on such matters as the Vietnam War and Palestinian refugees. On one of his many visits to Saigon while in office, Yorty temporarily misplaced $430 in traveler’s checks after he and an Air Force general swapped shirts during a party.

* Mayor Norris Poulson told off Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev at the Ambassador Hotel in 1959. “We do not agree with your widely quoted phrase, ‘We shall bury you,’ ” Poulson told the stunned Mr. K. “You shall not bury us and we shall not bury you.”

* Mayor Frank Shaw was recalled from office in 1938 after his administration was linked to corrupt activities as well as the attempted murder of a private detective.

* Mayor John Porter nearly caused an international incident on a junket to France in the early 1930s when he refused to drink a champagne toast to the president of the republic. Prohibition was in effect in the U.S., he solemnly explained.

* Mayor A. C. Harper resigned in 1909 amid revelations that he frequented several brothels near the Civic Center and planned to clandestinely sell the rights to the Los Angeles River’s bed. (It wasn’t concrete then.)

* Mayor Stephen Foster resigned from office in 1855 when the state Supreme Court granted a stay of execution for convicted murderer Dave Brown. Foster led a vigilante mob that hanged Brown from the crossbeam of a corral gate near the present entrance to City Hall.

No rose has been named for an L. A. mayor yet. But there are varieties named for Bing Crosby and Dolly Parton. And now, a new hybrid of the flower has been christened in honor of the Temptations. The hybrid tea rose was developed by Joseph Winchell, obviously a big fan.

Eliot Sekuler, a spokesman for the Temps, was told by the American Rose Society that a few years ago someone tried to name a rose for a famous English group.

“But the society rejected it,” he added, “because gardeners spend so much time battling beetles that attack roses that they were afraid that a Beatles rose would be a turnoff.”