One Drink and They Want to Fight

Bowser’s a booze hound? James Sievern of Big Bear City noticed this mysterious crime log item in the town’s Grizzly newspaper:

“Wednesday, Dec. 20: 4:49 p.m. Report of two pit bulls fighting, 2000 block of East 6th Lane, Erwin Lake. One cited, drunk in public.”

I’m glad the dog was arrested before it tried to do something stupid like get behind the wheel.

A CROWN FOR THE COLISEUM? My poignant report on the decapitation of Chicken Boy, the 22-foot-tall, onetime restaurant roof decoration, got Craig Wright of Newport Beach thinking.

After reading that Chicken Boy’s head is all that owner Amy Inouye can fit into her studio, Wright wrote:

“Chicken Boy needs a body and there are two statues in front of the L.A. Coliseum that need heads!” (See photos.)

A second head would still be needed, but, hey, that’s a start!

OR CB COULD HIT THE ROAD: Wright’s idea is, of course, laudable. But it neglects the rest of CB’s torso, which has been exiled to the backyard of a friend of Inouye. She would like to put the big guy/fowl back together.

And a San Bernardino attraction, the Historic Site of the Original McDonald’s Museum, wants to do just that.

“We want him [CB] standing outside waving at people to come in here,” said owner Albert Okura. He purchased the property where the first (now-vanished) McDonald’s opened more than half a century ago.

Okura has filled the museum with memorabilia of McDonald’s as well as of Route 66.

The museum (admission is free) also contains items relating to Okura’s chicken house chain, Juan Pollo. One likes to think that Chicken Boy would feel comfortable there.

MCDONALD’S--THE PREHISTORY: Oddly enough, the founding McDonald brothers started out selling hot dogs and juice at their Airdrome stand in Arcadia.

In 1940, they moved to San Bernardino and opened McDonald’s Famous Barbecue, still shunning burgers. And the brothers used carhops.

“They wanted pretty girls with pretty legs,” says curator Jack Marcus. “The girls wore white majorette boots and red satin outfits.

“A lot of people come in [to the museum] and ask where the roller skates are, but McDonald’s didn’t use them. The McDonald’s brothers thought they might fall and scuff up their boots or hurt their legs. They always wanted everything clean and white. The girls had to carry polish in their purses in case their boots were scuffed.”

In 1948, the brothers changed the name to McDonald’s Famous Hamburgers and started emphasizing speed service. And the carhops hopped off into the sunset.

IT’S NOT A PROMOTION: Al Shack of Simi Valley snapped a shot of a gas station that is not giving away money, despite what its sign said (see photo). Actually it’s trying to get your money at its carwash.

miscelLAny:

I asked a merchant in my neighborhood about his honor student daughter. He shook his head sadly. “I ask her what she wants to be--a doctor, a lawyer?,” he said. “She says no, she wants to be a writer--a what you call it?--a journalist.”

I told him she might grow out of it.

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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, 202 W. 1st St., L.A., 90012 and by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com.