Keep on Truckin’, but Be Ready to Brake for Moving Trees in Paramount

Did anyone get the number of that elm? A truck driver who demolished a tree on Paramount Boulevard in the city of that name told Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies: “It came out of nowhere!”

Dynamic duo: A while back, I mentioned the 40-year-old fiberglass statue of cartoon immortal Bullwinkle J. Moose holding pal Rocket J. “Rocky” Squirrel on Sunset Boulevard. Series creator Jay Ward, whose office was nearby, had it constructed as a parody of a giant statue of a showgirl in Las Vegas (see accompanying photo).

The column reference caught the eye of John Scott, whose father Bill was head writer at Jay Ward Productions (as well as the voice of Bullwinkle). By coincidence, Scott and his wife, Tina, found another tribute of sorts to the show on a street in Banff, Alberta, Canada (see accompanying photo).

The small stuff: An item here recounted how a defense attorney told a judge that her client would accept a “two [years] plus two [years]” sentence for a total of “three years.” When the judge pointed out that two plus two equals four, the attorney quipped: “That is why I am an attorney. Couldn’t pass math.”

Which made Jim Glass recall an incident at a market in Cambridge, Mass., when he was a student at MIT.

“I was in the ’10 items or less’ line and the fellow ahead of me had about two dozen items,” Glass said. “The checker looked at him and said, ‘Are you from Harvard and can’t count . . . or MIT and can’t read?’ ”

Cross-examination: Glass, possibly influenced by the fact that I was discussing a court item here, admits, for the record: “This could be a ‘false’ memory--i.e., it was a joke circulating back then.”

Strange offer at face value: Those familiar with the losing ways of the L.A. Clippers over the years might be surprised to hear that two tickets to a Clippers game were spotted on sale on eBay.com for $1,000.

Not $10. Not $100. For $1,000.

And, even more oddly, the ducats would entitle the buyer to see the Clippers play nothing more than a team that has been faring even worse: the Washington Wizards.

The explanation? As some of you may have guessed, the seller of the tickets is capitalizing on talk that the Wizards will be bringing a new player into town.

Kid by the name of Michael Jordan.

Everything from hay to Z: Gloria Coleman of Oxnard took me to task for alleging that the Zamboni machine was invented in Paramount in 1949.

I should have said, “what is now Paramount,” because the city didn’t come into existence until 1957 when the towns of Hynes and Clearwater merged. (The name comes from the common roadway of Paramount Boulevard.)

The Zamboni ice resurfacer was built in Hynes, which then styled itself the Hay Capital of the World.

Clearwater, by the way, was mainly known for its dry lake. But that’s another story.

miscelLAny:

Columnist David Allen of the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin reports that a sign in a check-cashing establishment in Ontario warns:

“No cash on premises.”

Steve Harvey can be reached at (800) LA-TIMES, ext. 77083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, 202 W. 1st St., Los Angeles, CA 90012 and by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com.