People and Events

It seemed like the environmentalist thing to do, Gerrie Schipske said.

Merchants pay deposits for pop bottles that are returned. Why shouldn’t a candidate pay something like a deposit for political signs that are returned?

So Schipske pledged to pay $1 for each sign brought to her at El Dorado Park in Long Beach. She’d used 200 in her losing City Council campaign there.

Unfortunately, she neglected to make clear that she only wanted Schipske signs.

Instead, about 3,000 placards were dumped in her lap, including a “No Bork-No Bush” poster, a garage sale sign, one from an old supervisorial race, several from Orange County contests and even some bumper stickers.

“Some were caked with so much dirt they must have been buried,” she said. Some were hand-painted (though none bore paint that was still fresh).

Schipske paid out $50 for her own signs. But when she offered to send checks of just $15 to families that had brought in several hundred non-Schipskes, “it got kind of ugly,” she said.

Park police had to disperse some angry sign scavengers. The police also warned Schipske not to leave her treasures behind. Some onlookers helped her cart them away.

“I still think it’s the responsibility of being a candidate to clean up the environment,” she summed up. “But next time I think all the candidates should get together on this.”

You probably haven’t even finished your holiday shopping yet. Nevertheless, the Official City Christmas Tree of Los Angeles, all 76 feet of it, is due to arrive here early Wednesday morning after an eight-hour ride from Redding.

After it’s adorned with the Official City Ornaments, it will be dedicated by Mayor Tom Bradley on Dec. 1 at the Citicorp Plaza downtown. But Bradley will have stiff competition that day.

The Official County Christmas Tree is also being unveiled then, over at the Music Center Plaza. The county tree is being dedicated by Mickey and Minnie Mouse.

Mark Jasin, an artist who recently moved into a loft in the old Pabst Blue Ribbon brewery building near downtown, was awakened one morning by the sounds of a choir.

“I didn’t know whether I was dreaming or I’d gone to heaven and was being serenaded by angels,” he recalled. “I also wondered whether my radio had just come on.”

Then Jasin heard “Our Father” prayers, the Pledge of Allegiance and a voice telling students which classes to go to. Looking out his window, he spotted the back yard of a Catholic school about a block away in his Lincoln Heights neighborhood.

“It brought back memories, not all of them pleasant,” Jasin said. “I went to Catholic school for my first three years.”

Jasin, who works nights, woke up in this fashion for a week, then phoned the school’s mother superior to tell her that everyone on the block could hear the exercises.

“She was surprised,” he said. “But she was very nice. She told me she had just gotten a new P.A. system, and she apparently had cranked it up too high.”

She adjusted the volume, Jasin said, and the problem disappeared. He was relieved that the phone call went so smoothly.

“It was the first time I’d spoken to a mother superior since the third grade,” he said.