For your one-stop shopping convenience:A small store...

For your one-stop shopping convenience:

A small store inside Pasadena’s Huntington Memorial Hospital has used crutches and skis for sale.

And they’re on display in the same bin.

TIME FOR A CHANGE? L. Paul Cook found an ad that would seem perfect for L.A., which is sometimes known as the City of the Second Start. Actually, the “double female gender-changer” refers to computer plugs.

FOR THE BIKER BRIDE . . . : Continuing our kinky theme, William Bates of Downey snapped a shot of a laundry with lettering on its window that seems to indicate it specializes in suede and leather wedding ensembles. Whips and chains you’ll have to take elsewhere.

THE DEVIL, WE SAID: We mentioned that Dennis the Menace Park in Downey is the only park in L.A. County named for a fictional figure, unless you count Devil’s Punchbowl near Palmdale.

That prompted a note from Father Paul Pluth of St. Andrew’s Abbey in Valyermo. He first wanted it known that Valyermo is the specific location of Devil’s Punchbowl. And, he added, “we certainly think it is named for something real.”

ZONKED OUT: Some years ago, a stretch of beach was also named for a literary figure, Zonker Harris of “Doonesbury,” points out William Pollock of Pacific Palisades.

Unfortunately, he added, every Zonker Harris sign that the county put up “was stolen almost immediately. . . . When Malibu became a city, efforts to maintain the sign were abandoned.”

THE S.S. CADILLAC: As for that puzzling “Cruise Ships Use Airport Exit” photo we published the other day, Wendy Andruschak of Gardena thinks she has an explanation. She alerted us to a Web site that describes itself as “a friendly port of call for all devotees of the great American land yacht, the large, cushy and powerful road cruisers of the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s that are a cultural icon.” And are no stranger to gas stations.

Andruschak adds that she sails majestically along in a 1976 Ford LTD.

THEY GET A BOOT OUT OF KIDS: Former Santa Clarita residents Richard and Joni Wirthlin now live in Russia, where they oversee the American Youth Soccer Organization’s regional office in Moscow. Richard Wirthlin, who represents an L.A. law firm there, says he’s in need of donated uniforms, balls and other equipment (information: [800] 872-2976).

Youth soccer in Moscow can be a challenge.

First, there’s the language situation. In one game, the referees, coaches and young players variously spoke Russian, English, Spanish, Japanese, German, Dutch, Korean, French and Portuguese. Hand signals proved the universal language.

Then there are the problems with Moscow’s sagging infrastructure. On one occasion, the Wirthlins said they started a small snack bar, using electricity “from a large nearby building to power a small grill for hot dogs.”

When the grill was turned on, it “knocked the power out of the five-story building for over two hours.”

miscelLAny

Libby Lent writes that “an encouraging sign of the times” is the recent transformation of a large gun and ammo shop in Pasadena into a health-care supply dispenser. Now, if only ski shops will make the same conversion.