D J Waldie

As a boy, I paged through the old Renie Atlas of Los Angeles streets and later the Thomas Guide. The fact that there was a map linking my Lakewood neighborhood to the vast grid of Los Angeles made my suburban location more real to me. I naively assumed that the maps didn't lie. I expected to see avenues pointing due north and south and major streets going east and west. That's how nearly all cities were laid out in the West, unless an accident of coastline or unsuitable ground prevented it. But not Los Angeles, whose heart was made crooked.

Re "A developing power," Opinion, Aug. 19 The recent defeat of Home Depot was a combined effort of the Sunland-Tujunga Neighborhood Council and our group, the No Home Depot Campaign/Sunland-Tujunga Alliance. The neighborhood council was limited in its abilities to challenge L.A.'s permit process; our grass-roots group was not.

Re "Trust, turnstiles and the underground economy," March 5 D.J. Waldie just doesn't get it. He tries, without success, to justify the illegal activity of fare scofflaws. When the Metropolitan Transportation Authority had a dedicated police department, we staffed the Red Line subway to have dedicated coverage for the stations and the trains at all hours. This was to provide not only for public safety but also to ensure that if you rode the train, you paid your fare. It was the law then, it still is today, and it should be enforced because it's the right thing to do. SGT. SCOTT ANDERSON Maywood Police Mid-Management Assn.

It's lunchtime, and nearly every stool is taken at Happy Jack's Pie N' Burgers on the edge of downtown Bakersfield. A shoe salesman digs into a bowl of homemade chili. A couple of architects devour thick, juicy hamburgers. Their buddy orders a peanut-butter-and-chocolate pie, the house specialty, to take back to work. Frances Rosales, the proprietor, cuts it into a dozen slices. She finishes, and asks: "May I have everybody's attention?

The author lineup is growing for the second annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, to be held April 19 and 20 on the UCLA campus. About 60 events are scheduled on a variety of topics such as mysteries, romance, poetry, New Age, biography and environmentalism. There will also be a wide variety of children's programs, including publishers' and booksellers' booths and book signings. All events are free to the public.

Re "Taken for a ride," Opinion, May 18 Thank you for publishing an article about using L.A.'s mass transit that does not treat the issue as some wacky, temporary lifestyle choice or some slight and silly tourist adventure. Any regular Metro rider can certainly add to the list of indignities that D.J. Waldie presented. Now that more people are being forced onto public transportation because of fuel costs and the declining economy, Metro needs to be held accountable for its embarrassing record of shabby, substandard and soon-to-be-overly-expensive services.

"We both wanted a house that was open and engaged the landscape," says architect Kevin Daly of the two-story Ocean Park home he shares with his wife, Dana Cuff, a UCLA professor of architecture, and their two children. Although they purchased the lot with its small postwar bungalow in 1987, the couple waited 10 years before building.