by TAKEO "BABE" UTSUMI

There was a story on the radio that piqued my interest. It happened in a restaurant where the owner detected a lot of food missing when he went into the kitchen every morning. For a while he suspected that perhaps one of his employees could be stealing.

After months of investigation it was determined that a raccoon was the guilty culprit. Somehow this rascal animal found a way to enter the kitchen by crawling through a ventilation vent.

We live in an area close to a golf course, so we are very much aware of these nightly prowlers. For a time we utilized the services of an animal trapper, and just about every day we would find a visitor in the cage.

Even a skunk was captured, and you can be sure that the trapper was quite careful about approaching the cage. He covered it with a cloth so as not to get the animal excited and possibly “do his thing,” as you well know.

Once we even had a neighborhood cat in the trap. So we decided to discontinue the service. The raccoons are mischievous creatures and they still give us nightly visits. If we leave a bucket or two of water in the greenhouse, the animals will always overturn them, spilling the contents.

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Labor problems have always been around for one thing or another — unions, pay raises, insubordination and rules infractions, to name a few. The Swift Meat Packing Plant in Colorado faced a couple of different labor problems recently.

About 200 Muslim workers stopped at a certain time to pray. Of course, this interferes and blocks the flow of production. Prior to that, almost 300 illegal Mexican immigrants were apprehended and taken away from the plant. So you can imagine the problems and headaches faced by this large company. I hope there will be a “Swift” solution.

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Through the years, August is the biggest shopping period for mothers purchasing clothes for their children going back to school. The buying was of no big consequence, but just a routine search for the proper attire for the kids.

However, in in today’s world of mixed populations and neighborhoods, colors have become a big factor in school clothes. It could be very dangerous for some kids to wear certain colors to school or in their neighborhoods for fear of retaliation from some prevailing gangs in the area. The kids, I am sure, are quite aware of this fact and confide in their parents as to which colors are proper.

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There was an item in the paper that a pet owner in the Philippines had his dog cloned. It cost $50,000. Veterinarians and animal shelter people were aghast at the waste of money.
They claim that the result of this cloning procedure will never be the same as the original. Besides, we have thousands and thousands of animals that have to be euthanized due to surplus and abandonment. That $50,000 could have been usefully donated to animal shelter facilities.

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Much has been written about parents teaching their young children to eat the proper foods for nutrition. A panel of pediatricians recently stated that one of the ways for mothers to help their children to eat properly was by setting a good example during breast feeding.
In other words, if the mother consumes bananas or other fruits as well as certain vegetables, the infant will become familiar and develop a taste for these foods.

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A couple of landmark records have been achieved by imported Japanese baseball players in the majors. First is Ichiro Suzuki, who in his eight years of Major League playing has batted over the .300 mark. That’s quite an achievement for any player in the big leagues.
Another mark was set by Boston Red Sox pitcher Daisuke Ma-tsuzaka, who got his 17th win the other day. He surpassed the record set by countryman Hideo Nomo, who recorded 16 wins.

Japanese ball players have come a long way, including some Nikkei players, and their names appear in almost every Major League lineup nowadays. Too bad that Eiji Sawamura and Sadaharu Oh are not active in today’s game, because they surely would have made good in the majors.

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I guess you might have noticed those BVD shorts advertisements in the San Francisco Chronicle. They usually show handsome guys with sculpted bodies, replete with muscles. However, the other thing you may notice is that they are either scowling, looking mad or even sinister. Do you remember Roger Craig of the 49ers? He had a solid physique and was always smiling.

I offered myself to pose in my underwear, but the ad people said they had no use for people in longjohns.

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I cannot understand the rash of so many baseball bats broken in play. I have seen bats broken in three pieces with parts of it even reaching third base. This could be dangerous.

I don’t know if it’s the different kind of wood they are using that creates this phenomenon. My first bat as a kid was a broken bat with a nail in it and tape to keep it together. I believe the bat must have had a lot of hits taken out of it because it certainly didn’t produce any hits for me.

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My faith in J.T. O’Sullivan has been restored. I thought during the exhibition game that this was “the Man.” Then after the loss of the opening game, criticisms started to pour in. Some of the critics pointed out that O’Sullivan hardly played on the five NFL teams he was on, and that the S.F. 49ers team deserved much better. They just can’t seem to forget the days of Joe Montana and Steve Young.

But in the Denver game, J.T. gutted it out with eight sacks from the Bronco defense and managed to win in the overtime game.

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The Oakland Raiders came back with a vengeance to defeat the Kansas City Chiefs last weekend. Prior to the game, the head coach, Lane Kiffin, was in the hot seat because of the devastating loss to the Denver Broncos in the first game. In fact, Kiffin’s status is still in doubt this week.

Owner Al Davis is a strange guy, and has made some weird choices in the past. Remember Mike Shanahan, the present coach of the Broncos? He was the head man of the Raiders in L.A., but was fired after only four games.He is now entrenched in the Denver franchise and understandably takes delight in beating the Raiders.

Art Shell, the former great guard in Oakland, also coached the Raiders in L.A. He was also kicked out after only one season. Then later, after the likable John Gruden left Oakland, Art Shell was again rehired. At the time, Davis said that one of his greatest mistakes he made was firing Shell. Eventually he was again fired. Perhaps Davis must be saying his second-biggest mistake was rehiring Shell.

Davis is the principal owner of the Raiders, so he can keep on playing the shell game.