ONLY IN SANTA CRUZ

In last Tuesday's column, we wondered how the "4:20" code you see on some
panhandler signs around town came to represent "like to smoke pot."

We received a number of answers from our readers:

"Some high school students (in Marin County?) used to get together after
school at 4:20 p.m. to get high. So 4:20 became a code word for smoking dope."

"4/20 is National Smoke-In Day for pot smokers, a good way to console
oneself after April 15's extortion."

"It's police code for busting people who smoke grass." (Our ex-police
reporter doesn't buy that one.)

"There are 420 chemicals in marijuana; and THC, the one that gets you high,
is the 420th."

My favorite theory: "The DEA has 419 better things to do than harass people
for growing medical marijuana, so naturally they do the 420th."

Whatever the origin of 4:20, the idea has caught on. As one reader pointed
out, "I've seen some entries on various Web sites (usually Grateful
Dead-related) about people getting married on April 20 (4/20) at 4:20 in
the afternoon."

Another reader offered this suggestion: "Walk down the Avenue April 20
around 4:20. Chances are you'll forget where the Sentinel offices are
located and end up at Clouds with a martini in your hand!"

Is there a better show during the year than the Monte Foundation fireworks
spectacular?

The show on Seacliff Beach last Saturday was a kick even with a fogged-in
coast because the fireworks made the fog glow.

With all the money that the day-long event generates for schools throughout
the county, you have to wonder: Where our kids would be without it?

Reader Diane Reymer sends along this bid for the last laugh of the day, a
thought from playwright George Bernard Shaw:

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable one
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress
depends on the unreasonable man."