Socks Ready to Hop, But There Was No Be-Bop

It was to have been the Woodstock of the bobby-socks set--in Las Vegas instead of a cow pasture, of course. Wolfman Jack blew in to San Diego to whip up the masses. One hundred happy prize winners were poised for a dream weekend doing the Hully Gully and the Stroll.

Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis and Roy Orbison were on the guest list. Lesley Gore, Del Shannon, the Righteous Brothers, the Temptations, the Platters. Even Little Richard was listed as a possible for the July 29 through Aug. 1 Super Hop extravaganza.

“It was just too good to be true,” said Jim LaMarca of radio station XTRA.

XTRA, based in San Diego and Mexico, signed up as the Super Hop’s prime station. It touted the event up to 800 times on the air, LaMarca figures. It held pre-Super Hop parties, doled out free trips and peddled others to listeners who paid a travel agent $269 a pop.

Then just four days from blastoff, the promoter called. He said two backers worth $250,000 had backed out. Two and a half hours later, he called back: He’d found a replacement. For four days, the event flickered on and off.

By the time the promoter finally canceled, XTRA’s prize winners were already ensconced in Las Vegas. The station’s disc jockeys were on hand to broadcast live from Bally’s Grand Hotel. There were 3 1/2 days left--and lots of air time to fill.

Into the void, XTRA lured Petula Clark, the Pips (minus Gladys) and Wolfman Jack. Then a few dealers, waitresses, casino executives. An Elvis impersonator, a Bobby Darin, a Buddy Holly. And finally, the 100 prize winners from San Diego themselves.

“They’d come in and we had coffee and doughnuts; we made them part of the show,” said LaMarca, who insists the reconstructed Super Hop made great radio. Asked what they all talked about all that time, LaMarca reported with enthusiasm: “Just how they were doing.”

The prize winners even got to see Sammy Davis Jr. and Jerry Lewis.

So it’s not “Maybellene,” but maybe it’s second best.

LaMarca says there were few complaints. In fact, the prize winners filched a linen tablecloth and all signed it as a giant thank-you letter to XTRA. Now, they’re threatening to hold a Super Hop reunion in San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.

Question is, who’ll show up?

Knack for a Whack

Who’s the girth-some handyman in the natty sun hat whacking a nail into a two-by-four in the new San Diego Hardware newspaper ad? Why, it’s departing San Diego City Councilman Bill Cleator, proclaiming: “You never feel like a lame duck at San Diego Hardware.”

The idea came from Dick Liccardi of Liccardi Communications, who figures it takes a San Diego institution to promote a San Diego institution. So he turned to Cleator, who worked there at age 14 and can still be found in the 95-year-old store, buying nuts and bolts.

“What I was hoping was to get a photograph of clerk Cleator--you know, stuffing nails into something,” Liccardi mused. He ended up with a photo he considers endearingly un-political in its full-frontal view of the councilman’s circumference.

“It’s a photo that makes me like Bill Cleator a little more,” said Liccardi, impressed.

Other institutions solicited by the newly refurbished emporium in the Gaslamp include a prominent bank president and an octogenarian dentist. Skipper Dennis Conner sent his regards but begged off, citing a connection to a competing store, Liccardi said.

Time was, comedian Jerry Lewis used to leave his limo idling out front, invoking the meter maids’ wrath, said Rip Fleming, the store’s co-owner. Basketball star Bill Walton was spotted there Monday, Fleming said, stocking up on smoke alarms and power tools.

Paradise Lost?

Richard Opper sharpened his courtroom skills on tropical love triangles, corrupt road contractors and a pair of crazed killers on Guam. Now, the former Guam attorney general has settled in San Diego and is turning his attention to water rights.

A native Californian, Opper went to Guam in 1978. He went for two years and ended up staying eight. He worked as an assistant attorney general, school district lawyer, legal services attorney and finally as the longest-serving attorney general in recent history.

Opper remembers Guam as a kind of paradise--a place so young that everything in government was brand new. He beefed up prosecution of white-collar crimes, extended criminal investigations, and founded the territory’s first legal services office.

Then last month, Opper settled in San Diego after a year at Harvard studying public administration. He has begun working for a large San Diego law firm representing water districts and specializing, more generally, in public agencies law.

And how does he find San Diego?

“My only complaint is that I have a beautiful house in Point Loma, and the airport drives me nuts,” Opper griped. Perhaps the San Diego Unified Port District will become an extracurricular interest? Yes, Opper said, he is looking forward to learning more about it.