Sky’s the Limit for Pilot, Bride

Everything being equal, Mahlon Driver’s lofty intentions vis-a-vis Lois Ann Harris will reach their apogee today.

Even as we speak, Driver and Harris should be exchanging vows in a glider high over Pearblossom, while Jane Anne Van Dusen, an ordained if earthbound minister, presides through the latter-day miracle of ground-to-air radio.

Driver and his intended intend to say “I do,” transmitted by loudspeaker to the wedding party gathered below at the Crystalaire Soaring facility. The couple, meanwhile, are appropriately attired, Driver “all tuxed down” and Harris in a white but simple wedding gown--”You can’t get in and out of a glider with a whole lot of ruffles and flourishes,” Driver explains.

A ground-level reception is planned for Sylmar, where Driver lives. Harris comes from Lake View Terrace, and runs her own nail and hair salon. Driver, who toils for the Department of Building and Safety, is an unabashed adventurer in his spare time.

Why wed in a glider? “Why not?” Driver said a few days before the ceremony. “I’m a glider pilot, and this will be something to remember. I ski, I scuba-dive, you name it. I’m sort an action addict: My drug is life.”

Harris, apparently, intends to go along with her husband. “She glides now,” Driver said. “She skis. No diving yet, but I’m hopeful.

“Gliding? Try it! It’s fantastic. Quiet. Beautiful. Especially with Lois beside you. . . .”

Turning Another Page in Literary Salon History

Move over, Gertrude; make room for Edna. A salon is a salon is a salon, and while the Beverly Hilton’s Grand Ballroom may not match the Left Bank for pristine pizazz, Stein’s literary receptions had nothing on Edna Lillich Davidson’s--at least in longevity.

For 32 years, Davidson has presided over monthly literary salons in Los Angeles, introducing more than 800 authors in the process. Davidson’s luncheons are not exactly intime, though they never lack in character.

First, Bob Mitchell, longtime pianist for the sessions, “opens with, shall we say, a delightful overture of songs he decides upon--a number of them you know from the ‘40s or ‘50s,” Davidson explains. “Then I usually review two or three books, and the author or authors tell us how they began their writing careers, then something to intrigue people with their newest book.

“We play every author on--and off--with appropriate music: something about his book, or where he went to school. In other words, there aren’t any holes in the program.”

Tuesday at a benefit luncheon, two scholarships in Davidson’s name--one in arts and letters at Mount St. Mary’s College, the other in the school of journalism at USC--will be established by Col. and Mrs. Barney Oldfield (“Oh my, no, not the racing driver; he’s dead,” Davidson says).

Author/speakers will include Ray Bradbury, Norman Corwin, Judge Joseph A. Wapner and actor Stewart Granger.

Davidson (“No, I won’t tell you my age”) had planned to retire this season, but the founding of the scholarship (“It is surely marvelous”) has delayed desuetude.

“The salon membership is the nucleus of the benefit,” she says, “so I’m going to give another season, up to the second annual luncheon. Just to make sure.”

Sweet Smell of Success for Inventors

“You should have seen my kitchen when they tried to make it!” Hilda Weber says. “These long strings hanging down into huge jars of syrup. . . .”

Hilda, however, is not one to impede the American Dream, goo or no goo. Hilda is the mother of David Weber. Weber is the friend of Drew Wells, both 23, both from Los Alamitos. One at USC (Weber), the other at UCLA (Wells). Both have these marvelous, quirky, inventive minds.

“You see two guys in a restaurant scribbling on a napkin, that’s us,” Weber says.

“We drive around town looking for brainstorms,” says Wells. “Once we were cruising past a lot of those crystal shops and it just hit us in the face.”

Result, after messy experiments, composing a booklet, setting up a mini-manufacturing firm (employing the handicapped): Crystal Candy, subtitled “Healing and humorous gems--Sure cure for a New Age sweet tooth.”

Selling for a suggested $2, the product is rock-candy crystals, colored to resemble sapphires, rubies, etc. The booklet spoofs the candies’ “healing powers”: “Try using this gem for relieving headache pain. . . . Then take two aspirins.”

Initially peddled at crystal fairs, the candy was an instant hit, “something ‘80s you can give as a gift,” says Weber, “without spending $300 for a piece of quartz.”

“Good fun; profit too,” Wells says. “I don’t suppose you’d print our number ((213) 804-5543)?”

“Ideas, we’ve got a million of ‘em,” Weber says. “If we could actually find people to pay us to think stuff up, we’d be set for life.”