SOUR LEMONS: Stuck with a $2.1-million lemon...

SOUR LEMONS: Stuck with a $2.1-million lemon orchard, Oxnard school officials should think about starting a student agricultural program, county planning commissioners suggested. Problem is, the school district already has a farming program at Camarillo High. . . . And school officials were hoping to sell off the 27-acre grove to recoup some of the money spent for the new Oxnard High School site (B8). Too bad, commission members said, turning down their request.

HANG TEN: It sounds like the perfect setup for a joke: A priest and a rabbi were surfing at Malibu. . . . Actually, it’s an upcoming segment on TV’s “Good Morning America.” Father Dennis Mongrain of Simi Valley’s St. Peter Claver Church joined a Los Angeles rabbi to prove that men of God really can ride the waves. “My last wave was a great wave,” Mongrain recalled. The priest is due to appear on a special Sunday show.

FUTURE SHOCK: It could go down as one of the biggest blunders in modern technology: Western Electric, failing to see the potential of the tiny transistor, sold it to Sony for $25,000 in 1952. That, economist Michael Rothschild said, demonstrates the power of information to drive the nation’s economy. . . . Rothschild, speaking at the Passport to Tomorrow conference, urged American businesses to move into the “fourth age of information” (B18).

HAUNTED HOUSE: Dinner will be a smorgasbord of scorpions and bugs--that is, if someone can get the bloody hand out of the garbage disposal. Coffins double for beds, and Count Dracula is expected to make an appearance in the living-dead room. . . . While most kids are suiting up for trick-or-treating, members of the Ventura Boys & Girls clubs will be hosting their own haunted mansion at Ventura Harbor. Visitors are expected to pay $2 for the attraction tonight through Sunday. “Our whole purpose is to get the kids off the street, because there’s so many people doing weird stuff with candy,” Valinda Gallea said.