May 2008 Archives

Last Sunday I ventured to Glendale to Brand Bookshop, one of my favorite used bookstores, for its 30 percent off sale. (Which continues through June 1.) The new Grove-like outdoor mall, Americana at Brand, turns out to be just three blocks south on Brand.

Thus, I left my car in the parking garage and hoofed it down to Americana to check it out.

My initial impression was positive, although I didn't spend much time there. The $400 million Americana seems to be modeled on early 20th century downtowns. At least one streetcorner has an antique-like clock jutting from the building, as if it were the town bank. A residential tower maybe nine stories high has a glass elevator fronting the central plaza; gears and a counterweight on the elevator exterior rise and fall with the cars. Again, it's a visual reminder of long-past times.

Plenty of families were enjoying the plaza's lawn and massive pool-like fountain as a rock band played.

I noticed a kiosk selling pizza by the slice and a small round building modeled on a '50s diner, both of which bear culinary investigation. A Good Humor ice cream wagon was parked, apparently permanently, and employees sold treats from its freezer compartment.

Like the Grove, there's not a lot of shops that appeal to me, but there is, like the Grove, a three-story Barnes and Noble.

The buildings are several stories taller than at the Grove but Americana does repeat some elements, including the trolley (although I never saw it, just the tracks). The movie theater has more screens than the Grove -- 18 vs. 14 -- but lacks the limited-release arty movies the Grove usually includes. Glendale must be considered the boonies.

I'll go back sometime...while visiting the Alex Theater or downtown's two used bookstores (the other one is Bookfellows). To me, downtown is the real reason to visit Glendale. Americana just adds another element of interest.

This week's restaurant: Barboni's Pizza, 7270 Victoria Park Lane, Rancho Cucamonga; also 9792 19th St. at Archibald.

I'm a flexible diner, rarely so gripped by desire for a particular cuisine that I can't be waylaid by something else. Case in point: I was in northern Rancho on Thursday at lunchtime and figured I'd head east on Base Line past Day Creek to Nodaci (?), an out-of-the-way sushi bar I'd once seen a sign for. So, I'm there at the quaint Victoria Park neighborhood center, walking under the awning toward the sushi place, when I see the B in the window.

While I'm not totally opposed to eating at a B, it did give me pause, especially for raw fish. Barely breaking my stride, I veered a few feet to the right and into Barboni's Pizza.

This is a new-ish second location for Barboni's, with the original location on 19th. According to the menu, they've been in Rancho Cucamonga since 1986, which makes them practically historic. I'd never been there. The menu is slightly broader than most pizza parlors', with more than a dozen pastas, all said to be prepared fresh daily.

I ordered the half lasagna lunch special ($6), which comes with a salad, garlic bread and drink, and took my seat. The dining room is spartan, well-lit and set up for families and sports teams, with most of the seating picnic-style on long tables with benches. A women's softball game played on the flat-screen TV that dominated one wall.

As for the food, I wasn't blown away, but for a six-buck lunch it was pretty good. A simple salad of shredded lettuce and mozzarella was improved by the oily Italian dressing. The lasagna came out bubbling in a teardrop-shaped dish. And I mean bubbling aggressively. It continued bubbling for 1:15 (I timed it, fascinated). My expectations dropped. But the sauce had some kick to it and in the end I wasn't displeased.

Service was indifferent even though at 1:45 p.m. I was the sole customer.

Like a lot of places I visit, Barboni's is a neighborhood restaurant, not one worth driving across the valley to try. But if you're in the neighborhood, they may be worth investigating. Even if you thought you were in the mood for Japanese.

In a blow to the campaign of Norma Torres for a state Assembly seat, the powerful Mix Bowl Cafe in Pomona has unveiled its endorsement of rival Maurice Ayala, allowing him to post one of his signs out in front of the restaurant.

"Ayala for Assembly/A Name You Can Trust," the sign reads. This is like the Jim Hahn/Kenneth Hahn approach -- run on your father's name. (Ruben Ayala was a longtime state senator from Chino.)

Maurice Ayala introduced himself to me at Mix Bowl a couple of months ago, so my guess is he's probably a regular who persuaded the restaurant to let him post a sign.

Still, Mix Bowl's coveted endorsement could spell trouble for Torres. Hmm. Wonder if Donahoo's Chicken has weighed in yet?

Two straight Saturday mornings I've hit the AMC 30 Ontario Mills for an early movie. Did you know they have multiple showings of the big movies before noon, for a mere $6? Saw "Iron Man" a week ago at 10:45 a.m. and "Indiana Jones and the Very Long Title" this past Saturday at 10:30 a.m.

Not only is the price right, but at that hour you can get decent parking, there's no line for the movie and not much of one at the ticket booth, and the theaters are at least 3/4 empty, allowing you to see a blockbuster in relative peace.

Not that you asked, but "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Computer Generated Effects" was enjoyable for what it was, but I left the theater feeling full of empty calories. The first half was sharp and then came the descent into incoherence and spectacle. As a friend said later, the movie had Spielberg's first boring aliens.

As for Ontario Mills, it's been years since I spent much time there, which I did back when it was the only entertainment option, so seeing it again had sociological interest.

Also, horror. On Saturday, performing under gray skies out on the promenade near the AMC ticket booths, was a mime. Yes, a mime in the 909. Near him was a cardboard sign reading "Mime School." I gaped for a moment before heading into Market Broiler for lunch. When I exited, he was gone. Maybe he was there early for the parking too.

I hit Rhino Records' 15 percent off sale on Memorial Day, but I also made time for Montclair's Circuit City, which was having its twice-a-year sale in which all CDs from $10.99 to $13.99 are discounted to $9.99. The selection gets skimpier every year but 10 bucks does make some "wobbler" CDs worth taking a chance on.

You get used to seeing CDs misfiled at chain stores, where the customers' sloth is probably matched only by the employees'. My compulsion for order sometimes compels me to carry a few into their rightful place, especially for musicians I like.

Funniest misfiling of the day: Under the "George Harrison" tab, there was one single CD. Who was it by? Paul McCartney. I guess at this point in history, it's all the same thing.

I've certainly written my share of clunkers over the years, but then, I don't write for a big-time newspaper with big-time editors (and pull down a big-time paycheck). Even the mighty have fingers of clay, I guess is the lesson of the following.

Here is the first line of S. Irene Virbila's restaurant review in the L.A. Times last week:

"Seated at the sushi counter at the new Nobu Los Angeles, the three of us are oddly the only ones at the long counter made of blond-striped wood."

What were the other customers made of, knotty pine?

[Spadra was a natural choice for the letter S when I was writing this series. Not only is Spadra a crucial part of Pomona's origins, but people remain fascinated by the place, mostly because of its cemetery and the legends about frontier life and mysterious deaths. I've been in the library's special collections room more than once when some young person has come in to inquire politely about Spadra.

This column was first published Jan. 23, 2005.]

Suddenly, 'Pomona A to Z' spotlights Spadra

Salaam, sahibs! "Pomona A to Z" today surveys the letter S for a symbol to sum up the city. There's such a surfeit, we won't have to scrounge.

So silence, please, as we sequester ourselves in our shacks and shanties, there to solemnly scan the scads of specimens:

* Sugar Shane Mosley, the boxer, and Suga Free, the rapper, who hail from Pomona. Sweet!

* The stylish stables built in 1909 for City Hall's horses in those pre-car days. They still stand at White and Monterey.

* Sacred Heart, St. Madeleine's and St. Joseph's, three churches serving the Catholic population.

* Special Collections, the room at the Public Library where you can research Pomona's past.

* Soap Opera Laundry, whose sign bears the image of a washing machine with TV-style rabbit ears.

Scintillating!

As you'd suspect, those only scratch the surface. We should also stop to salute Stan Selby, who led the Pomona Concert Band for an astounding 47 years until his death last November.

But our S is something different: Spadra.

Now absorbed into west Pomona, Spadra lay roughly between today's Valley and Mission boulevards on either side of the 57 Freeway.

The village sprung up in 1866 along a stagecoach line, then began crumbling a decade later as the railroad passed it by. All that's left is the stately Phillips Mansion, which was built in 1875 and looks a lot like the house in "Psycho," and a rather sad cemetery.

Residents never saw the end coming. When the upstart settlement of Pomona began in 1875, Spadra's oldtimers derided it as "Monkey Town," for reasons that remain obscure.

"They just thought Pomona would never be anything," said Mickey Gallivan, president of the Historical Society of the Pomona Valley.

But it wasn't just Spadra that had a short life. So did an alarming number of people who lived there.

As "The Village That Died," a Historical Society booklet, puts it darkly: "The village of Spadra was characterized by murder, suicide and mysterious deaths."

Maybe S should be for s-s-s-spooky.

Many Spadra stories start at Billy Rubottom's inn, which is also where Spadra began. He'd bought 100 acres from Louis Phillips and set up shop along the Butterfield stage line.

To call Rubottom a colorful figure is like saying Shakespeare was a fair writer.

A rough frontiersman, he was wanted in his native Arkansas for killing two men with a knife. (I'm referring to Rubottom, not Shakespeare.)

And in El Monte, Rubottom shot his own son-in-law to death. Even more destructively, he's been blamed for importing California's first opossums.

Rubottom may have been the meanest man in Spadra, but he had competition -- even from a man of the cloth.

In 1872, the Rev. William Standifer, a farmer, angrily confronted the town constable, knocking him down twice. A bullet in the shoulder from the constable's gun only made Standifer madder. So the next bullet found the minister's heart.

Spadra also saw a murder-suicide between two lovers and an ex-con stabbed to death by his brother-in-law, among other untimely demises. As recently as this month, January 2005, a ghostly figure has been reported in the Phillips Mansion.

The cemetery in Spadra has 212 graves, officially.

If you were killed in a barfight at Rubottom's for, say, cheating at cards, "the rumor is they just dragged you off to the cemetery and buried you," Gallivan said. "So there are probably more than 212 people buried there."

The name Spadra, by the way, was stolen by Rubottom from his hometown in Arkansas. According to Gloria Ricci Lathrop's "Pomona: A Centennial," though, it was his second choice.

The valley was already known as San Jose from its days under Spanish rule. But Rubottom's application for a post office by that name was rejected, because California already had a San Jose.

He succeeded with the name Spadra. We know it as Spah-dra, although the Arkansas pronunciation is said to be Spay-dra.

Opened in 1868, the Spadra post office was among the first half-dozen in California. The village was off to a good start.

Settled mostly by poor families fleeing the South, bustling Spadra soon had a school, a major road, warehouses for trade goods, three stores and two blacksmiths. All it lacked was a Starbucks.

Unfortunately, it soon lacked more than that. While Southern Pacific extended its line eastward to Spadra in 1874, by the next year the line went as far as Colton.

The train didn't stop in Spadra anymore, and almost no one else did, either.

So long, Spadra.

(David Allen writes Sunday, Wednesday and Friday, sentimentally.)

This week's restaurant: Swasdee Thai Cuisine, 14720 Pipeline Ave., Suite B, Chino Hills.

One reason I kept going to events concerning development of The Shoppes (ground breaking, media tour, second media tour) is that each one was in the late morning, perfect timing to eat lunch afterward in Chino Hills. (The developers provided food each time but I skipped it.) Not that Chino Hills is a culinary mecca -- the city is just so far from our Ontario office that it's a rare treat to be there.

And the city does have some good places to eat. Residents there are always complaining about the lack of sitdown restaurants, but their city has more than they think. It's just that most are ethnic eateries, non-chains, and maybe for that reason they're not quite what the average person is looking for.

All I know is, my list of places to investigate in Chino Hills is a half-dozen long, and that's pre-Shoppes. On Thursday I went looking for one of two sushi bars I've read about and couldn't find it -- drat those giant shopping centers and five-digit addresses -- but while exiting Chino Hills Marketplace on the Pipeline side, I looked across Pipeline and saw a sign for Swasdee Thai. Well, any port in a storm. I drove directly across the street and into the business park.

Swasdee (the word is said to be a greeting in the Thai language) is a brand-new restaurant in a brand-new building, open "one month and one week," the server told me. The interior has a sleek, mod design with comfortable booths and a small bar. The lighting is dim, the glasses are fluted. Definitely a swankier environment than Mix Bowl.

The menu is upscale too, as are the prices. Appetizers are $6.95 to $15.95; entrees range from $7.95 to $13.95. I had Drunken Noodle ($8.95) and a Thai iced tea ($2.25). Important note: With some of the noodle dishes, the price is without meat; adding chicken, pork, beef or shrimp is $2 more, and seafood is $3 more. So my noodles with chicken actually cost $10.95.

A little pricy. Still, I have to say, my food was a cut above. Drunken Noodle was a bowl of broad, flat noodles with generous cuts of carrots, onions, tomatoes and chunks of chicken, all mildly spicy. The serving was large enough to take home half.

Across from the entrance just feet from the door was a second building with Roscoe's Famous Deli, and based on the names on the door it's owned and operated by the people formerly behind Heroes in Claremont.

So there's yet another Chino Hills restaurant to try, not to mention two sushi bars, two more authentic Chinese eateries and who knows what else. As we left The Shoppes Thursday morning, the city's spokeswoman suggested a tour sometime of the under-construction City Hall and I'm certainly amenable to that.

As long as we schedule it for around 10:30 a.m.

Expect traffic backups in Chino Hills today and throughout the weekend at The Shoppes, which open this morning. (Imagine me in a traffic helicopter, or maybe beating my palms against my chest to sound as if I were in a traffic helicopter.) Peyton Drive is being widened to six lanes but in the meantime it's squeezed to two or three because of construction. If you go, enter off Grand Avenue or you may regret it.

I had a tour of The Shoppes, which we here at the blog pronounce "Shoppies," on Thursday morning. Workers swarmed the place, washing windows, sweeping sidewalks, laying tile, painting overhangs and finishing mosaics.

It was sprinkling rain during the tour, which didn't augur well for an open-air shopping mall. I suspect today's opening will be a little damp.

As temples of commerce go, The Shoppes isn't bad. It's akin to Victoria Gardens, if one-third the size -- all outdoors, walkable, chockful o' chains and, if not exactly a radical design, rather pleasant. Unlike the VG, it doesn't pretend to be anything it's not as far as a retro look goes. (Although when the architect told our group solemnly that "we weren't building a project, we were building a community," I had to suppress my gag reflex.)

Despite the economy, the center is almost completely leased. Only about half the shops and restaurants will open Friday, though, so if you want to skip the madness this weekend, visit in a week or two and more places will be open.

Here's the flackage:

"The Shoppes at Chino Hills is a 400,000-square-foot open-air lifestyle center, built by Opus West Corporation ... The lifestyle center will be home to more than 60 retail and restaurant merchants. Among the merchants that have already been announced are the first H&M in San Bernardino County, Banana Republic, Victoria's Secret, Trader Joe's, P.F. Chang's China Bistro, Chipotle Mexican Grill, California Pizza Kitchen, Yard House Bar & Grill, Pinkberry, Barnes & Noble Booksellers and Bath & Body Works."

One tip: Don't miss the mural inside P.F. Chang's. Depicting a rural China scene of centuries ago involving a river, laborers and a cart, it's six panels long -- maybe 20 feet? -- and handpainted. Check it out.

Reader Mary Simon, who calls herself "an old Upland girl now living in Lexington, Kentucky," writes:

"Does anyone remember a nasty little dive called Stinky's on the corner of Mountain Avenue and Foothill Boulevard in Upland? It was a little stone building with picnic tables inside, all carved up by decades of miscreants. But they had the most sinfully messy and delicious hamburgers!

"I know it was there through the 1960s; it was later torn down and replaced by a Bank of America. Isn't progress wonderful? A crummy restaurant called El Gato Gordo was also put up right next to it."

If it's any consolation, Mary, El Gato Gordo has been torn down. I know many people remember Stinky's because it's been brought to my attention numerous times over the years. Anyone want to share memories?

What I'm especially curious about is that I've also been told of a place named Stinky Stevens that used to stand at Mountain and 8th in Upland. Two restaurants named Stinky in the same town?

So, while we're on the topic, can anyone enlighten us about Stinky Stevens?

For our annual Living Here magazine, I was asked to write a piece about restaurants and a shorter piece recommending five non-chain eateries.

Alas, the magazine (due out any day now as a DB insert) proved smaller than expected because of lagging ad sales and both my pieces were bumped. Oh, the humanity. So the main piece became today's print column and the sidebar is published below. Waste not, want not.

Note that I spread the five choices around geographically. So while these are not (as Nick Hornby would say) my all-time Top 5 restaurants, they're five that I've patronized multiple times over the years and enjoyed, for one reason or another.

Donahoo's Golden Chicken
1074 N. Garey Ave., Pomona (also 1117 N. Grove Ave., Ontario)
The Donahoo's box lunch is to fried chicken fanciers what the bento box is to Japanese food fans, an all-in-one conglomeration of tastes. The box consists of either two pieces of chicken or six chicken strips, perhaps the Inland Valley's best fried chicken, plus a pile of bland thick-cut fries (crinkle-cut at the Ontario location), a fist-sized roll and a small container of cole slaw. A plastic fork is tucked into a side flap. It's to-go only. If you're at the Pomona location, take your box a few blocks east to Lincoln Park and have yourself a picnic.

Fredy's Tacos
1821 E. Fourth St., Ontario
Located in the Ralphs center at Vineyard and Fourth next to a panaderia, Fredy's serves up small, Mexican-style tacos with plenty of onions and cilantro on corn tortillas. A humble place with mighty food, Fredy's draws laborers, journalists and Ontario police. Dine in and listen to ranchera music from the jukebox or watch a telenovela on the TV.

Angelina's Cafe
9135 Archibald Ave., Rancho Cucamonga
Hidden in a business park, Angelina's proves to be a cozy place with high tables, mustard-colored walls and a welcoming atmosphere. The food, mostly sandwiches and salads, is modest and reliable. There's a daily special to spice things up a bit. I like the old-fashioned spaghetti and meatballs, served in a portion large enough to take home half. The burgers are pretty good, you can get a salmon caesar salad for $8 and they make their own potato chips.

Flo's Cafe
7000 Merrill Ave., Chino, and 5650 Riverside Drive, Chino
Flo's is a down-home place, so popular there are two locations. They have the same menu, meaning that your choice of Flo's can be based on where you are at the moment, either physically or psychologically. Downtown Flo's is slightly downscale Coco's; airport Flo's is old-school coffee shop with airplanes, and sometimes flies, outside. I prefer airport Flo's but I visit the other in a pinch. Whatever you order, even if it's biscuits and gravy at breakfast, only the uninitiated make the mistake of not saving room for the homemade pie, cobbler or pudding.

San Biagio's N.Y. Style Pizza
1263 W. Seventh St., Upland
They have pastas here, baked and served in an aluminum tin, and sandwiches too, but the main event is the pizza. It's made in the New York style, a thin crust topped with tomato sauce and a sprinkling of mozzarella, plus whatever toppings you like (a purist would say none). You can order by the slice or get a whole pie. Slices are thin enough you can fold one in half and pretend you're in Brooklyn, even though you're really in a shopping center in Upland. Owner Biagio Pavia doesn't speak a lot of English but his enthusiasm is contagious. He speaks the universal language: a thumb's up or a high-five, accompanied by a big smile.

So, I saw "Iron Man" on Saturday afternoon. The B-level Marvel character made for a fun little movie, mostly due to Robert Downey Jr.'s droll acting.

Three little problems for me:

1) The allegedly tough-as-nails woman journalist from Vanity Fair asks Downey's character a few skeptical questions, then becomes so charmed she beds him. Then -- apparently regaining her skepticism after her one-night stand -- she's back covering his press conference at the end.

Yeeeeeah, that's how it works. What's a journalistic bimbo, a jimbo? She's a jimbo. One without any ethics or common sense or, apparently, a boss. C'mon, that sort of thing only happens when you work in TV and you cover the mayor of L.A.

The next two slay me:

2) In a series of realistic-looking magazine covers about Downey's character, one for Forbes (I think) has the cover line "Tony Stark Takes Reigns at 21." Uh, no, he took the reins, as in riding a horse. Sheesh.

3) Later a news crawl on a TV has the redundant phrase "$84 million dollar." That's like saying "84 million dollar-dollar."

Pretty amazing that an army of hundreds, or maybe thousands, labored over this movie, whose budget was a reported $180 million, but when it comes to spelling, they guess.

This is more egregious than in "A Scanner Darkly" when the lead character's ID spells his city of residence "Anahiem."

Other than those baffling errors, "Iron Man" isn't bad. Not great, but not bad. Most importantly on that scorching Saturday, the air conditioning at the AMC 30 gets a rave review.

Rancho Cucamonga's Victoria Gardens is bringing back "movies under the stars," an obviously successful program from last spring in which family friendly movies were shown on a temporary screen in the grassy area known as Chaffey Town Square. Admission is free and the whole thing is like a drive-in without the cars.

A movie will be shown each Tuesday from May 20 to June 17. All are PG. The lineup:

May 20: "Surf's Up"

May 27: "Bee Movie"

June 3: "Daddy Day Camp"

June 10: "Little Rascals"

June 17: "Shrek the Third"

"Surf's Up" may be the sleeper of the bunch; it wasn't that popular at the box office, perhaps due to penguin fatigue, but the people who saw it loved it, and the surfing scenes are said to be pretty impressive.

I saw "Cars" at the VG last year with friends and we had a good time. You're encouraged to bring lawn chairs and blankets. Each movie is preceded by games, activities and prizes. Movies begin at dusk, approximately 8 p.m.

[The letter R proved a good excuse to recount how Pomona got its name. As for the runnerups, Robbie's, Red Hill Pizza and Randy's Records have all closed. Sob! Oh, and the "Jane Eyre" quote referred to below is actually "Readers, I married him." I had recently read the book and couldn't resist mentioning it.

This column was originally published Jan. 9, 2005, as "A to Z," which began back in July 2004, entered its second calendar year with a roar.]

R is for Roman goddess, who brings classic touch to Pomona

To paraphrase "Jane Eyre": Readers, I'm at the letter R. OK, it's a loose paraphrase.

"Pomona A to Z," my recondite review of that city's raptures, today rests between Q and S. Which R should we recommend?

Let's reconnoiter in your ready room for a referendum:

* Rainbird Rainforest, a learning center at Cal Poly Pomona mimicking a rain forest and funded by the sprinkler company.

* Randy's Records, a vinyl album store on East Second Street, visited by many an out-of-town band at the Glass House.

* Red Hill Pizza, the eatery that spent 30 years in an old red barn on Holt before moving downtown. Try the lasagna.

* Robbie's, the downtown nightspot that in 1968 hosted a luncheon for Robert F. Kennedy, just days before his assassination.

* Reference department at the Library, always ready to respond to your research requests.

Well, I could go on and on -- what about Repo Man Recovery? Rockwell Collins? the Donahoo's rooster? -- but that might get repetitive.

Instead, let's stop roamin' and start Roman. Because our R is for Roman goddess, the deity for whom Pomona is named.

Until Los Angeles County redesigned its official seal in fall 2004, few realized its dominant image was the goddess Pomona in her flowing robes -- a design created in 1957 by a Pomona native, artist Millard Sheets.

Tragically, Pomona got the heave-ho along with the seal's cross. County supervisors decided scrapping the cross but leaving the pagan goddess might send a weird message.

But who was Pomona, and how did a Los Angeles suburb come to be named for a figure from Roman mythology?

"Not much is known about her," says Richard McKirahan, a professor of classics at -- where else? -- Pomona College.

She was a goddess, "but a minor one, not in the league of Jupiter or Venus," says McKirahan, noting that mentions of Pomona in myths are scant and sometimes contradictory.

Her sphere of influence was fruits, especially those that grow on trees. I forgot to ask whether that includes tomatoes.

"Her priest was the lowest ranking priest in the Roman hierarchy, which may mean that she was considered the humblest of the gods and goddesses," McKirahan says.

So Pomona's namesake is a goddess, but one with a public relations problem. Somehow that seems fitting.

The name came about like this. In 1875, real-estate investors from L.A. bought 2,500 acres out here for $10,000, then subdivided the land into lots for public auction.

They sponsored a contest to name the town.

Citrus nurseryman Solomon Gates, a Pennsylvania native who loved Greek and Roman mythology, decided his entry would play off hopes that the town would become a horticultural paradise.

He feared the name would be too fancy, his son, Superior Court Judge Walter S. Gates, told the Historical Society in 1963.

But at a community meeting, contest judges declared: "Henceforth, our new settlement will be known as Pomona."

That's certainly better than the derisive nickname by which the settlement had been known: Monkey Town.

When the city incorporated on Jan. 6, 1888, Pomona was official. And catchy: At least eight other U.S. cities adopted the name.

Local images of the goddess abound. She was depicted on fruit crate labels. She's on the city seal, affixed to city vehicles, buildings and letterhead.

There are even modern twists. A wall-sized mural downtown features a Latino-tinged goddess.

More traditional is the version on display in the Pomona Library: a 5-foot-3 statue of Pomona carved from marble and shipped here from Italy more than a century ago.

As the Pomona Progress described the figure upon its arrival:

"It represents the goddess in the act of returning from the fruit harvest, the folds of her gown being filled with fruits, while in the hair about the brow are tastefully arranged small clusters of grapes."

An exact replica of a statue from antiquity, it was commissioned by the Rev. Charles F. Loop, a wealthy Episcopalian from Pomona. He saw the original while in Florence and thought a copy would make a dandy icon for his hometown.

It was presented on July 4, 1889, and has always been housed in the Library. Today, from inside her glass case, she keeps a watchful eye on the main floor.

"Most people just come by and look," library staffer Camilla Berger says. "But (a former staffer) told me that years ago, some people came in who worship Pomona."

Well, California is the land of fruits -- and nuts.

(David Allen writes Sunday, Wednesday and Friday, religiously.)

A week ago I made a long-delayed visit to L.A.'s Skirball Center to see its exhibit "Bob Dylan's American Journey 1956-1966."

I'm a Dylan fan of almost 30 years standing but it took a while for my interest in seeing the show to overcome my inertia. Viewing a cache of memorabilia didn't strike me as a must-see as far as deepening my appreciation of Dylan's music, and as it turned out, I'm not sure the visit did help all that much.

And yet for me the visit was diverting enough to have been worth the trip and the $10.

One of the first things you see is a wall of 45s featuring 100 versions from all over the world of "Blowin' in the Wind." Among the grab-bag of performers: Trini Lopez, Spike Jones, Marlene Dietrich, Les 3 Menestrels, Odetta, the Harmonicats, Sven-Ingvars, Vince Guaraldi, Stevie Wonder, Gun Sjoberg and Srecko Zubak. Some of them sound like characters in one of Dylan's more surreal songs. Odetta's version, by the way, is the more grammatically precise "Blowing in the Wind."

Inside the exhibit are typed and handwritten lyrics to classic Dylan songs, concert tickets, handbills, photos, video clips, correspondence and recordings of songs by Dylan and by folk and blues artists who inspired him. It made for an enjoyable hour.

Some of the material wasn't new to me and yet it was neat to see the actual object. I'm thinking here of the famous Robert Shelton review that led to Dylan's recording contract. This version is the original, clipped from the New York Times. I've seen young Robert Zimmerman's 1959 Hibbing High yearbook photo in many books, but here was the actual yearbook. I knew his stated ambition was "to join Little Richard," but did you know his club affiliations were "Latin Club 2, Social Studies Club 4"?

We also see his inscription in a female classmate's yearbook that includes the charming comment: "You have the most beautifullest hair in school, too." There's also a 1964-ish letter to Joan Baez's mother written by Dylan openly pretending to be Joan, talking about how in love they were and how wonderful he was.

Silly, inessential stuff, but kind of fun.

I overheard a tour guide say that Echo Helstrom, Dylan's first girlfriend, phoned and was given a private tour of the exhibit. There were plenty of regular folks there when I visited, from all ages. Including polite but bored children enduring their parents' mini-lectures on the 1960s civil rights movement.

One of the coolest objects was Bruce Langhorne's tambourine, the one that inspired "Mr. Tambourine Man," in a glass case. I recall reading where Dylan described the tambourine as being as large as a wagon wheel. Well, it's not that big, but it's probably 15 inches across.

If you're curious about Dylan, whether you're a neophyte or a hardcore fan, I'd say the exhibit is worth a visit.

The exhibit, which opened in February, continues through June 8. Many of the neatest lectures, films and other ancillary events are past, but there are more. On Sunday, Ann Powers, the L.A. Times pop music critic, will lead a tour at 2:30. Wish I'd waited a week to go. And the rare documentary "Eat the Document" will screen May 29 at 8 p.m.

If you're not curious about Dylan, thanks for reading this far.

This week's restaurant stretches the definition: Costco, with locations at 11800 Fourth St., Rancho Cucamonga, and 9404 Central Ave., Montclair.

When a few budget-conscious friends invited me to lunch at Costco, I wasn't sure what to make of it. I'm not a Costco member and I didn't even know you could eat there. But they said anyone can eat at the cafe, which is on the patio, and that the $1.50 hot dog and soda special couldn't be beat.

So a group of us met at the Rancho location across from Ontario Mills. You line up, place your order at a window from the very basic menu depicted in giant blow-up photos on the block wall above, get your food and sit at the one of the plastic benches on the utilitarian, hose-it-off-before-closing-time patio.

I got only the 1/4-lb. hot dog and 20-oz. soda, $1.62 with tax, to relish the novelty of the cheapest lunch I've had since Del Taco halted its three tacos for 99 cents deal.

The hot dogs and Polish sausage are Hebrew National, all-beef. I had the Polish and asked for the off-menu sauerkraut, one friend's tip.

The dog didn't live up to the hype and didn't taste like anything other than a hot dog, but for the price, it was outstanding.

Curious about the $1.99 pizza slices, I visited the Montclair Costco a few days later. This time I got the frozen yogurt chocolate and vanilla swirl ($1.35) as well as a combo slice, and no drink. Total: $3.61. While these prices, and the 59-cent soda with free refill, are eye-poppingly low, my guess is that with its high volume and low overhead, Costco still makes a profit.

The pizza slice was only average, which still made it better than some pizza I've paid more for. The swirl was tasty but as it came in a 5-inch-tall plastic cup, there was enough for a whole family.

It would take only three more visits for me to try every type of food on the menu: the chicken caesar salad, the turkey wrap, the berry sundae, the berry smoothie, the ice cream bar and the most mysterious item, which is called the chicken bake. It seems to contain chicken, cheese and bacon, all deep-fried into a hot dog-like form. It's oddly compelling.

Social critics will grind their teeth at hearing that at $3.99, the salad and turkey wrap, the healthiest items, are the most expensive other than a full pizza, thus encouraging us all to stuff our faces with hot dogs and chicken bakes.

The two Costco cafes are identical except in Rancho there were ropes to funnel us through in one line, whereas in Montclair we lined up at individual windows, like we were at a ballpark. Also, in Rancho the patio has overhead heaters. Perhaps corporate HQ thinks Montclair has a naturally hotter climate.

Both locations are good for people-watching if you take an academic interest in the type of people who shop at Costco. In fact that thought was just crossing my mind in Montclair when a mother with two children in tow passed by pushing a shopping cart containing one item: a crate-like box of diapers with the number 264 on the side.

Charles Phoenix, "born in Ontario, California," made LA Weekly's People of 2008. He's the L.A. slide-show king and author of the "Cruising the Pomona Valley" guidebook. Congratulations, Charles!

Marilyn Varney writes:

"I noticed this picture on eBay for " '20s snapshot photo Honeyville in Pomona, CA." Could Honeyville really have existed in Pomona? Have you heard of this in your past research? I know you have learned many interesting things about this nice city and I wanted to pass along this information to you."

Honeyville is a new one on me but judging from the photo it was a roadside farm stand, maybe on a road like Holt or Mission or Foothill used by pre-freeway travelers.

There used to be orange juice stands too, an idea that used to strike me (born in the soda era) as ridiculous until it dawned on me that back then, fresh-squeezed OJ was probably a novelty, and a refreshing one at that.

I got an e-mail from ex-Ontarian Bill Gunn the last time the Ritz Theater was mentioned here. Now that the Ritz is on the blog again, here's Bill's note, as timely as ever:

"I was wondering what the Ritz Theatre was all about until I realized you were talking about the California. What about the Park? It was toward Holt from the Ritz about four doors. It was Ontario's third theater."

Ontario's leading theater was the Granada, still standing on the west side of Euclid Avenue at 305 but used now as a church. The Park and the California, later named the Ritz, were on the east side of Euclid. The California/Ritz, at 136 N. Euclid, burned down.

The Park is the most obscure of the three, not least of which because it went through multiple names. It seems to have had the Park name from 1948 to about 1962. Here's what I found out Tuesday from the Ontario Library's Joanne Boyajian:

The theater was built in 1913 at 122 N. Euclid. First it was the Isis, owned by Jacob Lerch. In 1915 it changed hands and became the Euclid when the competing theater across the street, the Euclid Photoplay, took it over and relocated.

The new Euclid theater had more than 500 seats and up-to-date stage and dressing rooms to accommodate "any road show that comes to the city," according to the Daily Report. Owner H.E. Milling's stated specialty was "high-class moving picture dramas and only the better class of vaudeville." Inferior acts were "strictly barred." But of course.

The Euclid remained through at least 1928. It was known to be vacant in the mid-1930s, in the depths of the Depression. (The California and Granada theaters apparently closed in the Depression as well before being reopened in 1933 by Jack Anderson.)

From 1937-1938 the Euclid was resurrected as the Forum Theater and it remained under that name until 1948 when it was named -- finally! -- the Park Theater, owned by the Anderson brothers.

But by 1962, it was a pawn shop, Euclid Loan and Jewelry Co. Today Euclid Loan is still operating, but the pawn shop is slated to relocate across Euclid so the building can be demolished for the great downtown project that at this point isn't looking so great.

Whew!

Anyone have any memories of the Park?

Charles Bentley writes to inquire about a fondly recalled Pomona restaurant:

"My father has been trying to come up with the name of a Pomona restaurant that was extremely popular for many years. After many weeks of pondering, he believes the name of the place was Orlando's.

"Can anyone out there help with this one?"

My files indicate that Orlando's was at Holt and Dudley, by the DMV, and was known for its steaks and its dumplings. But it was before my time. Anyone able to tell us more?

Almost five months after comments were made here about Ontario's old Ritz Theater, previously known as the California Theater, a new comment came in. Except at this late date, reader Dave Linck was unable to append the comment to the entry, and neither was I.

So, here it is:

"When the California became the Ritz in 1961, my Dad, Ontario Postmaster Charles Linck Jr., became a minority investor. He was a huge movie fan and it was a dream come true for him.

"But I can still see the theatre's interior...walls covered in faux lava rock with sparkly ceilings...new seats unfilled. And there's my brother and I, racing up and down the empty auditorium aisles, 6-year-old 'owners' of our own theatre!!!"

Oh, to be 6 and have the run of a movie theater.

[Q turned out to be the hardest letter and the only one for which I felt compelled to pick something that no longer physically existed: the WW II-era Quartermaster Depot. (Although some of the buildings still stand.)

This column was originally published Dec. 26, 2004.]

Finding a Q for Pomona means turning to an old warhorse

"Pomona A to Z," my quixotic quest to document the city's quality, today reaches the letter Q, and you can imagine my qualms.

With readers' few Q suggestions mostly quartered in other cities, I was in a quandary, my qwerty keyboard quiet, until research -- whew! -- turned up examples of my quarry.

Let me queue up a quartet of possibilities:

* Quilt made for Pomona's 1988 centennial depicting structures from city history. Check it out on the second floor of City Hall. Can you identify each panel?

* Quest Academy, a private school on Phillips Boulevard serving students from grades three to 12.

* Quarter horse races at Fairplex Park during the L.A. County Fair.

* Quinceanera, the 15th-birthday celebration for Latinas, made possible by Pomona party, clothing and disc jockey businesses.

Which Q will quantify Pomona's quintessence, you query? I hope you won't become quarrelsome when I say it's none of the above.

Instead, our Q is the Quartermaster Depot, the World War II-era name for what is now Cal Poly Pomona. Thanks to Betty Peters for the suggestion.

The depot was one of seven facilities in the nation where the U.S. military, to fight the Nazis, trained its secret weapon: horses.

Yes, horses.

Somehow we won the war anyway.

"It sounds like something out of the Civil War, doesn't it?" said Melissa Paul, curator of Cal Poly's Arabian Horse Library.

The Quartermaster's Remount Service was founded in 1775 to breed, train and supply horses to Army troops in the field and was still galloping along in the thick of the 20th century.

Mechanization was in its nascent stages in World War I, when 571,000 horses and mules carried supplies to U.S. troops.

The expectation was that World War II would be no different, Mary Jane Parkinson wrote in "The Kellogg Arabian Ranch: The First 60 Years," her history of the Cal Poly property.

American strategists learned the Germans had 791,000 horses, compared to our 750.

You've heard of the missile gap? This was a horse gap.

Spurred (har!) into action, the Remount Service looked for fresh horses and a site for a new depot in the West, which it found in good ol' Pomona on what had been cereal magnate W.K. Kellogg's 800-acre Arabian horse ranch.

The War Department took control in August 1943 and proved a better steward than the state university system, which had let the property decline after Kellogg donated it in 1932.

Under the Remount Service, horses again became the central mission and Sunday horse shows for the public continued.

Improvements were made, too. Block walls, landscaping and irrigation were installed by German and Italian prisoners of war, who were held at the Pomona fairgrounds.

No, they didn't eat rations of cotton candy and corn dogs.

Col. F.W. Koester, who had led the Army's War Dog center in San Carlos, was made Pomona's commanding officer, perhaps indicating that horses were a promotion from dogs.

But as it turned out, jeeps and trucks transported personnel and supplies in this war, not horses.

After the war, the Army got out of the horse business. It closed the Pomona Quartermaster Depot in June 1948.

"After more than four and a half years," Parkinson wrote of Kellogg's ranch, "the military air was gone; no more inspections from Quartermaster generals and colonels, no more military decorations ceremonies at the flagpole, no more Quartermaster insignia over the main entry to the stables, and no more salutes in the archways."

The ranch was nearly sold as surplus and its prized horses auctioned off until halted by a public outcry. The property, with the blessing of Kellogg, then 88, was deeded in 1949 to the state, which established what became Cal Poly.

Much of the wartime activity in Pomona remains a mystery.

"We have very little detail on what happened. We just don't have the records," said Paul, the library curator.

A sheaf of declassified documents a mere inch thick accounts for those five years. Author Parkinson managed to pry them from the National Archives under the Freedom of Information Act in 1990.

Among the tidbits deemed hush-hush for nearly a half-century: a 1942 inventory of Kellogg's 81 horses, with their names, and the one-page 1943 depot budget listing $36,340 in expenses, including the chief clerk's salary of $2,300.

Keep that on the QT.

(David Allen writes Sunday, Wednesday and Friday in nearly quotidian fashion.)

La Verne really must be on the cutting edge. The Onion reports that a time traveler from the 22nd century held a press conference in March to inform mankind that the "ice cream of the future" will supplant all other desserts.

"Put down your crude melting desserts of churned animal's milk and embrace the glorious world of high-tech flash-frozen treats," the silver-suited Wolcott proclaimed.

Thanks to reader Steve-O for the timely link.

This week's restaurant: Angel's Place, 2325 D St., La Verne.

This was shaping up to be a poor week for new-to-me restaurants. First there was a lunch at Larry's Burgers, in the wonderfully named Larry's Plaza on Holt Boulevard in Montclair. I knew this could be trouble when I passed a haunted looking woman at the pay phone who had a bare midriff and several unsightly rolls of loose belly skin. Moments later I saw the B grade in the restaurant window. My burger combo actually wasn't bad and the clientele made for amusing people-watching...but I'm not going to hurry back.

Then there was Bowl House on Third Street in La Verne, where my curry chicken bowl was the least appetizing I've ever had. It almost looked like bone-in chicken, big fatty pieces of it, skin-on.

To salvage the week, on Thursday, a day off, I impulsively decided to try Angel's Place, a Greek restaurant I'd spotted on my Bowl House misadventure. Angel's opened in October, replacing Nick's Place and a dry cleaner.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner, mostly Greek but with some American favorites judiciously sprinkled in. Pastrami, burgers and steak sandwiches? Hmm.

But it's got a casual, cheerful atmosphere and table service to boot. I had a chicken souvlaki sandwich ($5.99) and a side salad ($4). A bit too liberal with the tzatziki sauce, but it was a good sandwich: chicken and diced tomatoes on pita bread.

One quibble: The staff could be more clear on whether the side choices are free or not. I was asked "french fries, no fries or salad" but had to pay extra for the salad, and pay the same price for the sandwich as if I'd had fries. I'd have had fries and a salad if I'd known I was essentially paying for both.

People on Yelp are conflicted about Angel's Place. I liked the feel of it and the staff was friendly. Several items on the menu, especially some of the salads, piqued my curiosity. It may not be as good as Athen's Gyro House in Upland, but I expect I'll go back.

I like the Pomona Concert Band and always try to give them a plug. Their annual spring concert takes place at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Palomares Community Center, 499 E. Arrow Highway.

If memory serves, that's between Palomares Adobe and the Lawn Bowling court, two of Pomona's more unusual attractions.

The concert's theme is "From Sea to Shining Sea." "We will feature music from across various seas and bodies of water, as well as across America," conductor Linda Taylor tells me in an e-mail. "Councilman Stephen Atchley will be the emcee and will do some of his magic tricks for the audience, as well."

Music and magic? Yowsah.

Stay tuned for the July 3 start of the Concert Band's summer concert series at Ganesha Park.

Today's column is about La Verne's first poet laureate, Catherine Henley-Erickson. Her name may be familiar to Claremont readers: She reviews movies for the Claremont Courier.

The Claremont resident, a retired University of La Verne professor, has freelanced reviews for the paper since 1984.

I couldn't resist asking if she'd ever combined her two passions and reviewed a movie in verse.

"One time I reviewed one of Kenneth Branagh's Shakespeare movies, I forget which one, and I did do it in blank verse, in sentence form," Henley-Erickson told me. "Nobody picked up on it."

By my troth! And here I thought I was asking a joke question.

"She always tells me if a movie is worth seeing," her husband, Joe, chimed in. "If it is, we go together and she sits through it again."

Walking downtown La Verne before Monday night's council meeting, I was startled to see that Dippin' Dots is opening an ice cream, or whatever it is, parlor at 2310 D. St. just above Third. The sign on the door says the opening is 10 a.m. today.

The name Dippin' Dots is familiar to L.A. County Fairgoers: The so-called "ice cream of the future" chain has had a stand outside one of the exhibit halls for years. The product itself is served as a pile of round frozen pieces the size of BBs, hence the "dots."

Dippin' Dots is also sold at Rancho Cucamonga Quakes games and at movie theaters in Chino and Chino Hills, according to its website's store locator.

In its page on Dippin' Dots, Wikipedia notes that the ice cream of the future hasn't quite become the ice cream of the present. I'm pleased to learn the company was founded by a fellow Illinoisan, though.

One of the Inland Valley's more intriguing building conversions is the former Ponderosa steakhouse at Arrow and Haven in Rancho Cucamonga, which became Ponderosa Dental Office. Yep, they kept the Ponderosa name, pardner.

Reader Brian Hurst tell us a bit about it:

"It was the Ponderosa Steak House back in the late 1970s/early 1980s. Had a Western decor, leather booths, dark wood tables, pretty good steaks. Not on par with Black Angus, but a big step above the Sizzler. If you look at the design of the building, you can see it was a dinner/eating place. 'Food' for thought."

Anyone ever go into Ponderosa Dental? I wonder if any reminders other than the name out front remain.

I ate at a Ponderosa or two in the Midwest in that same era. I assume the chain was an authorized spinoff from the "Bonanza" TV series, which was set on a ranch named the Ponderosa, but never knew for sure.

Personally, I think Rancho Cucamonga's Ponderosa should stay a dental office but go back to serving steaks. It would be efficient. You could eat your meal normally, then sit in a chair and have your teeth cleaned.

Last Monday, as mentioned previously, I went to Studio City to see Jon Provost give a book talk. That event was at 7 p.m. This rare outing to the Valley provided an opportunity for a meal in a strange locale.

Thus I had dinner at Art's Deli, a highly regarded delicatessen on Ventura Boulevard a bit west of Laurel Canyon Drive. It was my first time, but the place comes recommended by Jonathan Gold, who seems to like everything on the menu.

"Every Sandwich is a Work of Art" is the punning motto at Art's, which had its 60th anniversary a couple of years back. I picked a booth by the window and settled back with the menu. They have all the Jewish specialties and some regular diner food.

I went for the corned beef, a half-sandwich ($10.50) size, with cole slaw. (Full size is $13.50; in retrospect, I should've ordered that and taken the other half home.) The sandwich was piled high, the corned beef thinly sliced and warm, lean and with a little fat for flavor. It was terrific. The slaw was good too.

That dispensed with, I had a warmed apple strudel for dessert ($5.95, and worth it).

One piece of sage advice from the menu: "Anything that is hot can be made cold." I liked this phrase enough to write it down. Among other everyday uses, it accurately describes the philosophy of temperature control in the Daily Bulletin newsroom.

[As I've said, in this series I tried to touch on a wide swath of Pomona, including ethnicities. Thus, I was pleased to devote the letter P to an obscure but long-lived church serving the black community. This column was originally published Dec. 12, 2004. Bear that in mind for a couple of references below to "today," which is long past.]

P is for Primm, Pomona's small but proud church

Things have come to a pretty pass with "Pomona A to Z," which picks up with the letter P.

Among Pomona's plethora of P possibilities:

* Pan dulce at panaderias, the Mexican bakeries that are plentiful in Pomona.

* Phillips Mansion, the 1875 home of pioneer Louis Phillips, whose name graces Phillips Ranch and Phillips Boulevard.

* Presidential streets Lincoln, Roosevelt, McKinley, Madison, Adams, Jefferson, Garfield, Monroe and Buchanan.

* Porpoise statue depicted in mid-dive in an East Second Street fountain, installed as part of 1962's Pedestrian Mall.

* Picture postcards by Pomona photographer Burton Frasher Sr. (1888-1955). The Pomona Library has 5,000 of them, many viewable online at http://content.ci.pomona.ca.us./index.html

* Pomona College, which held its first classes at White and Mission in 1888 before moving to Claremont -- without changing its name -- the next year. For entertainment value, it's hard to beat the plaque affixed to a rock that marks the historic college's birthplace, which is now Angelo's Burgers.

Which P to pick? What a pickle! But our P is yet another peak: Primm Tabernacle AME Church.

Primm is no Pilgrim Congregational or First Baptist, the stately churches that consume entire city blocks in the heart of town, grand reminders of the days when Pomona was dubbed "City of Churches."

Primm is a modest complex along South Garey Avenue. Yet it has a history as noteworthy as its wealthier brethren.

The valley's first black church, it was pastored in the 1960s by the Rev. Cecil M. "Chip" Murray, who went on to become the best-known minister in Los Angeles.

The history is long, too. In fact, Primm is getting older all the time.

Its 40th anniversary fell in 1948, its 100th in 1998 and its 108th just six years later -- today, as a matter of fact.

No, time isn't speeding up. Historians keep changing their mind on when the church started. More on this in a minute.

Today's service is planned for 10 a.m., followed by a ceremony and a soul food lunch.

Here's a capsule of milestones. Pomona's First AME -- affiliated with the African Methodist Episcopal denomination -- built a small church in 1908 at 10th and Thomas. The church adopted the Primm name in 1961, naming itself after an AME bishop, and moved to its current, larger quarters, a former Mormon church, in 1977.

The 1908 church still stands today as the home of a Baptist congregation. About the size of an apartment, the simple wooden building has been covered in gray stucco.

Next door is a small parsonage, and behind it is -- historians take note -- the original outhouse, used by Primm members until the 1977 move.

On a recent visit, two longtime church members reflected on the old days there.

Johnnie Williams, a member since 1963, remembers trying to sneak out of church early one day without the minister catching her. She was busted, she recalled with a laugh, when she left her Bible in the privy and had to go back for it.

Dorothy Heard joined the church in 1975. Despite a lifetime of churchgoing, Primm is where she finally felt saved.

"The place was small. Everybody had to sit close. We had to be close whether we wanted to or not," Heard said. "I miss this little church in a way."

Exactly when the little church began is hard to pin down. Records are sketchy, and newspapers virtually ignored the black church, as one might expect of that era.

City directories have surfaced with listings for "Methodist Church, African, corner Third and Olive" as far back as 1896, thus accounting for the 108th anniversary celebration today, event co-chairwoman Eleanor Duncan told me.

Who knows -- with more research, the 110th anniversary could be next month.

There's no other information before 1909, but it's safe to conclude the church had just a handful of members, most of whom were probably citrus workers, domestics or janitors like other blacks of the day.

The church seems to have suffered shifting fortunes. Listings fell in and out of city directories over the first half of the 20th century, and a brief notice from 1947 in the Progress-Bulletin said the church was set to reopen.

Pomona's black population exploded in the 1960s, going from 800 in 1960 to 10,000 in 1970, setting the stage for the church's resurgence.

The Rev. Murray served in that era. He retired in fall 2004 as pastor of L.A.'s First AME, which he built from a small congregation to a must-stop for Democratic politicians.

Duncan and Williams are among those who remember Murray's 1964 to 1966 Pomona tenure, immediately after finishing his studies at the Claremont School of Theology.

"We were the first church he ever pastored," Duncan said. "In fact, he baptized my daughter (Eva), who's now an AME pastor. She was his first baptism."

(David Allen writes Sunday, Wednesday and Friday, his particular pattern.)

Because of the computer meltdown at the Bulletin (and our sister papers), getting Friday's column into print meant writing it a second time, from memory and my notes, when the first version proved inaccessible, as noted in Friday's paper.

However, rewriting Friday's column consumed the time I would have spent writing Sunday's column. I've maxed out on vacation time and was committed to taking Friday off (and probably two days next week). The only way to throw together a column for Sunday was to stay late. Working overtime Thursday to take off a few vacation hours Friday isn't very logical, and so, spurred on by the continuing computer difficulties, I gave up and went home.

Thus, no Sunday column. It's the first time I didn't write a column since spring of 2005. Usually I go to great lengths to fill the space for vacations, but then, that was before this blog entered the picture, sopping up stray material and time.

I knew the streak had to end sometime. It's a relief, really, because for vacations and an upcoming news assignment I'm likely to miss a few more columns this summer, and we might as well get used to the idea. Well, me more than you.

When you realize my space is filled with something else, it's only a couple of seconds of disappointment, or maybe even relief, but of course I like to imagine it's a crushing blow.

That said, I'm personally committed to posting seven days a week on this blog through its first anniversary in September, and I haven't missed a day yet. What can I say, I like to set weird goals for myself.

This week's restaurant: Brandon's Diner, 8689 Base Line Road, Rancho Cucamonga; also 870 E. Foothill, Upland, and 10271 Magnolia, Riverside.

Brandon's is a hugely popular breakfast spot, and maybe lunch and dinner spot too. For whatever reason I'd never been there. An online review at the Dinerwood site (an LA guy, he's also reviewed BC Cafe) caught my eye a while back, so last Saturday, a friend and I went in for breakfast. Even at 10:30 there were five small groups waiting for a booth, but the wait wasn't long.

Inside, Brandon's is surprisingly old-school: tile floor, booths, a long counter with swivel seats and signs with regular daily specials. The kitchen is in the back, not behind the counter. They have the full complement of breakfast items as well as sandwiches, Mexican food and dinner plates, plus beer and wine.

I had the half French toast combo with two eggs and two sausages ($7.45); my friend had Polish sausage, two eggs, home fries and two French toast halves ($7.95).

The French toast was very good, thick and dusted with powdered sugar. They also have a French toast variety with the name Cinnamon Revolution, which seems to promise a spice insurrection in your mouth. ("Vive le Cinnamon Revolution!")

The sausage links were plump, some of the best I've had. However, my over-medium eggs arrived over-easy.

My friend's Polish sausage, split and grilled, was tasty, and the scrambled eggs very nice when flavored with the two (!) kinds of salsa brought to the table. However, she described her watery coffee as perhaps the worst she's ever tasted. "This is like gas station coffee," she said, before quickly deciding that even gas station joe is better.

So Brandon's isn't perfect. That said, we enjoyed our meal and the atmosphere, and also the people-watching.

The clientele was diverse -- whites, blacks, Latinos -- and included a Goth couple, the woman in white gloves, the man in Kiss-style platform boots, striped pants and a belt buckle that read "666." Goths tend not to smile so it was hard to tell if they were enjoying themselves. They certainly livened the place up for everyone else.

On my way back from an interview Wednesday afternoon in Chino, I stopped in at Comic Madness, a comic shop in that burg, for my weekly fix. Music was playing as I browsed but I wasn't paying attention.

Suddenly a lyric jumped out at me: "Got a wife in Chino, babe, and one in Cherokee/First one says she's got my child, but it don't look like me."

Of course it was "Friend of the Devil" by the Grateful Dead, a song I'm well acquainted with. First time I'd ever heard the Chino line while in Chino city limits, though.