November 2008 Archives

Claremont High School junior Loraine Ong made Round 3 in the Cold Stone Creamery contest for her ice cream mix flavor, Heath Wave, which I wrote about in September. But her chances of winning the $30,000 grand prize seem to be, sad to say, melting.

She's ranked No. 11 * in online votes, with 60 as of Friday. The No. 1 contestant, Orlando Morales of Puerto Rico, has 877 votes.

His flavor, Black & White Delight, has French vanilla ice cream, brownies, white chocolate chips and caramel. Ong's has French vanilla ice cream, brownies, a Heath Bar and fudge.

Call me biased as a Claremonter, but does Morales' flavor really sound 15 times better than Ong's? Or even any better?

So stop into a Cold Stone, buy the Heath Wave creation (or any ice cream), ask for the voting code for Heath Wave, go to http:imixamerica.com and give her a vote. Voting closes Dec. 31. We can't let Puerto Rico punk us.

* UPDATE: As of Monday morning Loraine jumped to No. 5 with 335 votes. Wow! She's still in this thing, folks.

I had a farewell lunch with Norma Torres, the assemblywoman-elect and outgoing mayor of Pomona, on Wednesday. When we set it up, I wasn't sure if I would actually interview her or just talk with her privately to pry loose the inside scoop on City Hall. For better or worse, by the time I pulled off the freeway in Pomona I decided to interview her. (City Hall: "Whew.")

You can read the results Sunday. We talked about all sorts of topics, including Barack Obama, whom she met twice in early 2007, introduced by a campaign consultant. "We couldn't get anybody to talk to him. It was all about Hillary," Torres said. And about the Assembly, where as a Democrat she is pleased to be in the majority, while lamenting the rigid party structure that makes reaching out to the other party difficult. And about her time as mayor, where she admits she didn't accomplish all that much, in part because she didn't have much support on the City Council, even after replacing two members with Torres-friendly newcomers.

But space didn't permit me to go into any of that. In fact, her tenure as mayor gets only two sentences! (Torres: "Whew.") Rather than rehash her time in Pomona in superficial fashion, I opted to focus on aspects of her personal story, the most compelling thing in my notes and of the most interest to a general audience.

People in Pomona have their minds made up on her, anyway. I did, however, give her a letter grade. Feel free to leave your own grade below. But be nice.

This week's restaurant: Upland German Delicatessen, 983 W. Foothill Blvd. (at Mulberry), Upland.

Underneath Upland's bland exterior lies, let's be frank, a bland interior. But between the exterior and the interior lies a strata of fascination. Among the denizens of that realm is what I believe to be the Inland Valley's sole German restaurant.

It's one of those quiet gems, tucked away in a dull strip mall behind a Taco Bell and near the Hi Brow bar. For some reason I'd never been there before, a lack I remedied on Monday.

Inside, the deli offers a homey environment. There's a small seating area with glass-topped tables, German postcards visible from under the glass; and a few shelves of market goods, including imported foods, especially chocolates, and Advent calendars. Cheerful German oompah music played softly. A wall is covered in decorative pieces of wood in which mottos have been burned in script. The largest reads: "Tough times never last, but tough people do!" A good message right now.

At the counter I ordered one of the combo lunch specials, the Stuttgart sandwich (Black Forest ham, mayo, mustard, lettuce, tomato and onion) on rye, with German potato salad, a pickle and an iced tea ($9.15 with tax). The meal came on a sectioned plate with real silverware. Excellent sandwich. I hadn't had German potato salad: It's finely chopped baked potato, piping hot, mixed with mustard. Interesting, but not my new favorite dish. I almost never eat more than a bite of a pickle but polished this sweet one off.

They also have wienerschnitzel, bratwurst, braunschweiger and other German foods, and they make baked goods such as tortes and strudels. A server brought by samples of plum torte for customers. It was a topper to a memorable, filling meal.

He's an Ontario man, but from which Ontario? Friday's lead item is based on this story from the Toronto Sun. I also find a local angle, besides the obvious one, in the movie "The Changeling." And I describe some headlines and ads found in 1911 editions of the Pomona Progress. All this and more in Friday's column.

On Tuesday, Betty Peters, the peripatetic history buff and Pomona Public Library volunteer, visited our office to show off a curiosity she'd found. She laid an old, lightly stained, brown piece of cloth, about the size and shape of a bib, or a diaper, on our counter and asked if I knew what it was.

I eyed it warily and said I didn't.

"It was a saddle for turkeys," Peters said. She explained that when she was growing up, her family had a small ranch in Pomona, which included turkeys. To help the tom turkeys inseminate the ladies, this cloth saddle was placed on a female's back. The tom could dig his feet into the seams and not slip from her back until his business was concluded.

"If anyone ever asks you 'Why do turkeys need saddles?,' now you know!" Peters crowed.

Chew on that while you're chewing on a turkey today. Happy Thanksgiving.

Remember the kids' table? It was, and perhaps still is, a staple of Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners.

It was the smaller, lower table where the pint-sized members of the family were seated, the better to give the adults some peace and some time to catch up without constant interruptions. And, of course, it was fun for the kids to sit together -- allowing us to catch up without (ahem) constant interruptions from adults.

I remember my cousins and I blowing bubbles in our beverages through a straw -- no adult ever thinks this is cool -- and making mashed potato volcanoes with our gravy. And yet, there was always envy of the grownup table. Once you graduate to the grownups' table, you're there for good. You leave behind the kids' table for (sniff) good.

A metaphor for growing up, one might say.

What did you think of the kids' table, and do you still have one at holidays?

The Virgin Megastore at Ontario Mills is closing in January, along with the Virgin at the Block at Orange. On the plus side, a huge closeout sale starts Friday. I'm not keen on hitting the Mills the day after Thanksgiving, but this music fan plans to circle the CD bins like a vulture in the coming weeks, just as I did at Tower Records.

Read about Virgin's pending demise Wednesday, as well as PFF Bank's fate -- the economy appears to have made me a business-humor columnist -- and other matters.
But first, a few more thoughts about Virgin Megastore.

Virgin is a mall anchor and was one of the hip stores when the mall opened in November 1996. I don't know if Richard Branson came out -- chime in if you know -- but I recall the mall hosting Wolfgang Puck when his cafe opened, and Steven Spielberg when GameWorks debuted. Off Rodeo Drive was a walkway with designer clothes. In the pre-Victoria Gardens era, having outposts of L.A. out here in the boonies was exciting.

With the later addition of a Vans skate park, which hosted Tony Hawk (I got to meet him), and the Ontario Improv, the Mills had an aura of youth and trendiness.

GameWorks and the Improv hang on, but Vans, Wolfgang Puck and Off Rodeo are long gone and Virgin is leaving. Besides the Improv, about as cool as the Mills will be at that point is, what, Fuddruckers?

Speaking of cool, this is my 500th blog post!

Several of you have lamented the passing of Noble House, a longtime Chinese restaurant in Rancho Cucamonga at Haven and Base Line. This came up when a couple of readers left comments on my post about Pei Wei's closing. Since then, I got an e-mail asking what happened to them, and heard about it in person from another reader.

The way he heard it, the rent was going to double and the family-run eatery had to pack it in.

Whether that's true or not, I'm sorry to hear Noble House is gone. A source several years ago had recommended them in the same breath as China Gate in Upland, and I'd say both were operating at about the same level. I ate there only a couple of times but I liked the place.

Las Campanas in Rancho Cucamonga also closed recently. It was an ambitious concept, upscale Mexican, but one that seems to have misjudged the market. Or maybe the food just wasn't so hot. I ate there on a preview night, not the best time to judge, and wasn't wowed enough to go back, even though the surroundings were awfully nice.

This didn't trouble me, but I noticed Monday that Togo's in Upland has a "for lease" sign. I ate there once a few weeks ago with two colleagues who, for inexplicable reasons, really liked it. Besides making very average sandwiches, it seemed like a dark, dank hole to me. Well, every place is somebody's favorite.

Anyone have any Noble House stories, or have a favorite eatery close recently?

Are you familiar with chili mac? According to Jane and Michael Stern's book "Road Food," it's a Midwestern specialty: spaghetti noodles topped with chili.

I'd had it only once, years ago, but read about it in the Sterns' book before my recent St. Louis trip and was intrigued. Seeing it on the menu at Crown Candy Kitchen, I ordered it. (Later I checked the book again and realized the Sterns had recommended the chili mac at a different establishment.)

Here's what you get: a soup bowl filled with spaghetti and chili (no beans), and, if you want 'em, cheddar and onions. I did. Adding to the silliness, on the side you get a package of oyster crackers, those small, six-sided crackers that come with chowder or chili but, um, rarely with spaghetti.

Strange it may be, the platypus of entrees, but chili mac was actually pretty tasty. I cleaned my bowl. Anyone else ever tried this regional specialty, or another one of which most Californians would be unaware?

At Thursday's Ontario-Montclair School District board meeting, we heard an oral report from the investigator hired to look into several allegations of misconduct against board member Paul Vincent Avila. The meeting was surprisingly low-key.

The report itself, in enormous binders, was distributed afterward to board members, the press and other interested parties. It's dynamite.

One exhibit is an e-mail Avila wrote to the superintendent at 12:13 a.m., hours after the middle school awards ceremony, requesting a meeting to discuss the omission of his name from the event program.

Here's one paragraph:

"In some circles it may be interpreted as disrespectful slight, You might asked, is this important? Yes, You bet is greatly important to me (self esteem) and community from which boardmember was elected. But if you must asked, then we really must seat down and have a passionate and sensitivity discussion."

A bit later, he wrote:

"I find it difficult - really difficult when this degrading/slight/disrespectful behaviors impacts my beloved wife whom witnessed some likes of this! Its painful for anyone but especially love one. But I remain undeterred and strong!! Its probably the most demanding restraints called on me to turn the other cheeck which I refuse to do! What left is my words of defiance, resolve, and search for reasonable resolution. Some how an simple apology doesn't do it!"

Yours truly made it into the report as well. Let me quote from page 93:

"On the audiotape of the August 21, 2008 Board meeting, the Investigator heard Mr. Avila refer to David Allen of the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin as 'Mr. Simpson,' presumably a reference to the cartoon character 'Homer Simpson' of the 'The Simpsons' television show."

I'm so proud.

Read about the report in Sunday's column.

Reader Nancy Bumstead said she was watching "Oprah" on Wednesday when a viewer from Ontario -- our Ontario -- named Christina asked a question of guest Brad Pitt via Skype video about his tattoos, with which the fan seemed, um, rather strangely interested. And knowledgeable.

Watch a YouTube video of the 2:13 encounter here.

Christina describes herself as a "forever fan" of Pitt's of "about 17 years." I love how "Oprah" shows Ontario on a map next to Christina's face. It should be helpful when the restraining order comes through.

This week's restaurant: Pittsburgh Broasted Chicken and Subs, 669 Indian Hill Blvd. (at Holt), Pomona.

This restaurant opened a few months back north of the old Food 4 Less in a strip mall that is also home to Christy's Donuts, a nail salon, 98 Cent Plus and a Vietnamese sandwich shop. The space's previous occupant was the shortlived Sushi 4 U, which I liked to imagine was run by a Prince acolyte.

PBC, as I'm going to call it for brevity, was empty when I ventured in for a mid-afternoon meal this week. The interior appears clean and bright. You order at the counter. I think the owners are Korean American.

I got the 2 piece dinner plus a soda ($6.69). (It was only after ordering that I noticed "lunch specials" on the menu. D'oh! It's tough trying to absorb a new menu while someone is waiting for you to order.)

They gave me my choice of pieces, so I went with a breast and thigh. You also have a choice of four styles: original, plain, lemon pepper or cajun. (Begging the question, what is the difference between original and plain?) I went with lemon pepper. The dinner comes with a side of slaw, potato salad, macaroni salad or baked beans; I went for the slaw.

The dinner was made to order and came out after 15 minutes. The meal was served in a basket that was heaped with potato squares, kind of like Wendy's fries except in cubes. They were pretty good. The slaw was standard. There was a roll too.

As for the chicken, it was impressive. I have limited experience with broasted chicken -- who doesn't? -- but the mysterious process of broasting somehow involves both pressure cooking and deep frying. As they say on this Chowhound thread, don't try this at home. You can read a more official version at the official broasting website. Scroll down for an apt quote from a "West Wing" episode.

The PBC version of broasted chicken had crispy skin and very moist, flavorful meat, even if the lemon and pepper were too subtle for me. (Maybe lemon pepper, original and plain are all the same.)

The meal was a good deal for the money. All in all, a pleasant surprise.

PBC has also been reviewed by the IE Restaurants blog and by the Student in Pomona blog, which rates it No. 1 in Pomona, even above (gasp) Donahoo's. Heresy!

I wouldn't go that far, but if you like chicken, you ought to give PBC a try. The restaurant doesn't deserve to be empty.

I was at the Chalk Art Festival in downtown Pomona a couple of weeks ago when Danny Holznecht of the Pomona Jaycees broke the news to me that the Pomona Christmas Parade was canceled. In 2007, you'll recall, I was the 60th annual parade's 60th grand marshal.

"You're the last one," Holznecht said.

Say it ain't so!

City Hall pulled its funding and the Jaycees-run parade couldn't go on without it. Find out more in Friday's column.

It's time to say farewell to Brix, a police service dog with the Ontario Police Department. Not that you probably ever said hello to him, unless you were one of the 1,398 suspects he helped collar in his nine-year career.

The German Shepherd has retired from the force at age 11, or "70-something" in dog years, as Mayor Paul Leon put it when Brix was honored at Tuesday's council meeting.

Tuesday's meeting was not the final one for Jason Anderson, the councilman. He anticipates the Dec. 2 meeting will be his last.

Well, it's good to space these farewells out.

In Upland this week, I drove behind a car with the license plate GEDACLU.

Get a clue? Cute. Although it's also possible the driver is a proponent of not only the ACLU, but the General Educational Development degree.

The rotating sign atop the Fox Theater in Pomona -- which no longer rotated, had burnt-out neon and scrawled graffiti -- was taken down by crane last spring for repair. On Tuesday, the sign was returned to its perch high atop the Fox's wedding-cake tower. Hooray!

Somebody missed a good-news photo op by not alerting the media (ahem) -- making me wish our offices were still next door -- but thankfully, the Metro Pomona blog was on the scene. So was the blog Ren's Corner.

And we now have photos provided by developer Jerry Tessier on our Pomona Now blog.

Monday's Pomona council meeting may or may not have been worth skipping Maureen Dowd's Claremont appearance for, but it wasn't bad. Also, I understand the room in which Dowd spoke filled up and several people, including my colleague Wes Woods, were unable to get in. At least in Pomona I could get a seat.

Well, read Wednesday's column to find out how Norma Torres' last meeting as mayor went.

Central Avenue above the 10 Freeway is now nice and smooth, as is Monte Vista Avenue, after recent repaving that narrowed lanes and choked traffic.

However, the lanes are not yet striped, only marked with those Post-It note-like temporary markers. Painting the lanes, whenever that occurs, could mean more inconvenience for motorists.

Thus, your cautious correspondent declines to lift his advisory to avoid Montclair. If you happen to live in Montclair, my advice is to stay below the 10. Repeat, stay below the 10. Thank you.

This will be the first post-election meeting and, as I understand it, the last full meeting for Norma Torres as mayor and George Hunter as a councilman.

I'm skipping the chance to see Maureen Dowd, the New York Times columnist, at Claremont McKenna College tonight (6:45 p.m. at the Athenaeum, admission free), so the meeting had better be a good one. In fact, now that I've typed that sentence, I'm beginning to wonder if I'm making the right choice. Oh well. Pomona calls.

Jack Benny's radio show made Cucamonga famous as part of the train station announcer's cry, "Train leaving on Track 5 for Anaheim, Azusa and Cuuuucamonga!" Supposedly -- according to an article on an Anaheim history website -- this line was first heard on his Jan. 7, 1945 broadcast and it became a running gag, continuing when Benny transitioned to TV.

The three tiny communities loved the attention. Benny was made honorary mayor of all three a year later. He visited Anaheim at least twice, in 1947 and again in 1963. He was made an honorary citizen of the three communities in 1965, in a ceremony held in Azusa.

But did he ever visit Cucamonga? I can't answer that. But it seems he did visit Etiwanda.

The accompanying photo was taken in either 1966 or 1967 at the Regina Winery. Gino Filippi, who sent it to me, said it was given to him by Mr. C. Boesen of Alta Loma. "The white-haired man opposite Mr. Benny is Tip Brown, GM of the Regina Grape Products Company. I think the event was a promotional event for the grand opening of the Regina Winery Restaurant, 'California's first winery restaurant.' "

Anaheim, Azusa and Etttttiwanda!

Well, I was right about the order of which blog posts would show up in which columns -- in the sense that in my Friday column preview, after putting them in the exact opposite order, I said "it's possible they're reversed." There's a reason I'm a pro, folks: I have the good sense to hedge my bets.

So, Sunday look for Clive Cussler and Pei Wei. Just like I said (sort of).

This week's restaurant: Super Sandwich, 9885 Central Ave. (at Benito), Suite A, Montclair.

I learned about Super Sandwich from the Goddess of Pomona blog a couple of weeks back. The place has all sorts of sandwiches but specializes in banh mi, which are Vietnamese and served on thin baguettes. Besides several kinds of meat, they have strips of carrot and cucumber, daikon (a carrot-like root vegetable), cilantro, onion and pate. Also, peppers.

Super Sandwich is next to a Domino's in a small, standalone building. The interior is small, like a yogurt shop, but there are a few tables and chairs in a mod, Space Age style. One wall features a large photo mural of the Eiffel tower with a giant sandwich superimposed in the sky. Mmmmm...Eiffel tower.

The menu lists "regular sandwiches," French baguette sandwiches (i.e., banh mi), kitchen dishes (teriyaki, mostly), tea, coffee, shakes, salads and nonfat yogurt.

I got a 6-inch sandwich combo, the house special, with pork and ham, which came with a salad, chips and a boba milk tea (all for a mere $5.38). It's only the third time I've had banh mi, so I'm still a neophyte, but this was certainly comparable to the others. (I removed the peppers.) The salad was iceberg, nothing special, but fine for the price. There was so much food I couldn't finish the salad and didn't even crack open the chips!

They bake their own bread here, by the way. They have a happy hour special in the window: From 2 to 5 p.m., buy two baguettes and get the third free.

(Happy hour specials must be getting more imaginative: I ate Thursday at Classic 66 Burgers in Pomona and noticed their window advertises a happy hour special involving chili cheese fries.)

One thing Super Sandwich doesn't have is...soup. But they make a mean sandwich.

Friday and Sunday's columns are best-of-the-blog compilations. I figured for the newspaper audience, blog repeats were better than no column at all, and it would still be new material for 99 percent of my audience. If the result entices a few more people into checking out this blog, that wouldn't break my heart either.

If memory serves, Friday has the Clive Cussler and Pei Wei posts, while Sunday has the Lisa's Gourmet and Jim Frost posts. Although it's possible they're reversed. I guess we'll all find out tomorrow.

Visitors to Claremont's downtown Village with its lively pedestrian and cafe scene can't help but notice the working-age people who can be spotted not working at hours when nearly everyone else is. Who are these under-employed people lounging over endless cups of coffee at late morning or mid-afternoon?

It's one of the mysteries of Claremont, up there with how some Village stores stay in business, year after year, despite having seemingly no customers, never-changing window displays and, in at least one case I can think of (Kalter's), virtually never being open.

This week, as noted previously, I'm taking a few days off -- while still blogging, obviously. Wednesday morning, after a dental appointment, I took my newspapers to the public square in Village West and sat at a table under an umbrella with a Jamba Juice drink from about 10:30 to 11:30. A very pleasant, sunny day.

At some point, of course, it occurred to me: For one morning, I was one of those Village suspects. So were the dozen or so other people around me.

OK, but all these Village characters can't be on a staycation, can they?

Five years ago, a reader named Jeremy Heist of Upland wrote me a nice long note, much of it about his connection to St. Louis, after hearing (incorrectly) that I hailed from there, rather than from remote Illinois. But Heist went on to say that he gives copies of Jonathan Franzen's first novel, "The 27th City," "which takes place all over St. Louis," to local friends from there. "Check it out sometime if you haven't," Heist urged.

I eventually found a copy of the novel at a used bookstore, bought it and put it on my bookshelf. There it languished, as if the simple act of purchasing it was the achievement, actually reading it being secondary.

Planning a visit to St. Louis, I pulled "27th City" down in late September to read. It's a 517-page brick with dozens of characters, and a plot that involves a political conspiracy to reunite the city and county, their separation being blamed for the city's slide into irrelevancy during the 20th century. "Municipal science fiction," one reviewer called it. I can't say I loved it, and I'm not even sure I liked it. But it held my interest, perhaps primarily because of the novelty of being set in such an overlooked locale.

I met Heist a couple of times, once in Pomona at an experimental, and fairly awful, traveling film festival called 20,000 Leagues, and once, the last time, in Claremont outside the Folk Music Center, where Dave Alvin would perform. Heist had a degenerative condition that made breathing an effort. He didn't think his chances were good.

And apparently they weren't; a database search shows that he died a few months later.

Too bad, for all sorts of reasons that pertain to him and his family, not to me. Personally, though, I'd have liked to sit down with him and talk about the book.

Michael Crichton's death last week reminded me of the lone (to my knowledge) Inland Valley reference in one of his novels. Then comes a belated roundup of response to my St. Louis column of last month. I can always count on readers to have insights and funny things to say.

Did you see our Page One story yesterday on the Fox Theater, Claremont Packing House and other examples of historic preservation -- or, in some cases, pseudo-preservation or outright demolition? Modesty prevents me from mentioning the writer's name, but if you didn't read the story Monday, you can do so by clicking here.

Reader Dennis Sampson writes, apropos of nothing, but entertainingly:

"Have you ever seen 'Reefer Madness,' the campy, corny movie from the early '30s which deals with the scourge of marijuana smoking and its effect on America's youth? Recently it was on one of the cable channels and I watched it.

"The very first newspaper to be shown is the Daily Bulletin. I know that wasn't the name of our paper yet, but I did enjoy seeing the name there."

Correct, we were the Daily Report and the Progress-Bulletin in the 1930s. Haven't seen the movie, no, but I imagine if I did, I'd have a chuckle, and perhaps even a contact high, from seeing any newspaper named The Daily Bulletin onscreen!

A store named Relax the Back opened in Rancho Cucamonga probably two years ago; I received a press release about it, thought it sounded interesting and jotted down the address on Foothill Boulevard. I did an Internet search to figure out precisely where, Foothill being a loooong street; the store, one of a chain, was in the Foothill Crossings center at Interstate 15, near Sears Grand.

For the next two years, I would periodically remember that I wanted to see what the store sold, yours truly being perpetually tight-shouldered from hunching over a keyboard most of the time. But I rarely go to the Victoria Gardens area, and when I do, it's usually on a tight schedule. Or the store's existence wouldn't cross my mind.

Finally, today, on a day off, I set out on a mission. I drove to the VG for some shopping and then, at last, went across the street to check out Relax the Back.

After some driving around, I found the store. It's empty. It's closed for good.

Serves me right for taking such a relaxed approach to the whole thing.

Driving past Ontario's Granada Theater on Friday, I got a shock: The marquee reads "Robin Williams," with the theater promoter's phone number.

Surely not THE Robin Williams? But it is. Or at least could be.

Williams is mounting a tour of small comedy clubs. Granada operator Dave Perez read that Williams played at a theater named the Granada in New York. "My wife said, wouldn't it great if he played here?" Perez said. She phoned Williams' publicist and he expressed interest.

"Our confirmation meeting is next Wednesday," Perez said. "They said it's OK to put his name up there [on the marquee] -- just don't put up a date."

Caution will tell you that Robin Williams playing the low-budget Granada -- a former movie theater now used for church services, punk concerts and open-mic nights -- is unlikely. But who knows? And as Perez said, such a show "would put us on the map."

Anderson, the Ontario councilman who finished a shocking fourth in the election, phoned this afternoon for a chat. He's still trying to figure out what happened, and so am I. But he offered a persuasive theory.

Bear in mind that Anderson and incumbent Sheila Mautz vote alike and both are untouched by scandal. (How many Ontario council members can you say that about?) Neither has a Latino surname, which would seem to argue against that being the deciding factor; after all, Mautz beat both Porada and Avila to be the top vote-getter while Anderson fell behind all three.

But Anderson is guessing that how each campaign treated first-time voters, many of them Latinos turning out to vote for Obama and against Proposition 8, may have made the difference.

"We targeted high-propensity voters," Anderson said of his campaign mailings, "and they were no-propensity voters." In other words, he didn't send mailings to every single registered voter, just ones who've voted before.

Did Mautz target everyone? "She did," Anderson said. "Her mailings went out to everyone in Ontario...That was a miscalculation on my part."

A deputy district attorney and single-term councilman, Anderson said life will go on without being on the council, although he's clearly hurt. Who wouldn't be? It's gotta be tough coming in behind Paul Vincent Avila, a school board member prone to tantrums and unusual behavior.

"Politics is a fickle business," Anderson said. "I can live with it. People call me up and they're more depressed than I am. I tell them, 'it's not that bad.'"

Coming Sunday: Sylvester Brooks makes a triumphant (?) return to the Ontario council meeting's public comment period but doesn't manage to get more than three minutes at the lectern. The public works director plays a prank on me. And at Rancho Cucamonga's council meeting, the threat of "peak oil depletion" looms -- at least according to one speaker.

Rancho Cucamonga voters not only returned both incumbent council members to office, they kept Jim Frost as city treasurer.

Frost, a former mayor and the city's unofficial historian, with roots in Etiwanda going back to 1882, ran a characteristically low-key campaign, but he faced an energetic challenge by Ryan Orr for the largely ceremonial job.

Frost was openly worried. However, he crushed Orr, garnering 78 percent of the vote. I ran into Frost at Wednesday's council meeting and congratulated him.

"I was shooting for 80 percent," Frost quipped. "But oh well."

This week's restaurant: Lisa's Gourmet Foods, 600 E. D St. (at Monterey), Ontario

Lisa's is a convenience store on the corner of a residential neighborhood and must have been there for decades, although the exterior has a fresh appearance. I had no idea they had sandwiches until Jim Bowman, a city councilman, urged me to try the deli counter sometime. The former fire chief said Lisa's is a favorite of firefighters, whose main station is just blocks away.

The market itself has staples like potato chips, baby food and toilet paper, plus booze, and I'm unclear where the "gourmet" part comes in. Maybe it's an old-school name like Upland's C&M Fancy Mart, which doesn't look all that fancy. Anyway, the deli counter is in the back. They have a variety of hot and cold sandwiches, most of them $3.75 for a half and $6.25 for a whole.

I got one of the Lisa's Specials, a half Godfather ($4). It had ham, salami and mortadella, plus lettuce, tomato, mayo and, crucially, olive oil. There are two picnic tables outside, but with a guy lounging foodless at one and a fellow with a shopping cart laden with recyclables stalled near the other, I headed to the Civic Center a few blocks west, the closest thing to a park that came to mind.

The sandwich, on crusty French bread, was outstanding. And filling. And, for the price, a six-inch sandwich was a steal. Highly recommended.

The ambience of the Civic Center, not so much so. East of the library is a broad, utopian-style, empty plaza. It's almost completely characterless, but it does have a couple of benches, and it's certainly quiet. I ate there in peace, undisturbed except for the effects of stupefying architectural mediocrity (although the library is nice).

For a richer aesthetic experience, take your Lisa's sandwich somewhere else. Wonder if they'd let you eat at the fire station?

The whole column is about the election, and mostly about city council races -- Ontario and Pomona in particular. Sometimes you have to laugh to keep from crying, folks. See you Friday?

I'm an occasional user, and full-time fan, of Metrolink trains, as well as the Red and Purple Line subways and Blue and Green Line light rail trains in L.A. But until last weekend I had only taken the Gold Line light rail once, and for one measly stop, from Union Station to Chinatown.

Saturday, I gave the line a longer test. Scheduled to meet a friend for lunch in South Pasadena, I decided to park at the Gold Line's eastern terminus, Sierra Madre Boulevard, in Pasadena, and take the train to the Mission Avenue stop. This is halfway to Union Station and gave me a better sense of what the rail line is like.

Well, nice train and all that, and smooth ride, and $1.25 each way was a small price to pay for a joyride. On the other hand, it was hard to get excited about the route.

You walk over a freeway bridge to get to the train platform, which is in the middle of the 210. After a couple of freeway-median stops -- including the thrilling "Next stop, Allen Avenue. Allen Avenue, next stop" -- the train stops at Lake Avenue, which is below street level. Those riders have to take an elevator or stairs up to the Lake freeway overcrossing, which is about eight lanes wide. Sounds, um, pleasant.

The next stop is Memorial Park. This is as close as the line comes to Old Town, and I'm not sure how close it is except from memory: The station is in a trench below street level and all you see out the window is concrete. You really have no idea where you are. (Unlike Red Line cars, there was no map inside my train car, either.)

Things open up a bit in South Pasadena. I got off at Mission Avenue, a station that is lauded for the way it's helped revitalize the neighborhood of cafes, salons and condos. With its antique clock, statue of a pedestrian and location closer to the thick of things, it was definitely the most friendly stop.

Yet you disembark on a platform a few steps above the pavement and the ground has been cleared in a radius around it. Even at its most approachable, the Gold Line is a little aloof.

The trolleys and light rail in Portland, Ore., where I visited last year, usually let you off right at street level, often just steps from sidewalks and shops. Riding transit there is less of a production, if you know what I mean.

Nevertheless, even L.A.'s flawed, scanty rail lines are far preferable to no rail lines. I'm grateful the Gold Line exists. I intend to take it the rest of the way to Union Station sometime. And someday, I hope to take it from Claremont.

It's usually foolish to try to predict local election results. Trying to interpret them afterward is often just as hard. I'd say that's even more true than usual this week, with plenty of winners and losers that defy explanation.

* In Pomona, which elected Xavier Alvarez over an incumbent for a Three Valleys water board seat two years ago, voters turned out Fred Lantz (husband of Paula) for John Mendoza, a well-meaning but shaky challenger.

* In Ontario, voters mixed and matched, choosing one incumbent, Sheila Mautz, and one challenger, Debra Porada. Finishing a distant fourth was incumbent Jason Anderson, for no discernible reason. Coming in third was Paul Vincent Avila.

* In the Ontario-Montclair School District, Avila booster Moe Mendoza was the top vote-getter. Avila, of all people, is on his way to building a board majority.

Many of you will have your own takes on races that didn't go the way you thought, or desired. A lot of people in Upland don't care for John Pomierski as mayor, but to my mind, Ray Musser never articulates a very good case for replacing him. So Pomierski's re-election wasn't much of a surprise.

Many in Pomona will be gnashing their teeth about having Elliott Rothman as mayor, and I wouldn't argue with them. However, I saw it coming, after Norma Torres told me last month that polling showed Rothman would walk away with the election. What remains puzzling is why a guy who evinces so little interest in showing up on time for council meetings, or paying attention during them, wants to be mayor. But that's a separate issue.

Blame for some of the wonkier decisions falls to an electorate, including a lot of first-time voters, who are uninformed on local issues. That's the only explanation that makes sense for Ontario City Council, for example.

Not that the Daily Bulletin's words should be gospel, far from it, but the percentage of voters who follow our news coverage and editorial stands (which are based on face-to-face interviews with the candidates) would seem to be rather low.

To consider yourself an informed voter because you relied on campaign mailers and the candidate statements in the voter guide is, frankly, sad. Perhaps we need to do a better job of covering campaigns and organizing the content on our website, but you can't help but think most people simply don't care to become informed, either before or after elections.

Two of Tuesday's big winners: Barack Obama (U.S. president) and Norma Torres (61st Assembly District).

Torres met Obama twice and came away very impressed. Obama's reaction is unknown.

We've elected a black president? Wow! What a remarkable result. I didn't know we had it in us. Talk about change we can believe in!

No matter who they voted for, everyone ought to tear up a little at such a powerful affirmation of the American dream. Suddenly, maybe anyone can grow up to be president, just as they always told us.

As for the state and local results, I don't have it in me at this hour to look 'em up. Too much trepidation. I'll post more later. For now I'd like to feel good.

At my Claremont polling place this morning shortly after 9 a.m., there was a full house at the eight voting stations, a short line outside and plenty of only-in-Claremont conversation. I even ran into the mayor. That's the top half of my column. After that comes another TV converter box anecdote, a Santa Ana winds anecdote and an item about an upcoming "Dancing With the Claremont Stars" competition.

How was your voting experience?

I met an old newsroom buddy for lunch Saturday in South Pasadena. His wife (another old newsroom buddy) was visiting her mother, making this a good time for him to meet up. He brought their toddler daughter.

The three of us ate at a sidewalk table outside a cafe on Mission Avenue. It wasn't long before your self-conscious correspondent began wondering how this pre-election scene looked to anyone passing by: Two men and a baby.

My friend played with his daughter, tickling her, picking her up, handing her her glass of chocolate milk, picking up her doll, placing her in or out of her stroller. I sat there on the bench beside him, trying to carry on a conversation with him. I'm not much with children (the aloof father in our little trio?) but watched her when my friend went back inside for more milk.

There's a lively sidewalk scene on Mission, to which I couldn't help thinking we contributed. What did everyone think as they strolled or jogged past? Were we an argument in favor of Prop 8 ("look at the two men with their child!")? Or an argument against (ditto)?

Meal concluded, we set off for their apartment. We stopped at a pharmacy so he could buy toilet paper, soap and baby shampoo, leaving the bachelor cooling his heels in the aisle with the stroller. Then we all waited in line, my friend dealing with the cashier, me inching the stroller forward, keeping his baby from grabbing candy.

On the way out, my friend's arms laden with toilet paper, it was left to me to follow behind, pushing his (our?) baby home in the stroller.

Um, not that there's anything wrong with that.

I wonder if we influenced anybody's vote -- and if so, which way?

Do you know how you're voting yet? Not just on president, but everything else?

Between chickens, bullet trains and drug laws, there's a lot to decide on. Those are the very propositions on which I'm waffling, incidentally. Then there are judges. Why am I voting on judges? I hate passing sentence on judges.

How am I leaning in all this? I say, put the chickens on the bullet train and give them all the drugs they want. Let them be the judge.

Last month at Babbling Books in Ontario, I was at the counter buying a John D. MacDonald paperback when an older fellow with a stack of books asked the clerk, "Who wrote the Dirk Pitt series?" She'd have come up with the answer, but since she was fumbling for it, I answered: "Clive Cussler."

The man said he used to own them all but no longer did. He sped off and added a couple to his stack.

The only reason I knew the answer was that I'd read some of the news coverage of the "Sahara" movie lawsuit. Some of it involved the studio, which took a bath on the movie, saying Cussler overstated the sales of his suspense novels. I've never read one and doubt I ever will, but that's how I learned of his Dirk Pitt character.

Last week, when I pulled into the parking lot of the CVS center in La Verne to eat at Red Devil Pizza, I noticed the sign for Book Rack on my immediate left. I checked them out; it was one of two used bookstores mentioned in my recent column that I'd never visited.

Nice little store. They also have some new books. Nothing cried out to me, but I would go back.

Odd thing was, a couple of older fellas were looking for books, and one said to the other, "Clive Cussler's a good writer." His friend agreed.

I don't think the younger generation is hep to Clive Cussler, but to white-haired males, he must be the cat's pajamas.