Animal style

This Humane Society message about “cohabitation” is an attention-getter — which is the idea, of course — but upon closer inspection, the message is only wild in a strictly literal sense: “Cohabitation, it’s a two way street. Learn how to live with wildlife.” Seen in Montclair.

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Restaurant of the Week: Farrell’s

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CLOSED AUGUST 2016

Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlour, 10742 Foothill Blvd. (at Aspen), Rancho Cucamonga

Farrell’s means a lot to many longtime Inland Valley residents who marked birthdays and other occasions at the Montclair Plaza ice cream parlor, which operated through the 1970s and into the mid-1980s before folding like other locations after a disastrous buyout. Now the chain is back, with SoCal restaurants in Rancho Cucamonga, Brea, Mission Viejo and Santa Clarita, with more in the works. Here’s its website.

Me, I was a Farrell’s newbie when I showed up for lunch recently with two Farrell’s fans, my friends Dave and Rose Linck of Rancho Cucamonga. They grew up on the place and had already been to the Rancho location twice, once for Rose’s birthday. (She wasn’t asked to stand on a chair.)

In fact, Rose wrote several letters in recent years to Farrell’s suggesting they take over the closed Romano’s Macaroni Grill, advice that Farrell’s took. They should give her free ice cream for life or something.

The restaurant has been completely made over. After a short wait even at 1 p.m. for a table, we were seated. We were among the few adults not accompanied by children. It’s a festive atmosphere, the Chuck E Cheese of ice cream. Every few minutes a siren would blare and employees, dressed in straw boaters and vests, would gather around a table and sing happy birthday while the child stood on a chair. They’ve revived all the old traditions, including the Zoo and the Pig Trough ice cream platters.

I got a half BLT with chicken noodle soup and fries ($7.79), Rose had chicken strips known as Cock-a-Doodle Dippers ($8) and Dave had the Gastronomicaldelicatessenepicurean’s Delight (whew!), a cold cut combo with fries ($10.59).

Surprisingly, this was all pretty good. My BLT, for example, used a better grade of bacon than you’ll find almost anywhere else and the soup tasted fresh. The others were impressed by their meals too.

For dessert, we each got hot fudge or hot butterscotch sundaes, the single-scoop versions available if you get a meal ($3.29), and it was delicious, as you’d hope. Including the $2.79 vanilla Coke I got from the soda fountain, my tab was $17, a couple of bucks more than I’d have preferred, but fine given the quality of the food and the attentiveness of the service.

Would I go back, though? Maybe, but it’s hard to imagine when I would. (Other than if any friends choose Farrell’s for their own birthday, which one is threatening to do.) I don’t think I would go even for my own birthday (when you get a free sundae), although I reserve the right to change my mind.

It’s evidently a good facsimile of the old Farrell’s, a parent would probably not be disappointed by the food and a kid would probably love it. But unless you’re a retired fireman who misses the sound of a siren going off every few minutes, or deaf, this is not a place many adults could endure. Nostalgists, of course, will want to try it, and should.

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Column: Movies, Fox captured heart of Pomona woman

Friday’s column (read it here) leads off with an item on the death of Marcia Fredendall Warren, a lifelong Pomona resident who documented the history of the Fox Theater. Not only facts about its dimensions, cost, planning, openings and remodelings, but her personal connection to the theater dating to the 1930s. Then there’s an item about an Ontario man who paid it forward and a plug for my blog. Of course, you already read my blog, bless your hearts, so you can skip that part.

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Favorite flicks of 2011

I see more movies than the average person (21 in 2011) but not as many as some of my friends. Other than some of the superhero movies, my tastes run to the indie side, and even a lot of those pass me by.

I haven’t seen most of the awards-bait films, from “Moneyball” earlier in the year to “The Artist” or “Melancholia” or “Iron Lady” or even “The Descendants,” which unlike the others is actually playing in the 909. Also, you would have to pay me to see “War Horse.”

Take this list, my fifth annual, as one man’s moviegoing rather than some sort of comprehensive list. And what is that list?

My top 10, in roughly descending order:

The Adjustment Bureau, My Afternoons With Margueritte, Midnight in Paris, The Women on the Sixth Floor, The Hedgehog, Bill Cunningham New York, Win Win, 50/50, The King’s Speech and Beginners.

(Yes, I know “The King’s Speech” is technically a 2010 movie, but like most people I saw it in 2011. Also, my absolute favorite of the year wasn’t a new movie but a re-release of 1984’s The Green Ray ((Le Rayon Vert)), a French film by Eric Rohmer. I decided not to count that since it wasn’t a new movie.)

Rounding out my year’s 21 movies, my next 11 would run something like this: Captain America, Project Nim, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Jane Eyre, Point Blank, Contagion, Drive, Young Adult, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Page One: Inside the New York Times and Thor.

I liked “Apes” but it didn’t have the zest of the older ones. The last Potter movie was fine and I know a lot of people loved it, but I’m tired of the whole thing.

What were your own favorites, or stinkers, of 2011?

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So long, John Silver’s

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Mateys, the only Long John Silver’s Seafood Shoppe in the Inland Valley has pulled up the plank. Montclair’s location, 9379 Central Ave., closed Dec. 31.

“The property that includes the restaurant is currently in escrow,” reports Steve Lustro, Montclair’s community development director.

Arrrrrr.

The Montclair location opened in 1978, according to building records. I ate there once, maybe twice, but have been to other Long John Silver’s — named for the pirate in “Treasure Island” — in my time. Founded in Kentucky in 1969, they may have been more common in the Midwest, where I’m from, than out here.

According to Wikipedia: “Earlier restaurants were known for their Cape Cod-style buildings, blue roofs, small steeples, and nautically-themed decorations such as seats made to look like nautical flags. Most early restaurants also featured separate entrance and exit doors, a corridor-like waiting line area, food heaters that were transparent so customers could see the food waiting to be served, and a bell by the exit which customers could ‘ring if we did it well.’ Many of these buildings had dock-like walkways lined with pilings and thick ropes that wrapped around the building exterior.”

According to the chain’s store locator, the only remaining Silver’s in the Inland Empire are San Bernardino, Riverside, Redlands and Victorville. To the west, you’d have to drive to Norwalk.

The pirate craze seems to have passed the pirate eatery by. Someone at headquarters should walk the plank over this.

Anyone have any memories of this location, or others?

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Books read, 2011

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In 2011 I read an even 60 books, a personal best, for whatever that’s worth. That bests 2009’s 58 and 2010’s 52, the year I began reading more intensively. Below is my 2011 list, in order, from January to December. Wednesday’s column (read it here) is about about my year in reading.

Mostly I read fiction, from literary to pulp, mysteries and science fiction, but there was also a smattering of nonfiction. Some authors got repeat books onto my reading list: two by Nick Hornby, three each by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Sax Rohmer, Mark Twain and the pseudonymous William Arrow, four by Philip K. Dick and five by Harlan Ellison. Many others show up only once, but that doesn’t mean I might not love them.

1. “Tarzan of the Apes,” Edgar Rice Burroughs
2. “The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu,” Sax Rohmer
3. “A Tapestry of Life: The World of Millard Sheets,” Janet Blake and Tony Sheets
4. “The Polysyllabic Spree,” Nick Hornby
5. “Bright Orange for the Shroud,” John D. MacDonald
6. “Exploring Form: John Edward Svenson, An American Sculptor,” David Svenson
7, 8, 9. “Return to the Planet of the Apes Nos. 1, 2 and 3,” William Arrow
10. “The Return of Tarzan,” Edgar Rice Burroughs
11. “The Return of Sherlock Holmes,” A. Conan Doyle
12. “The Return of Fu Manchu,” Sax Rohmer
13. “The Turn of the Screw,” Henry James
14. “They Live,” Jonathan Lethem
15. “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?,” Philip K. Dick
16. “Blade Runner, A Story of the Future,” Les Martin
17. “Web of the City,” Harlan Ellison
18. “There’s a Country in My Cellar,” Russell Baker
19. “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court,” Mark Twain
20. “California Crazy and Beyond,” Jim Heimann
21. “The Computer Connection,” Alfred Bester
22. “Comic Book Culture,” Ron Goulart
23. “Confessions of a Crap Artist,” Philip K. Dick
24. “A Case of Conscience,” James Blish
25. “Counter Culture: The American Coffee Shop Waitress,” Candacy A. Taylor
26. “10 Minute Clutter Control Room by Room,” Skye Alexander
27. “The Batcave Companion,” Michael Eury and Michael Kronenberg
28. “The Book of Philip K. Dick,” Philip K. Dick
29. “The Hand of Fu Manchu,” Sax Rohmer
30. “The Beasts of Tarzan,” Edgar Rick Burroughs
31. “All Yesterdays’ Parties: The Velvet Underground in Print 1966-1971,” Clinton Heylin
32. “The Drawn Blank Series,” Bob Dylan
33. “The Rough Guide to the Velvet Underground,” Peter Hogan
34. “Captain Blood,” Rafael Sabatini
35. “A Touch of Infinity,” Harlan Ellison
36. “Run for the Stars/Echoes of Thunder,” Harlan Ellison/Jack Dann, Jack C. Haldeman
37. “The Deadly Streets,” Harlan Ellison
38. “Off Ramp: Adventures and Heartache in the American Elsewhere,” Hank Stuever
39. “Roadside America,” John Margolies
40. “The Verse by the Side of the Road,” Frank Rowsome Jr.
41. “Lonely Avenue,” Nick Hornby
42. “Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us),” Tom Vanderbilt
43. “Highway 61 Revisited,” Mark Polizzotti
44. “Red: My Uncensored Life in Rock,” Sammy Hagar
45. “Blood’s a Rover,” Harlan Ellison
46. “Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb,” Philip K. Dick
47. “Red Harvest,” Dashiell Hammett
48. “Into the Beautiful North,” Luis Alberto Urrea
49. “Maps and Legends: Reading and Writing Across the Borderlands,” Michael Chabon
50. “The Innocents Abroad,” Mark Twain
51. “Short Stories,” Mark Twain
52. “Supreme Courtship,” Christopher Buckley
53. “Stan’s Soapbox: The Collection,” Stan Lee
54. “Dave Barry in Cyberspace,” Dave Barry
55. “The Sheltering Sky,” Paul Bowles
56. “In a Sunburned Country,” Bill Bryson
57. “Golden Apples of the Sun,” Ray Bradbury
58. “The Definitive Prince Valiant Companion,” Brian M. Kane
59. “Vineland,” Thomas Pynchon
60. “Smile: The Story of Brian Wilson’s Lost Masterpiece,” Domenic Priore

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