Recently in Around Pomona Category

Here's a link to the online slide show of 21 (!) photos of Pomona's Masonic temple, the subject of last Friday's column, shot by my colleague Jennifer Cappuccio Maher. The lodge was set to mark its meeting hall's centennial with a rededication on Sunday.

Here's a view in 1955 of the north side of East Holt Avenue in Pomona, between Caswell and San Antonio avenues, photographed from the old Pomona High School. Can anyone identify the businesses visible across the street?

The one at the left, and maybe the one in the middle, might be auto mechanics. The one at the upper right might be Seapy's, a popular restaurant. But you're the experts.

Alas, the whole area depicted is today a vacant lot. (Sigh.) And the old Pomona High, which was gutted in a fire the next year, is now a shopping center with a 99 Cents Only store.

Thanks to Allan Lagumbay of the Pomona Public Library for finding the photo in the 1955 Pomona High yearbook.

A Halloween night party in Pomona is set for Saturday, with the goal of raising money for the Friends of the Fox organization to bring movies back to the Fox Theater.

I couldn't get more details late Wednesday, but my understanding is that the theater, now used mostly for concerts, isn't currently equipped to project films. (*Correction: It can project DVDs but doesn't have working film projectors.) I know the Friends group would like to offer occasional screenings.

I'll try to update this post on Thursday with more information. (*That update is essentially John Clifford's response in the comments section.)

Anyhow, the fundraiser, cleverly dubbed "Silver Scream," is a movie-themed Halloween costume party. It starts at 8 p.m. at the Acerogami, otherwise known as the Glass House Bar, at 228 W. 2nd St., Pomona, just west of Thomas Street.

Dress up as your favorite actor or movie character. Costumes are required for entry -- although I suspect they won't be too particular -- and the suggested donation is $10. Since it's a bar, entry is for those 21 and over.

Pomona graces the cover of a recent issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Why? Why not? The cover image is a tapestry by Sir Edward Burne-Jones from the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Thanks to Jeff Keating of the Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona for the cover scan.

Now, how does the Goddess of Pomona feel about health care reform? All I know is that she favors eating fruit.

As seen in Wednesday's column, or on TV for that matter: the Batmobile from the 1960s TV series, now in a limited engagement in Pomona. FYI, the trim that looks yellow is just a trick of the light or the camera: It's all bright orange. Below are photos of the interior.

"No, Batman's not here, Commissioner. He took his cape to Frantz Cleaners. May I take a message?"

It's supposed to be 105 or so today -- at a certain point, does it really matter? -- making this the perfect time to post this cool, refreshing photo of an (ahhhh) snowfall.

It's from 1932 Pomona, looking west on East Holt. Note the Crystal Cafeteria sign, not to mention all the little snowmen. Concentrate on the photo and try to lower your body temperature.

Thanks to Betty Peters for the photo. I hope she's chillin'.

My colleague Wendy Leung returned recently from a trip to Boston and supplies this photo of a gift shop window in Provincetown, Mass. Pomona, as you probably know, also lives with the P-town nickname, although here there usually aren't cutesy hearts involved.

"Provincetown is the tip of Cape Cod, a colorful, gay-friendly spot where natural beauty and kitsch collide," she reports. "They call it P-town, the fist at the end of the flexed arm" -- referring to the shape of Massachusetts' border.

"It's very different from Pomona. I couldn't find menudo or carne asada here; instead, I had fried clams and a cup of chowdah."

Allan Lagumbay of the Pomona Public Library's Special Collections department found the above image of East Second Street, undated but from the turn of the century, depicting what seems to be a parade. Check the closeup version at left for a particularly relevant piece of boosterism.

Jim Gallivan and his wife, Mickey, are integral to documenting and saving Pomona history, and Jim has an interest in the 19th century pseudo-science of phrenology. Thus I was delighted, but not entirely surprised, when Jim sent me the above mock-Victorian photo in response to my column last week about my little flea problem at home.

His note began:

"The timing of your article on the 'flea invasion' was interesting. At the summer Phillips Mansion event of the Historical Society of Pomona Valley, my daughter Britney and I presented a lively Victorian flea circus. I believe that was about three weeks ago. (And one of our fleas is missing.)"

Hmm, maybe I have it. Jim goes on to slyly reference my role as grand marshal of the 2007 Pomona Christmas Parade:

"However, one trait of the Pulex irritans is that they take on the owner's traits. Seeing how one of the features of our circus is a parade and we even have have a car, single-flea powered, I was wondering if you might be able to spare one of your talented fleas to lead the parade and wave.

"If it could be supplied with an appropriate hat it would be all the better. It will take a while to train but having good stock is important. As Mark Twain said a flea can be taught most anything a congressman can."

Jim, you're welcome to one of my fleas. In fact, purely to make things simpler for you, feel free to take several so that you can do auditions and pick the best for your purposes. No, I insist.

Bom bom.

Bom.

Bom bom bom.

Bom bom.

Bom bom bom bom bom BOM BOM BOM BOM (chomp).

Just when you thought it was safe to visit downtown Pomona, this Friday's free movie is "Jaws" -- woo-hoo! -- and starts at dusk, around 8:45. The movie is in the Thomas Street Plaza on West Second and Thomas streets. Bring a lawn chair or a beach chair. And it really is safe in downtown Pomona, btw, if not in the waters off Amityville where a great white shark...well, you know the plot. Don't you?

You can see the complete schedule of downtown movies here.

If there's a big crowd, be prepared to say somberly: "We're going to need a bigger plaza."

The Goddess of Pomona blog is back. After shutting down in early June and putting her page off-limits behind a wall, G of P removed the wall (did someone proclaim "Ms. Goddess, tear down this wall"?) after the Pomona fire near her neighborhood.

Although she initially described her return as her "possible comeback," she's posted seven times since then. Guess it's safe to welcome her back.

In the meantime, the go-to source for Pomona news and commentary online has become M-M-M-My Pomona. It presents a Lincoln Park-centric view of the city, understandable since that's where its bloggers live, but it did good work on the fires and often has reports and chatter about council meetings.

(Pomona has a real blogging community with something like a dozen blogs, most of which link to each other. Claremont has a couple. If our other cities have local blogs, they're keeping quiet about it.)

Wish I could be as positive about the Foothill Cities Blog, which attempted to cover the area from Pasadena to Claremont. After a good push, the blog sputtered, crashed, returned on a limited basis with contributions almost entirely from Monrovia (and, hmm, with Pomona and Claremont reversed in its west-to-east lineup of cities) and now hasn't been updated since June 9.

It can't be easy to stay motivated to produce a blog when you're volunteering. Which is too bad, in my opinion; I like the competition and the alternative voices.

Granted, the utility of city-centered blogs as news sources is limited. Unlike newspapers, bloggers rarely phone anyone, show up at City Hall, request documents or pound the pavement. They just write about whatever crosses their field of vision. That's fine, especially since most blogs are a hobby, but the result is no replacement for a newspaper.

Some bloggers come across like people writing in their underpants in darkened rooms, griping because all their questions about the world can't be answered by the Internet. ("Mr. President, tear down this cave!")

Still, the difficulty in keeping a local blog up and functioning in the long term ought to give pause, and perhaps already has, to those who were quick to proclaim the faults of the so-called mainstream media and the supposed superiority of the blogosphere, which would rise to take our place as local news sources. Maybe someday, but not quite yet, obviously.

Flawed we most certainly are, but hey, at least we're still at it every day.

There's kind of an unusual community fundraiser in Pomona on Wednesday for the two families displaced by the July 11 fire: a beer bash at a downtown bar.

Event name: "Brewing Hope." Har! Sounds like fun: Dale Brothers beer, snacks, baked goods, donated prizes, etc., with proceeds going to the Van Allen and Hardy Henry families. Donations of toiletries and other goods are welcome. The whole shebang is the brainchild of a dba bartender named Tibbi Perez who happens to be an eighth (!) generation Pomonan, a great-great-great-great-great-grandson of Don Ricardo Vejar.

You can read more about it here on Tibbi's blog -- in Pomona, from what I can tell, every citizen has a blog -- but the basics are: 6 p.m. until midnight, dba 256, 256 S. Main (at Third).

Great bar, too, even though all I ever have there is bottled water, or maybe, if I'm feeling wild, a Coke.

Click here for the 6-minute video the Pomona Public Library made of my interview concerning the 2007 Pomona Christmas Parade. Modesty forbids my reminding you who was grand marshal that year.

My column today explains the video interviews the library has been conducting. Here's the link to see all the completed videos so far. You can also watch them all on a bigger screen at an event at the library, 625 S. Garey Ave., at 1 p.m. Saturday.

If you have a Pomona story, I highly recommend your participation. Phone the library at (909) 620-3709 or e-mail them at library (at) ci.pomona.ca.us to make an appointment or ask questions.

"We'd like lots of people from the community to come in and do this," says Bruce Guter of the library staff.

From Pomona College Magazine (via LA Observed) comes a lengthy tale of El Espectador del Valle (The Valley Observer), a daily newspaper for the Mexican American community published out of Pomona from 1931 to 1960. All the issues are apparently archived on microfilm at the Ontario City Library.

Read the story here. Publisher Ignacio Lutero Lopez, a 1931 Pomona College graduate, worked from his son's bedroom on Chester Place and, at one point, hired a young columnist named Candelario J. Mendoza.

In 2007, Mendoza, then a member of the Pomona Unified School District board, got a new school named Ignacio Lutero Lopez Elementary, a lasting honor to a pioneering Pomonan.

We occasionally come across mysteries on Yahoo or Google maps showing vanished Inland Valley communities like Grapeland and Rochester and Narod. But here's a new mystery: Google Maps is showing a second Pomona probably 20 miles west of the real thing, out in Rosemead near the San Gabriel border.

Life in this second, phantom Pomona, it must be admitted, would have its advantages. Our version doesn't have a decent Chinese restaurant, and this new one has dozens.

One of my favorite local blogs, www.goddessof pomona.com, since last Wednesday has been displaying a generic Blogger.com template with the message "This blog is open to invited readers only."

Is the Goddess of Pomona pulling up the drawbridge?

I e-mailed the Goddess to inquire and she said she'd shut the blog down of her own volition due to "anonymous attacks in the comments section of late. Especially after learning the source of the latest comments." She didn't elaborate, but said the attacks have made blogging "not so fun."

"So until I decide what to do, I've put a lock on the blog," she said.

I suppose I should point out the irony of an anonymous blogger complaining about anonymous commenters, but that's the blogosphere. I do hope she returns.

While in New York City, I made a point of tracking down the fountain depicting the Goddess Pomona. It's just below Central Park in the Grand Army Plaza outside the Plaza Hotel. Ooo-la-la!

It's a grand location for a grand figure. Tony Fifth Avenue is a few steps to the east. Horse-drawn carriages clip-clop past. In the other half of the plaza across Central Park South, facing the Goddess, is, of all people, General Sherman astride a horse.

The Goddess of Pomona blog had a nice writeup on the Pulitzer Fountain a couple of years back. You can read that here. Wikipedia offers a decent history here. More views of the fountain can be seen here.

Photo from Pomona Public Library via REN

Forty-one years ago today (April 20, 1968), Robert F. Kennedy spoke to a luncheon crowd at Robbie's in Pomona during his campaign for the Democratic nomination for president and from there went to ONT for a second speech, events I wrote a column about a year ago. (You can read the complete text by clicking the "Continue reading" link at the end of this entry.)

Since then I found a short video clip online of an RFK campaign appearance in Pomona. The curious thing is that the tree-filled backdrop didn't seem to be along East Second Street, where Robbie's was located. Did RFK stop at Fairplex or Cal Poly or...?

So that's a mystery. Here's a link to the Jeff Greenfield CBS report from May 2008. The video, alas, doesn't seem to work anymore (I last watched it a couple of months ago), but you can try it yourself, or at least read Greenfield's text story.

Greenfield, now a senior political correspondent, was a 24-year-old junior speechwriter for the campaign. Let me reprint the relevant portion from his story:

"There was also a lot of humor. Robert Kennedy had very little patience with the platitudes of politics, and he often mocked them -- and himself. Listen to his explanation to the citizens of Pomona, Calif., why he won't put on the oversize sombrero they gave him.

"Kennedy said: 'What if it's too big? What if it's too small? Then it'll fall down over my ears and you'll be embarrassed that it's too big. Let me try it on at home.'

"The crowd implored him to try it on.

"Kennedy said: 'I'll say this, if I'm elected president of the United States with your help, the first day I'm in the White House, I'll put the hat on.'"

One more loss from RFK's early demise.

Photo by Sally Egan

The anniversary of Pomona's Fox Theater was Friday, the first night of the Smogdance Film Festival and the first public event at the restored theater. The theater opened April 24, 1931, or 78 years to the day earlier.

To mark the occasion, three Fox-themed cakes were displayed and two of them were cut into during the festival's intermission. Everyone who wanted a slice got one. (My cheap friend Pat took two.)

I'm told the cakes were made by New York Delight, a nearby deli and caterer. The cake pictured above was the one that wasn't cut into. Not sure where it went although I watched from across the street as it was carried out by two people.

Maybe it's in someone's freezer and will be wheeled out on April 24, 2087, 78 years to the day of the reopening.

I took a few photos at Saturday's Fox gala and, at the risk of setting back the cause of photojournalism through my fuzzy, poorly composed images, decided to risk sharing 'em.
Above is the marquee as seen during the dedication ceremony. Wow!

This is the theater post-dinner. Too dim to give you much of a view, but you get a sense of it.

This is the view from the mezzanine. Pipe the grand staircase and the ornate carpet.

The Fox balcony is bigger than a lot of entire theaters these days.

The rooftop deck overlooking Garey Avenue was a convivial place and provides a new angle on the tower sign.

At right, the VIP deck, which most of us will likely never tread again. Wonderful while it lasted, though.

Now that you've suffered through my attempts at photography, make sure to read my special column in Monday's (!) newspaper about the event, in which I play to my strengths by using, y'know, words and punctuation and stuff.

You can also find a boatload of photos at REN's Images of Pomona blog. Scroll down his page to find 'em all. Your columnist/blogger even pops up in one, in a characteristic pose. They give a good view of the scene outside.

Photo: Jennifer Cappuccio Maher, Daily Bulletin

Besides my column today, I also wrote an actual story about the Fox Theater sign's return to functioning life. You can read it by clicking the link after the photos.

Above is a photo taken Wednesday evening. Beautiful, eh?

Below is a photo of the sign being removed on Aug. 6, 2008 from its perch atop the 81-foot Fox tower. From the street, it's impossible to tell how large the sign is, but the second photo, as the sign is being reinstalled on Nov. 24, 2008, makes it clear.

Photo above courtesy Richard E. Nunez; photo below courtesy ForSight Creations

Apparently I jumped the gun with my earlier post (which I've taken down) about the Fox seats. The tale apparently grew in the telling before it got to me.

All the auditorium seats appear to have been reclaimed from the contractor by the Fox developers -- although in some cases they had to pay back rent on the storage facility to get the seats before they went to auction. A close call.

The auditorium seats, thus, are back -- not missing, not stolen, but not repaired either. It's unclear when they'll be done, or even if they'll be done before June's (currently unscheduled) grand opening. Until then, look for banquet-style seating or rented seating.

And my apologies for inadvertently misleading anyone with my earlier post.

* However, the situation isn't rosy, Cathy Tessier told me this morning. The Fox essentially has a big stash of seats and seat parts. The simplest-to-fix seats are being installed in the balcony and loge, which seat 780. That should be done by the end of this week.

"We're unsure of the status of the remaining ones," Tessier said. They're focusing on the lights, sound and projection systems, all very complicated, and will turn their attention to the seats in a few weeks. "We have our hands full right now," she said.

Some 10,000 people turned out in Pomona on Nov. 12, 1932 to see President Herbert Hoover, whose train stopped in Pomona for a few minutes. Hoover had lost his re-election bid to Franklin Roosevelt a few days earlier. Here is what Hoover had to say, in full:

"Friends in Pomona:

"It is very difficult for me to find phrases to express my appreciation for this spontaneous reception. I would almost think I was still running in a campaign from this reception. But what I do know from this reception is that it is a reception from the heart and from your friendship."

It was kind of Pomona to be so gracious to a big loser.

Now, how do we know what Hoover said?

A neat website exists called The American Presidency Project, courtesy of UC Santa Barbara and found at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/

This was one resource used by the Pomona Public Library staff when I asked which presidents had visited Pomona.

The library's Bruce Guter explained the website to me like this:

"This site compiles electronically all the papers and public documents of the Presidents back to the founding of the Republic. (In the 'old' days -- before the advent of the internet -- this information was released in book volumes which libraries accumulated year after year, after year, and searching was done through lengthy indexes at the back of each volume).

"The database is so current that it already has the text of Obama's remarks from his March 19th Pomona visit.

"But a search of this database confirms in effect that no sitting President since Hoover had come through Pomona and made public remarks until last week."

Explore the archives yourself by clicking the link above. You can type in any city in which you're interested and see what citations come up.

An anonymous reader submits the following:

"Here's a tip you might find interesting. Sometime during the past few weeks, a mistake has appeared in Google Maps: The place name 'Paramount' has appeared on the west side of Pomona. I've lived in this part of town for more than 50 years, and Paramount has never been a local name. It should say Westmont if anything. I contacted Google Maps, but so far there has been no change."

He or she is right. View the map here.

"During the same period of time, the name Narod and Sunsweet also appeared near Ontario. I do believe those are actual names from history, denoting freight train stops. If someone was trying to include historical names, there are a number that should be added, such as Spadra. However, as far as I know, Paramount has never been a name associated with Pomona.

"This link can be used to complain to Google Maps about mistakes. Perhaps your readers would be willing to help make the map more accurate."

That would be http://local.google.com/support/bin/request.py?contact_type=mbug

Photo courtesy of Joanne Boyajian

Lotsa videos on YouTube and elsewhere of the president's visit. Here are a few of the best:

* The president's motorcade can be seen traveling Holt here and here, leaving the Edison plant here and traveling on residential streets here and here. You can find even more here on the YouTube search page.

* The president's speech can be seen in two parts, here and here.

If you're curious about the president's route through the Inland Valley, the comments of the Neighborhood Watch blog in Pomona say it went like this: the 10 Freeway east, exiting at Towne Avenue and heading south, then east on San Bernardino Avenue, south on San Antonio Avenue to Holt, then east on Holt to Hershey.

He returned on the same route, exiting the 10 west at Fairplex Drive to get to Brackett Field in La Verne. News to me -- did he take a chopper to L.A.? A plane? *

Well, anything to beat the traffic, I guess.

The full text of the president's remarks, as transcribed by the White House, can be read by clicking below.

* He took his official helicopter, Marine One; thanks to Joanne Boyajian for the photo.

The president is scheduled to tour the Edison International Vehicle Electrics Plant, 265 N. East End Ave., at 10:30 a.m. Students from Village Academy School, which Obama mentioned in a speech last week, and who will be the subject of a "20/20" report on ABC-TV on Friday, will be brought over to the plant to meet him.

Now that's a field trip. (The school, btw, is literally across the street from the plant.)

The event is not open to the public and only pool press will be allowed in. That means I'll be on the sidewalk or across the street, craning my neck like everyone else. See you there?

Today's column has a rundown of the visits made by four sitting presidents to Pomona: Benjamin Harrison (1891), William McKinley (1901), William Howard Taft (1911) and Herbert Hoover (1932). Here are more details about Taft's appearance, taken from a Pomona Progress article unearthed by the Pomona Public Library (bless 'em); they also contributed the photo above.

Taft spoke at the Pomona depot downtown from the rear of his train on Oct. 17, 1911. He was given a key to the city, baskets of fruit and flowers by the Ebell Club, B.P.O. Elks No. 789, the Board of Trade and the Ohio society, and a basket of grapes from the Unitarian Church. It seems that the Senate chaplain, the Rev. U.G.B. Pierce, had been the Pomona First Unitarian pastor for six years.

Here is the full text of the president's remarks as taken from the Progress:

"Ladies and gentlemen of Pomona:

"I am greatly surprised and greatly delighted at your cordial reception as shown by the number of those who have done me the honor to come here to greet me. I am delighted to see the children. Are you glad to see me, children? (Cries of 'Yes, yes.') Well, do you have a holiday because I am here. ('No.') The little ones do, and I hope you will remember me by that.

"I congratulate the people of Pomona on having such a delightful place to live. I am told that there are no rich people in Pomona and no poor people, that you are all in that condition that enables you to look at life from a proper standpoint, that you have not accumulated a lot of money and are sitting on it just for the purpose of contemplating it and seeing it grow, but that you are able to enjoy life, to be philosophical, to do the best you can for the community and the country and to rejoice in the success of everybody. Now, that's a condition that calls for congratulation.

"Over in some of your neighboring towns I found great evidence of wealth that possibly combines with happiness, but I am glad to know that you have just enough and that you don't want anymore.

"As I go through this country and see all this beautiful fruit -- and I am a fruit eater -- I feel as if I would like to have a good deal bigger capacity than I have in order that I might carry away even more delightful recollections of Pomona. Good-by."

Good-by.

Isn't that something? Just days after he mentioned Pomona's Village Academy in a speech, Spider-Man's pal President Obama announced plans to visit Pomona in person.

On Thursday, says LA Observed, the president will visit the Edison International Vehicle Electrics Plant. Here's a USA Today story about the plant, although it's light on details.

I think while Obama's in town, the presidential motorcade should make a point of driving past Donahoo's Chicken to view Pomona's contribution to rooftop poultry art. Even better, he could stop inside for a box lunch.

Any other suggestions for the president's visit?

Ms. Lois asks that we plug the 43rd annual Laura Ingalls Wilder Sociable at the Pomona Public Library this Saturday from 1 to 4 p.m., and this blog is happy to comply. Because rain threatens, the event will take place indoors but should be no less fun for the younger set. Wilder, of course, was the author of the "Little House on the Prairie" series of books.

You can learn all the details in a series of posts on the library's blog. Did you know Melissa Sue Anderson of TV's "Little House" series visited Pomona in 1975? I didn't. You can learn more about the library's connection to Wilder from my "Pomona A to Z" piece here.

The forecast in Pomona on Saturday was chili, as in chili cookoff. Yours truly was invited to co-judge the "first annual" contest with Larry Egan of downtown's business improvement district.

It was a low-key affair at dba256, the wine bar at Third and Main, with five chilis submitted. Larry and I agreed on the top two, after a re-sample, in our blind taste test. At least three of the five were submitted by dba employees, who seem to know their chili as well as they know their spirits.

You can read a bit more about it here, as well as see a (gasp) full-length picture of me, although my head is turned.

The store on South Garey * is scheduled to close tonight. I was there Saturday, snapping up more DVD bargains. The price then was 60 percent off, which was set to rise to 70 percent on Sunday and 80 percent today.

Pickings were becoming slim on Saturday -- which is part of the fun in these things -- but I got the first season of "Saturday Night Live" for $20 (regularly $50) and the ninth season of "Seinfeld" for $16 (regularly $40). I also picked up a few $10 movies for $4, including the last copy of "Million Dollar Baby," and "I'm Not There" for $8.80 rather than $21.

If you have a fan of "24" on your shopping list, there were multiple seasons still available Saturday, more than of any other TV series. Jack Bauer apparently isn't as hot as he used to be.

The store's address is 2735 S. Towne -- strangely, since the main entrance is off Garey.

I was reminded, however, that chasing discounts can be fruitless. I already wrote about excitedly buying seasons 4 to 6 of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" for 40 percent off, or $20.99 rather than $34.99. Since then most copies were sold, so it's not like I acted too rashly. But I saw all the seasons at Rhino Records on Saturday for $20 each, new.

Just when I'd stopped kicking myself -- besides saving 99 cents each, I'd rather have given my dough to a local store anyway -- I saw Sunday's circular for Best Buy, which is pricing every season at $17.50.

Oh well. Even $20.99 is pretty cheap, isn't it?

Chino Hills' new Council Chambers seats more than 100 and has overflow seating for another 50 or so, plus plenty of standing room. A sign gives the maximum capacity as 214.

City spokeswoman Denise Cattern told me the room is available for rent, and I know who ought to rent it out: Pomona. Its cramped chambers are half the size of Chino Hills' -- even though Pomona has twice the population.

Even a moderately attended meeting like Dec. 15's filled the room in Pomona, forcing some to watch on TV from the lobby.

Someday I'd like to know why Pomona's '60s leaders, visionaries in many ways, approved such a puny room. Even Montclair has a larger meeting space, I think. It's hard to believe Pomona's space was adequate even in 1968, not to mention looking ahead to future growth.

Not only is the room small, but the rows of seats are closer to each other than in a movie theater. It's all but impossible for anyone to squeeze into a row without everyone else standing up or moving into the aisle for them to pass. People must have been shorter in the '60s.

(Remodeling wouldn't seem to be an option. With a round building, you can't really add on.)

However, the exterior is kinda cool, even if the reflecting pool around the building's perimeter was replaced years ago with plants. I like the Pomona Civic Center complex quite a bit -- the architect was Welton Becket -- with its City Hall, Council Chambers, Library, Courthouse, Police and Fire stations and Health Center.

But the council-meeting seating, it must be said, is perhaps the Inland Valley's least comfortable.

Circuit City in Pomona continues its everything-must-go sale. On Sunday, the store was looking a little bare of TVs, cameras and such. I suspect the store will close within days.

DVDs were 40 percent off and that section was seeing plenty of action. If you're a fan of "Curb Your Enthusiasm," at least one set from each season was available, at $20.99 rather than $34.99. They were stocked in depth on seasons 4 and 6. (I bought 4 to 6, the only ones I needed, and also seasons 2 and 3 of "Arrested Development.")

There's also plenty of copies of "Seinfeld" season 9 at $23.99 rather than $39.99. But on that one, I'm holding off until the sale gets to 50 percent. It's the only set I need, but it wasn't a good year.

A large pit on Pomona's West Second Street downtown was dug for a condo project by Watt Development Co. early this year, and that's as far as the project got before the housing market crashed. Some think the pit, which takes up half a square block, is an eyesore and would rather see it filled and turned into a sculpture garden.

At lunch Monday I was reading a Talk of the Town item in the Dec. 8 New Yorker about NYC's own construction pits. Let me quote the relevant portion:

"What will become of the pits? Can we turn them into half-wild swimming holes, like the granite quarries of New England? Ring them with barbed wire and convert them into debtors' prisons or internment camps for the culprits who structured synthetic C.D.O.s? They'd make excellent ha-has, for livery horses or livestock. Corn mazes. Extreme-cockfighting arenas. Or perhaps they could serve, over time, as urban tar pits, entrapping and preserving in garbage and white brick dust the occasional unlucky passerby for the scientific edification of future generations, if there turn out to be any. Or they could become parking lots.

"Vacant space tends to remain vacant, in anticipation of an upswing. Tax policy, inertia, and the eternal belief that things will get better (profitable) again usually trump civic dreams of pocket parks or stickball fields."

An extreme-cockfighting arena has merit, though.

On Saturday afternoon, I went to Pomona to bear mute witness to the swearing in of the new mayor, Elliott Rothman. The Council Chambers were packed, with more people spilling into the lobby and outside. Afterward there was cake and the chance to catch up with people I hadn't seen in a while. More on the ceremony in Wednesday's column.

After a late lunch downtown, I went to the Circuit City on South Garey that's closing. I snagged two Christmas presents on the cheap and several CDs for myself at 40 percent off.

Like I said, a gala day.

Hot on the heels of a new car wash on Towne Avenue, Pomona city officials recently celebrated the opening of another mega-development: a new 7-Eleven. It's on Temple Avenue near the Shiloh Inn.

(The PR firm for 7-Eleven sent us an announcement locating the store in Whittier, but 3111 W. Temple is in Pomona, sorry.)

The freeway-close convenience store opened Nov. 20. I imagine that right after the ribbon-cutting, it was declared blighted.

A portion of White Avenue in Pomona near Fairplex was closed in 2004 for filming of a scene in "Herbie: Fully Loaded" with Lindsay Lohan. Now ol' Number 53 itself, the car used in the movie, is on display at the NHRA Motorsports Museum at Fairplex.

Go on Wednesday during the monthly cruise night from 3 to 8 p.m. and admission is free. If you haven't been to the museum, this would be a good time to go.

I highly recommend the place and I'm not even a gearhead. I like seeing all the vintage hot rods, helmets, photos, magazines and other memorabilia, all displayed in a hushed, reverent setting, like precious artifacts. The NHRA got its start in Pomona and it's a coup for the city to have the museum.

The museum is at Fairplex Gate 1, 1101 W. McKinley Ave., a bit west of White. The phone number is (909) 622-2133 and the website is www.museum.nhra.com. Vrooom!

Clay Brewington of North Carolina sent the above photo and writes:

"Can anyone identify the man in white in the attached photo circa 1946-1947? Is this George T. Lamberth, owner of George's Garage?

"The man on the left in overalls is Woodrow Brewington (deceased), an auto mechanic formerly of North Carolina. Woodrow Brewington worked for George T. Lamberth, owner of George's Garage (1944-1962), originally at 193 E. 5th Street, Pomona. George's wife
was Zora J. Lamberth (deceased). Lamberth and dates for George's Garage information source is Bruce Guter, a Pomona Public Library archivist.

"I lived in Pomona in 1946-1947. Woodrow Brewington was my father. Any available information will be appreciated."

His e-mail address: ClayBrewington@aol.com.

Even if we can't answer Clay's question about who's posing with his father, that's a heck of a jalopy on the right, isn't it?

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.

After speaking Thursday at the Ebell Museum in Pomona about her role as Scout in the movie "To Kill a Mockingbird," actress Mary Badham remarked in the presence of several attendees that "Mockingbird" was among the library books Sarah Palin allegedly tried to ban when she was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska.

As one attendee told me later: "Suddenly a gaggle of middle-aged women who overheard the statement huddled together and hissed, 'We've got to tell David Allen!'"

And bless one for doing so. This correspondent offered me the "stunning revelation" about Palin's alleged action. "Wow!!!" she concluded her tale.

An Internet search, however, proves the tale to be false. The short version is, there is a generic list of books perpetually questioned in the United States, and "Mockingbird" is on the list. But Palin's "what if" comments to the local librarian apparently mentioned no titles specifically.

You can read a longer explanation at the rumor-debunking site Snopes.com.

Not that there aren't plenty of other reasons to oppose Palin (wink, wink), but the book-banning thing has been overblown.

That aside, my source says Badham "was wonderfully received. A large and very appreciative audience included many high school students from throughout Pomona. Ms. Badham did an excellent job of relating old issues of prejudice and segregation to current events and contemporary political relevance."

Mary Badham, the actress who played the little girl, Scout, in "To Kill a Mockingbird," will speak from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Thursday at the Ebell Museum, 585 E. Holt Ave., Pomona, as part of the Big Read program. She'll talk about the role and the impact it had on her life. Admission is free.

Some of us saw Badham in Rancho Cucamonga in 2007 for that city's Big Read. She's a good speaker and if you've seen the movie, this will be worth your time.

(Incidentally, the Pomona Public Library will screen the movie at 1 p.m. Saturday, followed by a discussion contrasting the book and the movie.)

One thing you'll notice during Badham's talk is that she doesn't have many specific memories of the film shoot. I think that's something we tend to forget about child actors: They don't have the memories an adult might. Most childhood memories are fragmentary and hers are no exception.

Most of what Badham will relate, and she said so herself in Rancho, is second-hand information, even though it involves her. (It's still interesting, as are her stories about her lifelong friendship with Gregory Peck.)

I witnessed the same situation in Studio City in April when Jon Provost, who grew up in Pomona, talked about his role as Timmy in the "Lassie" TV show.

Provost had acted in movies as young as infancy. People in the audience eagerly asked him about his pre-"Lassie" work and didn't quite grasp that he was a baby, toddler or very young boy at the time and, hence, doesn't remember a thing. I suppose because he, and Badham, are preserved on film, their childhood seems more "present" than ours.

There's a film screening Friday in Pomona of "To Kill a Mockingbird," followed by a discussion contrasting the book and the movie. This is all part of the Big Read community reading program. The event takes place from 6 to 8:30 p.m. at the Cal Poly Pomona Downtown Center, 300 W. 2nd St.

Can I admit I think the book and movie are overrated? *

I saw the movie first, a few years back, and, in part because of high expectations, was let down. Gregory Peck is such a model of rectitude, he's not very interesting. I kept waiting for a big character flaw or plot twist that never came.

My opinion softened a bit last year. I read the book and admired its tone and gentle humor, and its child-level perspective. The movie, seen a second time, expectations grounded, became more enjoyable.

Many read the book in childhood, as a class requirement. Perhaps my opinion would be different had I not come to the book as an adult.

Still, I think the message -- to see things from the other guy's point of view before judging -- may be a bit thin to warrant the veneration both book and movie have received. Ultimately I liked them both, don't get me wrong, but I didn't love them.

Anyone share my puzzlement, or am I all wet?

* Based on the comments, apparently not.

Is that an El Camino Real bell in downtown Pomona? It is. This Burton Frasher photo shows the northwest corner of Garey Avenue and Second Street in 1925. Dig the surprisingly modern bank facade.

The building, btw, was razed at some later point to widen Garey or build the underpass, but it would have stood just east of where Joey's BBQ is today.

Anyhow, the Auto Club sign on the bell directed motorists to San Bernardino, 31 miles, and to an unreadable place to the west, 24 miles.

Betty Peters, the Pomona Public Library's volunteer historian, found the photo and was amazed to see the bell, never realizing Pomona had had one.

You can read about the bells here and here.

In short, the original El Camino Real was a 600-mile Spanish trail that connected California's 21 missions. In 1906, a modern-day version of the road was established as one of the state's first highways. The route was marked by bells attached to shepherd's crooks. The Auto Club began maintaining the bells in the 1920s but eventually they began being stolen or vandalized.

In recent years, Caltrans has been putting up the bells again, mostly along Highway 101, as a nod to history. I find them quite charming.

Betty Peters wonders if anyone remembers Pomona bells or ones in other local cities. The route apparently went through Claremont as well.

Richard E. Nunez of Pomona, whose photos often grace the Goddess of Pomona blog and whose comments, as "REN," sometimes grace mine, now has a blog of his own at http://ren-rensphotoshop.blogspot.com/

If you're a Pomona nut, he's got some nice photos. And the promise of many more to come.
You'll have to supply your own punctuation and mentally correct all his grammar, but at least his commentary is short. Welcome to the blogosphere, REN!

Spam eggrolls and Spam dip were the big winners in the L.A. County Fair's annual, and notorious, cooking contest on Wednesday. Congratulations, I guess.

Culinarily speaking, it will be hard to top the year Spam cheesecake won.

Read more at the Fair's Hot Blog on a Stick, with a video to boot.

Believe it. The Pomona-based Repertory Opera Company is performing Donizetti's "Don Pasquale" at 5 p.m. Sunday only at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, 242 E. Alvarado St. in Pomona. Tickets are $25. For reservations or more information call Repertory Opera Company at (323) 969-4602 or visit its website.

To be honest, I'd never heard of the Repertory Opera Company until its artistic director e-mailed me about this performance.

"Repertory Opera Company (ROC) is an earnest Pomona-based opera company that has been performing in LA and Pasadena for four years and is now actually having a chance to perform in Pomona," LizBeth Lucca wrote. "You can see reviews of ROC's past productions at www.repertoryoperacompany.org. ... We are hoping that the success of this performance will launch a new creative presence in the Inland Empire."

On behalf of the IE, we could use a new creative presence.

Not being an opera buff, and preferring to keep my weekends as work-free as possible, I'll probably skip the show, but I wish them luck, and if any of you go, be sure to post a comment, good or bad.

The website describes "Don Pasquale" as "a lively opera with careening plots, desperate love pursuits and quirky personalities." It features piano accompaniment and narration "to keep the story moving briskly."

Walter Knott of Knott's Berry Farm fame grew up in Pomona, as did his wife, Cordelia. He was in Pomona from about 1898, when he was 9, until 1913, when he and Cordelia, who had met at Pomona High, left their house at 1040 W. Fourth St. for the high desert.

This was all laid out in my Aug. 19, 2007 column. The photo with the column was a current one of the house, which still stands.

At the Pomona Public Library's Special Collections Department, we had looked in Pomona High yearbooks in vain for a photo of young Knott. (I think the Library was missing his senior yearbook. Also, it's possible he dropped out before graduation.)

Then, some weeks after publication, I got this note from library assistant Allan Lagumbay: "We may have found a young Walter Knott in a class picture circa 1901."

The photo was found in the Library's collections. In latter-day comments on the back of the photo, classmate Lotta Whipp (now there's a name) identifies the school as Pearl Street School at Pearl and Garey and IDs many of the students, including Walter Knott.

I didn't have a good way to share the photo in print, especially at a size where you could see it, but here it is now. (It's still not very big but it's the best I could do.) Based on the handwritten and incomplete IDs, it appears he's in the bottom row, all the way on the right in the jacket.

After a monthlong break, the Pomona City Council is back in action today, and you can practically smell the excitement. I think that's what the smell is.

Should be another big night for The Issue That Would Not Die, i.e., police traffic checkpoints, with protesters and counter-protesters and, for all I know, counter-counter-protesters showing up. Even though the checkpoint discussion is actually scheduled for 5 p.m., I expect a full house, several TV cameras inside and a lot of chanting outside.

Having sat through several of these unwinnable arguments about race and immigration, suddenly the last lines of Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach" come to mind:

And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

"The statue is located in The Country Club Plaza, Kansas City's legendary shopping, dining and entertaining district," Shapton says.

I'd never heard of the place, but according to the Country Club Plaza's website, the plaza was built in 1922 as "America's first shopping center" and contains 14 blocks of shops, artworks and fountains. "Only Rome has more fountains than Kansas City," the website brags. Who knew?

As for the figure in question, "down the street in a quiet courtyard sits an original bronze of Pomona by Italian sculptor Donatello Gabrielli," the center's website continues.

According to the plaque at its base, "From his original model only two figures have ever been made -- this bronze casting and a marble carving that stands in the king's palace, Bangkok, Thailand."

Wow!

Anyone want to visit Thailand and send me a photo?

Shapton, by the way, sees a marble Goddess daily in her display case in the Library. That one is more modestly attired than the one in rollickin' Kansas City.

Marilyn Varney found a vintage (1940s?) postcard on eBay featuring the Deluxe Diner and Motel in Pomona. Click here to see the listing and photo.

The operation was supposedly at 2nd and Valley, which would be way out on the west edge of town. Under the "Fresh Orange Juice" sign, two waitresses pose, waving.

Marilyn adds: "Looks like a friendly little place, don't you think?"

No, Pomona still doesn't have a single movie theater. Nevertheless, its Fresh Air Flicks series this month on an inflatable outdoor screen in downtown's Thomas Street Plaza is filling in the gaps in my cinematic knowledge.

The past two Fridays introduced me to "Back to the Future" and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," neither of which I'd seen, having felt a bit old for them when they were released.

Tonight brings "Roman Holiday," the William Holden-Audrey Hepburn movie, and I'm not sure what my excuse is for never having seen that one.

Perhaps I'll come up with one before the movie's 8:30 p.m. start. Bring a lawn chair and enjoy.

At one point about all that construction crews had found inside Pomona's Fox Theater were dead pigeons. But when an internal wall was knocked out recently, this vintage movie poster was uncovered. It's for "Christina," a 1929 silent film starring Janet Gaynor.

The Fox, as all schoolchildren know, opened in 1931. Perhaps "Christina" played there in a revival later on, or the poster was used as theater decor at one point, as movie posters sometimes are. It was a Fox film, by the way.

Do you mind if I offer a belated earthquake story? Hope not. I just heard this one a few days ago.

There's scaffolding around the tower of Pomona's stately brick Pilgrim Congregational Church, as you may have noticed if you've driven on Garey Avenue north of Holt in recent weeks. Repairs to the bricks and grillwork is the reason.

Well, there were workers on the scaffolding when the earthquake hit, parishioner Don Sturgis told me.

"One workman said that he looked up and saw the tower leaning over him. Another was on the tower roof and indicated that he was afraid that the roof would fall in," Sturgis said.

But they had nothing to worry about.

"These workers had no idea that the same general contractor for this current work, Mark Sauer Construction, was given a $1 million contract in 1993 to earthquake-retrofit the church structure and adjoining Pilgrim Hall that were built in 1911," Sturgis said.

That earlier work tied the walls together so that rather than the walls moving in separate directions, "the structure could move as a single unit," Sturgis explained. "This is exactly what happened (in the quake) -- the tower still stands and, except for some cracked plaster, no structural damage occurred to either building."

Whew. I'm sure the workers were glad to know it -- after the world, and their knees, stopped shaking.

At last Thursday's Pomona Concert Band performance, the conductor explained the next number to the audience.

"We'll do a kind of unique Sousa march. It's for harp and concert band -- but we don't have a harp," he quipped. We all chuckled.

"Does anybody play the harp?" the conductor asked.

A hand or two rose.

He asked: "Did you bring your instrument?"

Did we print this in the newspaper? I don't remember it. Well, whether we did or not, here's the lineup, starting with the return of a much-loved, much-mocked mainstay on opening night:

A fair-sized crowd turned out Thursday evening for the Charles Phoenix slide show at Fairplex's NHRA Museum. I was told that 60 or 70 people, or more than half, had reserved spots after seeing a mention in Wednesday's column, which was nice to hear. Nobody glared at me afterward so they must have had a good time.

Phoenix narrated vintage slides from his collection of various Pomona and Ontario landmarks. Among them: Tate Cadillac, Sears, Vince's Spaghetti, the Fox Theater, Betsy Ross, the Agitator Shop, the Valley Drive-In, Donahoo's Chicken and L.A. County Fair attractions such as the Fun Zone, the Flower and Garden Pavilion, the Clock Tower, the Garden Railroad, the Grandstand and the Monorail.

Ah, yes, the Monorail. It was built in 1962 -- "Richard Nixon rode on it," Phoenix said -- and removed in the 1990s. It hung from an overhead track and plied the fairgrounds. The original design was by sculptor John Svenson, of all people.

A success? Not exactly.

"They forgot one thing. There was no air conditioning," Phoenix said. "And the windows didn't open." As Quizno's likes to say: "Mmmm...toasty."

Anyone ever ride the fair's monorail? And do you know if the ski lift replaced it and follows the same route?

Yes, the hot band of 2008. They're playing -- wait for it -- Pomona.

Sept. 16 at the Glass House. That's a Tuesday. Vampire Weeknight?

I saw a notice of the show in Thursday's L.A. Times Guide (the last issue, btw) as part of its list of upcoming shows at various venues. Tickets went on sale Saturday. The show precedes two dates at L.A.'s Wiltern Theater on Sept. 17-18.

On my lunch hour, I headed for Pomona's Glass House Record Store a couple of storefronts from the venue. Tickets are still available, maybe because the Inland Valley is light on Columbia grads. Picked up two tickets, $23.50 each. Two opening acts, including Abe Vigoda, a rising band from (believe it or not) Chino.

I wasn't immediately sold on Vampire Weekend. A friend had loaned me a burned copy of their debut CD early this year and a couple of spins didn't do much for me. Weeks later, I was riding in another friend's pickup and eventually noticed the catchy, vaguely familiar CD he was playing. Turned out it was Vampire Weekend. They kinda snuck up on me. Bought the CD myself and it quickly became a favorite.

"I see a mansard roof through the trees"! Bom! Bom bom!

For me, this is the biggest Glass House show since the White Stripes in 2005. Can't wait.

Lured by the false promise of excitement about the future of the day labor center, two TV stations sent cameramen to Monday's Pomona City Council meeting.

One set up on the left side of the dais, the other, a late arrival, on the right. He was assembling his camera as the meeting was under way, aiming and focusing about two feet from the elbow of Councilman George Hunter, who was standing there handing out Home Beautification awards.

Councilwoman Paula Lantz interrupted to ask: "Could the cameraman wait until after the presentation to set up the camera? I think it's disrespectful."

"Just doing my job," the operator said, somewhat disrespectfully, while continuing to practice focusing and swiveling.

The day labor center item didn't come up on the agenda until 9:51 p.m. For a change, speakers on both sides of the issue were respectful. The center's budget was trimmed by a modest 10 percent.

Only the cameraman on the left was still there. Sometime around 8 p.m., the cameraman who had made such a fuss had left.

I stuck around until 10:40 p.m., feeling I was in too deep to leave despite the lack of action. After all, my presence requires a complicated setup too, what with opening my notebook and uncapping my pen.

To get into Pomona on Friday morning, I took Indian Hill to Holt and was pleased to see the new supermarket replacing Food 4 Less on that corner is nearing completion. The construction fence is down and the store's exterior looks about done. It's called El Super and the building looks much better than the slowly decaying Food 4 Less did.

The interior still needs work -- I could see scaffolding through the open front door -- but it can't be long now.

This part of town could really use improvements and attention. It's nice to see the rather sharp-looking supermarket, which replaces an eyesore.

Speaking of attention, the City Council on Monday discussed buying an empty lot just east of the Bekins tower, a welcome sign of interest.

After Monday's Pomona council meeting, I approached Councilwoman Paula Lantz, asked if she's still on the Foothill Transit board (she is) and then asked, "How come you're not in France?"

Nine board members or employees of the bus agency are in France for a transportation conference, as noted on the Foothill Cities and Claremont Insider blogs.

Lantz, who laughed at the question, explained that the whole thing was overblown. A private company operates Foothill Transit under contract for a set price. That company, Veolia Transportation, is paying for the trip itself, at no extra cost to taxpayers or bus riders, she said, because of its perceived importance.

"I read the blogs," Lantz added, specifically referring to Foothill Cities. She then added the Insider to the list, noting it had mentioned her (approvingly) concerning the transit agency's vote to reject turning portions of the carpool lanes into toll lanes. The vote, she told me, was essentially retaliation against the MTA for refusing to fund the Gold Line. The toll lane money would have included $47 million for Foothill Transit, but a majority of board members, herself included, felt the deal was a poor one, she said.

Unfortunately, the clerks were waiting to close up the council chambers, so I wasn't able to ask Lantz if she reads other blogs. I figured the best way to find out if she reads mine would be to write about her.

I met Candelario Mendoza, the Pomona educator and school board member who died Tuesday at age 89, only once.

That was two years ago at an event at Mountain Meadows Golf Course. The trim Mendoza was resplendent in a white suit, friendly and full of energy as we spoke.

He asked if I'd read Matt Garcia's "A World of Its Own," a history of immigrants in the Southern California citrus industry before World War II, in which he was quoted. When I said I hadn't, he left -- he lived practically across the street -- and came back a few minutes later with a copy for me.

His vigor lulled me into thinking there was no rush in writing about him. I had hopes of one day sitting down with him for a piece on his very long history in Pomona, specifically about his years as a disc jockey and as emcee for dances at Pomona's fondly remembered Rainbow Gardens night club, about which he's quoted in "Land of a Thousand Dances," a history of Latino music in L.A.

Well, that history has all been documented -- besides the two books, Mendoza was hardly a stranger to Bulletin and Progress-Bulletin readers over the years -- and yet I'm sorry other news and history pieces kept getting in the way of my writing about him.

I'm sure Mendoza would have had a lot to teach me.

Because of vacation, I was absent from last night's Pomona council meeting. Too bad, but then again, if it was anything like the last two, with protesters inside and outside the chambers, it's probably just as well.

There was a period where I arranged vacations specifically to avoid missing Pomona and Ontario meetings; in fact, my attendance record was as good, or even better, than most of the officials'. Then I realized this was stupid.

At Saturday's Pomona Information Fair, I said hello to Councilwoman Paula Lantz at the City Council booth and was given my very own official City of Pomona Mayor's Office pencil.

"For taking accurate notes," Lantz said with a smile. Hey, I'll take whatever help I can.

Photographer Richard Nunez was there with spending money from the Goddess of Pomona blogger. He dipped into the stash to buy me a hot dog and a Pepsi -- wasn't that nice? -- and then paid me a compliment, of sorts.

"Do you have a tapeworm in your stomach? I read about how you're always eating at restaurants," Nunez said. "I thought, this guy must be huge" -- he held his arms out in a giant bubble -- "but you're not."

It's all about portion control, Mr. Nunez. At least, I always thought so...

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?

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 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.

Photo of former Provost residence, 1195 N. Washington Ave., Pomona, by REN

As you may have seen, today's column is about Jon Provost, who played Timmy on "Lassie" from 1957 to 1964 and lived in Pomona from 1954 to 1959. You can visit his website and/or buy his autobiography, "Timmy's in the Well."

A few local tidbits were squeezed out of the column.

Provost had a role in "Country Girl" with Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly. Here's what Provost wrote in his book concerning his activities on April 1, 1955, shortly after he turned 5:

"I made a personal appearance at the United Artists Theater in Pomona where 'Country Girl' was playing. According to the Pomona Progress Bulletin, I ate five cans of Camp Fire Girls peanuts that night."

(Because he was a child, for a lot of stories he has to rely on published accounts or adults' memories.)

He debuted on "Lassie" on Sept. 8, 1957. At first he and his family had to go next door to their neighbors' to watch the show because the Provosts didn't have a TV.

With "Lassie," his personal appearances picked up. Within weeks of his debut, he was in the Pomona Christmas Parade -- although unlike certain people (ahem), he wasn't grand marshal -- and the Rose Parade, and he also made an appearance with Lassie on "The Jack Benny Show."

In 1959 he was in the May Day Parade in Cucamonga and weeks later, in perhaps a marginally more electrifying event, he was a guest at Disneyland for the dedication of the Matterhorn, Monorail and Submarine Voyage attractions. While there, he had the privilege (?) of sitting on Vice President Richard Nixon's lap during the parade.

Not bad for a kid from Pomona.

Anyone want to share memories of the "Lassie" show or of Provost himself?

One more anecdote from "The Diamond Mine," the radio book mentioned in Friday's blog. In 1968, Gerry Whitehead a.k.a. Jim Diamond was doing promos for KACE-AM (1570) in Riverside. The station launched an R&B show three nights per week called "The Soul Kitchen."

Among the advertisers: John and David's Soul City of Records in Pomona.

Whitehead recorded the promo. After a few seconds of Jr. Walker and the All-Stars' "Shotgun," his voiceover went like this:

"For the best in rhythm and blues, go to John and David's Soul City of Records. If they don't have it, they'll get it for you. That's John and David's Soul City of Records, 1110 South Garey Avenue in Pomona!"

Have mercy!

I like the era and the music, and I know Pomona's black population was booming in the late 1960s. The idea of a black-operated store named John and David's Soul City of Records really catches my fancy. It sounds very Tarantino-esque. I'll have to drive by 11th and Garey and see what's there now, but I can't believe it will be as interesting.

* Don J. sent me a Google map view of 1110 S. Garey. Soul City appears to have been located in a house.

In writing recently about the Funny Business comic book store relocating to 896 N. Garey Ave. from a few blocks north, the Goddess of Pomona blog got a bit poetic:

"Of course, in a perfect Pomona, Funny Business would be located in a respectable space downtown. But as we all know, Pomona is no Gotham City. Batman doesn't ever seem to come here to make things right."

Not so fast, Goddess!

My friend Pat read that blog post and sent me a note, as follows:

"The Caped Crusader DID come to Pomona. Adam West, in full Batman costume, cut the ribbon to open the Indian Hill Mall when it got its roof in '82.

"God help me for knowing this, but I was there and a young enough dork to find it quite thrilling! And shaking his gloved gauntlet was also a kick."

Batman hasn't been seen here lately, but perhaps business has been keeping him in Gotham (and Hollywood). Maybe if Chief Joe Romero got a Bat-Signal for the police HQ's roof...

Some of you may have seen the full-page feature in the Home section of the L.A. Times on Feb. 21, "Where nature truly ruled," about an influential, "wild" rather than manicured garden "tucked into a tough Pomona neighborhood."

Well, that article caused some of us to sit up and ask where the heck this garden is. Or was, since it's on the way out -- its tenant, John Greenlee, deciding to give up the lease after 30 years.

The Goddess of Pomona blog got on the case and tracked down the location. An open house was arranged. And so, on Feb. 29 (sorry for the delay), the bamboo gate was opened and, in shifts, a few dozen of us entered.

It's a quarter-acre in size, with winding flagstone and dirt paths that make the property seem larger. There is bamboo everywhere, a boulder-lined sunken garden, a pond, two small houses obscured by overgrown plantings, orange trees and native grasses. It's watered now and then but not mown or shaped.

Birds chirped in the trees and other than the satellite dishes visible on the neighboring properties, the place seemed like an oasis. It was peaceful and serene.

You can see photos and a writeup at the Goddess' blog.

Since the garden is closed, I won't give the location, other than to say it's across the street from the Pomona Cemetery. "A tough Pomona neighborhood"? Well, an unlikely one, perhaps, but at least it's quiet.

Renee Shoopman left this comment on an old posting recently, and while I'm pleased she was catching up on my "pies past" entry, I don't think anyone is likely to see her question there. So here it is:

"I have lived and worked in Pomona off and on for many years and think parts of downtown are mystic. I knew and worked for former owners of the Mayfair lounge. There was a story about an escape tunnel that ran underground from the basement of the Mayfair building to somewhere by the railroad tracks. Used by bootlegers and cheating husbands. Has anyone ever heard this story?"

Anyone able to confirm or deny?

The rumor of tunnels under the streets, often for illicit purposes, seems to be common in various cities and I tend to be skeptical. However, I was impressed to learn from the Ontario Planning Department a couple of years back that there were tunnels under the buildings on the east side of Euclid Avenue, to aid in deliveries and, if memory serves, bank deposits. So maybe there was more going on underground that you'd think.

Courtesy of my mom, I have here a special 10-page section of the Spokane (Wash.) Spokesman-Review of Nov. 11, 2007 about that city's newly restored Fox Theater.

It's quite a section, and for John Clifford and others who might be interested in getting one by mail, perhaps a call to the newspaper's circulation department would bear fruit. Either that, or maybe your mothers have copies saved for you too.

To summarize matters, the Spokane Fox opened in September 1931, just five months after Pomona's, and closed in 2000, just as Pomona's did (although movies stopped being shown here some years previously).

Spokane's Fox had 2,350 seats, compared to Pomona's 1,711. Spokane's construction budget was $1 million, Pomona's $300,000. Spokane's was called a "deluxe" Fox akin to those in St. Louis, Atlanta, Detroit and Beverly Hills. A vintage photo shows the theater's exterior looked remarkably like Pomona's, only with a really lame sign on top. At least we got Spokane beat on that.

The theater, now 1,636-1,727 seats, will be home to the Spokane Symphony, which bought the building for $3 million, as well as to opera, pop and dance performances and high school graduations. Pomona's, which will also lose a few seats from the original size for access reasons, will have pop and rock performances, movies and community events.

A new life for the Spokane Fox began when word came in 2000 that the theater might be razed for a parking lot. After fund-raising, work began in late 2005 and concluded last fall. Cost was $31 million, including a $4.5 million operating endowment. As of publication the total raised was $28.5 million. "More than 1,000 donors pitched in to the 'Save the Fox' campaign," the newspaper reported.

Pomona's restoration is said to be around $8 million, financed privately and with government tax credits, with additional restoration (chandeliers, a pipe organ and other flourishes) possible later with private fund-raising. The City Council bought the theater in January 2002 for $1.1 million and it was sold to private owners in December.

Our Fox is slated to reopen in December. Can't wait.

My favorite city turns 120 today. Funny, it doesn't look a day over...well, never mind.

Yes, it was on this date, Jan. 6, 1888, that Pomona was incorporated as a city, six days after voters went to the polls -- on New Year's Eve, no less -- to approve cityhood.

OK, 120 isn't typically a big milestone. But Mayor Norma wants to pump things up, and since she probably won't be here in five years, we're doing it now.

Just to play my part, I have my own pro-Pomona celebration planned; check this space next week for the kickoff.

By the way, here's a funny little historical fact. The Jan. 6, 1938 Progress-Bulletin reported that Pomona officials could not determine the date of incorporation. The city seal said only "Jan. 1888." Officials were planning a 50th anniversary celebration but didn't know when in January to have it.

Mayor Charles Short had sent a letter by airmail that very day to Sacramento asking for documentation because "all available records in Pomona, city files and old newspapers, failed to reveal a specific date." I don't know why they didn't just Google it.

The Jan. 11 Prog, which also reported the planned restoration of the Palomares Adobe, followed up with the correct date after "photostatic copies of the papers of incorporation" were dispatched to City Hall by the state. "Municipality Half-Century Old Jan. 6th," the day's top headline announced.

Since the 50th anniversary had passed -- in fact, it had occurred on the date of Short's letter -- the plans to par-tay were dropped.

"We are glad, however, to have this record for our municipal files," the mayor said.

Sounds like the "community disorganization" cited in Pomona's Youth and Family Master Plan isn't a new phenomenon.

This nice note arrived late last month from reader Lyn Williams and I've been remiss in not sharing it. What I appreciated most about it is that someone who thought I was kidding myself in seeing potential in downtown Pomona changed her tune after visiting. Here's what she had to say:

"I am writing in regards to your column entitled 'Brokers Sell Optimism in Pomona' that appeared in Wednesday’s 11-21-07 edition of the Daily Bulletin.

"As always, thank you for your entertaining column, and thank you for your time and consideration."

Wasn't that nice? She even toasted me. Thank you, Lyn. I think downtown Pomona is worth our attention, and I'm pleased you now agree. Onward to greatness in P-town!

One of the local blogs I read is produced by a woman who calls herself the Goddess of Pomona.

She's not especially political, but her Pomona-centric posts are easy reading and illuminating. Her themes include Lincoln Park loiterers, gardening, children's programs at the library, her husband's fight against mice in their house, the La Brea Bakery bread situation at Stater Bros. and her young son, whom she calls Mr. Big. She sometimes notices the same things around town that I notice, and sometimes notices things that pass me by.

We've exchanged a few friendly notes but haven't met, and I don't know anything about her other than her writing.

Toward the end of Monday's Pomona council meeting, the man next to me got my attention on behalf of the woman seated at the far end of the row. She met my gaze and swept her arm regally before her. I looked blankly. She swept her arm again. Suddenly things were clear.

It was the Goddess!

She was in jeans, not a toga, and she carried a purse and a bottle of water, not a basket of fruit. We chatted after the meeting. She wouldn't give her name, even for conversation purposes, but that's all right. I asked where Mr. Big was. Checking the clock, she said he was probably in bed.

Just think, a Goddess with a blog. If you live in Pomona, check it out sometime.

Today's entry could be called "The Day Ike Turner Almost Played Pomona." It happened like this.

In March 2004, Turner was booked to play the Yesteryears nightclub in downtown Pomona. Seeing his name on a poster in the club window was a real sight. I didn't go, I think because none of my friends could be persuaded to see the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer given how he'd treated Tina, even if he was also responsible for "Rocket 88," often called the first rock and roll record.

In a column later in the year, I mentioned Turner as being one of the few Hall of Famers to have played Pomona. A musician in one of that evening's warmup acts then informed me Turner was a no-show.

"He let 'em know a few days ahead of time he wouldn't be there and that he'd cashed the check," the musician told me.

I thought I'd better confirm the item before running with it, so I called the club owner. He was reluctant to say anything negative about Turner, noting correctly that most of the early blues and rock musicians were treated shabbily by record companies and promoters and cheated out of their earnings.

At this point I realized I wouldn't get an anecdote, a funny comment or, at this rate, even confirmation. So, thinking fast, I came up with an approach I'm still rather proud of.

"How about this," I said. "If I write in the newspaper that Ike Turner was paid in advance and didn't show up, would I be wrong?"

No, you wouldn't, he admitted.

Whew. That settled, I went with the Ike Turner story. Turner, as you may have heard, died Wednesday at age 76. Wherever his troubled spirit is supposed to go, may it show up.

From Pomona Police Chief Joe Romero's op-ed piece the other day:

"What is heard and seen in the Council Chambers establishes the public face of Pomona. Bashing, backbiting and loutish behavior should not be our reputation. If this type of behavior is accepted openly, rest assured that it has been allowed to creep into the everyday dealings that occur behind closed doors and in the hallways of City Hall."

Sounds like I need to expand my City Council coverage to include offices and hallways.

I checked my voice mail after lunch the other day and found a message from none other than Xavier Alvarez. My favorite fibber said he'd like to comment on the spat between Pomona Mayor Norma Torres and Police Chief Joe Romero.

Obviously I wasted little time in calling back. When you see gold lying in the streets, you don't question it, you just grab a shovel.

Alvarez said the chief is doing "an excellent job" and has his full support. As for the mayor?

"I've got to call her Norma Torres, not 'the mayor,' " Alvarez explained. "I can't give anyone a title when they don't deserve the title."

Yes, water board director-turned-defendant Xavier Alvarez was getting on his high horse about an elected official who doesn't deserve their job. This was getting better and better.

Alvarez continued criticizing Torres, who recently withdrew her own endorsement of him. He added charitably: "We don't really blame her because she's got an IQ lower than gravity."

So there you have it: a ringing endorsement of Joe Romero by Xavier Alvarez. I hope the chief forgives me.

Rather than take up column space with this, let me round up some of the reader reaction to my grand marshalship of Pomona's Christmas Parade:

Christopher Lee: "You were an excellent pick."

John Curtis: "I am disappointed that you went in costume. I think you should have looked like the guy in the paper, sans the balloon maybe. That is how your public knows you!!! I mean this in a nice way. Be David Allen and be proud of it. Your friend George Putnam certainly wasn't shy. When you ride in the Claremont parade some day, just use a little sun block, but please be yourself. Your audience loves you I think." [I was becoming swept up in this, until John's last two words. -- DA]

Tami Schumacher: "You are in the wrong parade. Need to start 'kissing up' to someone in Rancho for next year's Founder's Day Parade. Parade goes thru Victoria Gardens and you would probably get a good peek in the Victoria's Secret window while riding in a convertible. Also, Starbucks is nearby." [You know how to sell it, Tami. -- DA]

Derek Deason: "Well it's good to know you liked the Pomona Jaycees Christmas parade. I liked your 'reporter's oufit' too."

Mike Cicchese: "I only wish I could have been there to see you fulfilling your grand marshal duties. I love how you found out how far back the parade really went. Love it even more that they originally billed it the 56th, you found out it was really the 60th, and then when I click on the photo gallery from your blog, the caption says 54th." [Stay tuned for the 51st parade next year. -- DA]

Beth Brooks: "Did you hear about Santa's plight? Halfway through the parade the fire engine got a call and had to leave Santa on the curb! The kids in the area loved it! According to Santa, the police rescued him."

Joanne Dallas: "Anyone willing to pay $45 for a fedora in this day of baseball caps deserves the title of Grand Marshal. Good for you to get right into the role of tough reporter. We certainly need more investigative journalism today....and more men in real hats."

Mayor Norma Torres: "Enough about him!"

'Nuff said. Thanks for the comments, everyone. Add yours below, if you like.

If you want to read about my grand (or not so grand) marshalship, check today's print column and see a photo gallery of the parade. Saturday morning was partly cloudy and it didn't rain, which was a relief.

I didn't see much of the parade while I was in it, but since I was at the head of the 10 a.m. parade, that meant I was through before anyone else. I was driven back to the starting spot by 11 a.m., and so I walked a bit along Holt and saw some of the later entries.

There were the usual drill teams, marching bands and whatnot, and good for them. A few only-in-Pomona touches among the entries: lowrider cars cruising, day laborers on the march and, on horseback, a guy dressed as Zorro, cape and all.

I also saw a tae kwon do studio, which trailed a car with its trunk open. Every so often the kids would stop, two of them would go to the trunk, get a board and hold it up, and another student would kick it in half. Haaii-yahh!!

There seemed to be lots more people on the sidewalks than than there were when I was actually in the parade, blast their latecoming hides.

Seeing Holt from the sidewalks instead of through a car window, as I usually do, was enlightening. Did you know there's a tropical fish store? And next to it, Nu China Express, whose sign boasts "The best Chinese food in Pomona"? (Not that there's much competition.) Nu China's window and sidewalk signs show an amusing range, from cappuccino and donuts to menudo and tamales. I'll have to go in sometime for kung pao chicken, a cruller and a taco.

Or, um, not.

I spent Tuesday afternoon at the Pomona Public Library, giving myself eyestrain over the course of a couple of hours peering at microfilm copies of the Progress-Bulletin from the '40s to the '70s as I researched the Pomona Christmas Parade history for Friday's column.

Found some amusing and startling stuff. For one, the parade is older than the Jaycees ("56th annual") think it is. For another: the 1976 grand marshal was Donald Duck. I'm following in a grand tradition, folks.

In case you've forgotten, the parade is in three days: this Saturday from 10 a.m. to noon, on East Holt Boulevard from Caswell to East End. Be there or spend the rest of your life regretting it.

On my drive home from the library, I stopped at a red light in Claremont alongside a sportscar presumably driven by a dentist. Its vanity plate: UFLOSS.

Continuing my selfless nocturnal work to redevelop downtown Pomona, I dreamed the other night that the Fox Theater was restored and that I, as an impresario, had booked an excellent night of entertainment.

Yes, Boris Karloff was going to perform onstage at the Fox, singing, dancing and telling stories.

I then woke up, and it instantly occurred to me that booking Karloff to play the Fox would be quite an achievement, given that the actor died in 1969. This may be why my career as an impresario never really took off.

My recent column on the impending demolition along Pomona's Second Street resulted in a reader e-mail that looks to be as long, if not longer, than the column that inspired it.

It's full of well-observed details from a childhood spent in Pomona. The author gave his name only as Keith. As it's too long to use in print, at least in full, here's the whole thing, lowercase typing and all:

"mr. allen,

"read your sunday missive on second street in pomona. you brought up the ghosts of my childhood; i am 53 and have lived in the southeastern corner of pomona all my life [cepting college at ou [oklahoma] ; graduated from garey high [that year was the first year minorities in the pomona school system outnumbered anglos; times have changed!]. also attended alcott [when it was one brick building and 2 rows of classrooms] elementary and was in the first 3-year class at simons jr. high. it was great having everything from desks to books brand new.

"i watched the mall being built. my mother worked in the orange belt emporium [2nd and garey, ne corner] . my mother was old school; she never had a driver's license; pomona in those days had a wonderful bus system, a cloverleaf pattern of 4 routes that canvassed the four corners of town, meeting on garey between second and third; i knew most of the bus drivers by name.

"keith"

Let's give Keith a round of applause, and maybe chip in to buy him some capital letters. If there's anything left to say, post away below, readers.

My colleague Jeff Malet found this online on Tuesday. It's from some outlet called Celebrity News Service. Wait for the local angle:

"Los Angeles, CA (CNS) -- Lindsay Lohan has embraced her clean and healthy lifestyle and is working it into her community service.

"Lindsay has not commented on her road to recovery and DUI punishment. She has nine more days left to serve her community."

According to other websites, Lohan was at the blood center from noon to 7 p.m. The lohangroupie.com site reports that she left carrying a book titled "Blood: An Epic History of Medicine and Commerce."

Just like I always say, all roads lead to Pomona -- even the road to recovery.

Recently, as part of my mission to eat or drink, or at least taste, all 144 items on the menu at Pomona's Mix Bowl Cafe, I ate joke.

Joke is a porridge. At Mix Bowl, it can be ordered with chicken, pork or shrimp. I got it with chicken. It actually wasn't bad.

My only regret is that I didn't spill any on myself. Because then I could have said, looking down at my sleeve in mock sorrow, "Looks like the joke's on me."

You may recall the comedy club that was announced as coming to downtown Pomona's Opera Garage building on Thomas near Third. As late as July, the Gerrymander was said to be opening in September. Well, the club is still coming, but obviously it's missed its target date.

I ran into Cathy Tessier, the club's landlord, at the Claremont Packinghouse the other morning -- neither of us was injured -- and I asked her about the club's status. She said getting an elevator up and running to the second-floor club was proving more difficult than expected. Apparently elevator repairmen are in such demand, they make plumbers and cable TV repairmen look speedy.

The club won't open until January, Tessier said.

Until then, looks like we'll have to continue to rely on the Pomona City Council for our improvisational humor.

I've visited Pomona's Second Street on a couple of occasions recently, which may be what inspired not one but two dreams the other night as your bleary-eyed blogger lay sleeping.

In the first, I happened to be downtown when I saw people converging on the Glass House nightclub. There was a rumor that the Rolling Stones were playing a rare club date there in just a few minutes. The event had been so hush-hush that, amazingly, tickets were still available.

My problem was, I had already paid $15 for a ticket to see the band She Wants Revenge (note: this is a real band but I've never heard their music) at another (note: nonexistent) club downtown that night. Did I want to waste that money by seeing the Rolling Stones instead?? Clearly I'm no more spontaneous in my dreams than I am in real life. Nevertheless, I was swept up in the crowd going into the Stones show. Alas, my dream ended before the concert could start.

In my second Second Street dream of the night, I was again downtown and was stunned to see that the Glass House exterior, and much of that block, was halfway through an extensive remodeling. How had I missed this? I was just down there a few days before!

From there I dropped into Magic Door Books, which was open, but completely bare inside, and freshly painted. The owners weren't in. A customer came in and asked me for help finding a certain section of books. I was going to show him but realized there were no books. I didn't know what to say. At this point I woke up.

What does all this mean? I guess the changes coming to Second Street have me excited but anxious. It's also possible I need to get out more. Say, to Euclid Avenue.

With time to kill before Monday's Pomona council meeting, I thought I'd try a south Pomona taqueria for dinner. But once I hit downtown I swung by the Pomona Fish Market, a take-out place at Third and Park streets.

I've always been curious about the market, which has a vintage neon sign (restored a few years back) and seems out of place in the neighborhood. But the view from my car always made me unsure if one could dine in, as the front window has big letters reading "Fish to Go."

Not to worry, the interior has seating for eight, plus an outdoor patio. My order was taken by a woman behind the supermarket-style display case, which was about half-stocked with fish on ice.

There's a limited menu of fried fish plates, such as sole, sand dabs, oysters and shrimp, served with fries and cole slaw and all priced under $7, as well as a couple of sandwiches. I got the catfish plate ($5.95). Well, the slaw was a bit dry, but the fries were acceptable and the fish, fried in a light coating of (I think) flour, wasn't bad at all. I'm not a fried fish guy, but if I were, I'd probably go again. The food's a darn sight better than Long John Silver's.

The Fish Market has been in Pomona for decades. In researching city character Urban Ziegler on Progress-Bulletin microfilm last summer at the library, I found an April 1, 1937 ad for the market, meaning it's at least 70 years old.

Prices included haddie, 35 cents a pound; cod, 20 cents a pound; sea bass, 29 cents a pound; and halibut, 25 cents a pound. The ad boasted: "An Exclusive Fish Market is the Best Place to Buy Fish." Oh, that snooty Pomona.

Reader Richard E. Nunez writes with an intriguing question:

"I have been trying to find out the name of the dog on the seal of Pomona. Nobody seems to know at City Hall. So if you could help me with this, that would be great. Thanks."

I wasn't aware the city seal even featured a dog, but by golly it does. View an image here.

Pomona with a dog turns out to be mythologically correct. An online search turned up the tome "Manual of Mythology" by Alexander Stuart Murray, in which the entry for Pomona reads: "Was goddess of garden fruits, and was represented wearing a wreath composed of such, or holding in her hand a horn of plenty full of them, with a dog by her side."

My understanding is that little is known about the Roman goddess Pomona, so perhaps her dog's name, if he/she had a name, is lost to history. That said, can any students of mythology shed any light on this?

Alternately, I suppose we could simply make up an appropriate name for a dog that would belong to Pomona the goddess/Pomona the city. How about Taco?

Resuming where we left off: Leaving Huntington Hardware, Pomona Mayor Norma Torres and I journeyed to Raspado X-press, which is located in a strip mall on Indian Hill Boulevard just north of Holt Avenue. The business is next to a bottled-water place and a couple of storefronts up from Mariscos Ensenada No. 5, which some of you may remember as the former Xochimilco restaurant.

Raspados are Mexican snocones topped with your choice of fruit. I counted 30 flavors on the board, and those can be combined, seemingly for no extra cost. I got banana and pineapple and the mayor had (if memory serves) mango and pineapple. This time I paid the tab, $6 total.

The raspados come in tall cups with fat straws. The ice wasn't crushed finely, so the routine became to pound the straw up and down in the ice, like a piledriver, to get some ready to drink. Torres said she spent a fair amount of time here last summer and that the ice had been better crushed on previous visits. Still, as a snocone fan from way back, I liked my drink, and the fresh fruit is a neat touch.

Raspado X-press also sells fresh juice drinks, fruit with chili powder and lime, licuados and smoothies, among other items. There are colorful photo blowups on the walls of several menu items. Some are a bit mysterious -- even Torres couldn't identify them -- but most look promising, and some look delicious.

"You'd never think there would be so much flavor in a rundown strip mall," Torres observed before we parted.

That's Pomona: always full of surprises.

Picking up where we left off Sunday: As Mayor Norma Torres drove me to the raspado place, heading east on Mission Boulevard, we approached AMA Donuts, which I pointed out was one of the earliest McDonald's, a fact she knew, of course. At Holt and Towne, we commented on the gleaming glass storefront of Santa Fe Outlets. She asked if I knew what it had been originally. "Tate Cadillac," I replied.

She had been telling me about Huntington Hardware, where she has bought glass doorknobs and other home-improvement items. When I pled ignorance on the place, she made a detour west on Holt to take me there. It's at Holt and Park avenues, an "HH" on the long storefront. I'd noticed those letters many times but had no idea what was inside.

Well! It's like Pomona's version of Restoration Hardware, full of antique-looking windows, doors, knockers, lamps and the like, all brand new. "They sell new things that look old," the mayor explained.

The general manager came over to help. "We've been in Pomona for 55 years," Daniel Herrera said. "Fifty years in this location. We started on Huntington Boulevard." That's a few blocks west, for you out-of-towners. Herrera continued: "We have another store in Huntington Beach. It's called Pomona Hardware. Just kidding. That's as good as the jokes get."

I laughed, so I'm not complaining. Wish I'd known about Huntington Hardware when I was writing my "Pomona A to Z" series -- it would've made a handy H.

Pleased to have introduced yours truly to Huntington Hardware, Torres said, referring to her husband: "Luis said there wouldn't be anything new I could show you." I'm flattered my knowledge of Pomona is considered so wide-ranging by those within the mayoral manse, but it always seems to me whatever I know is the proverbial mile wide and an inch deep.

That's enough for now. Let's pause here and come back Tuesday for those icy raspados. Gosh, talk about a cliffhanger!!

Pomona Mayor Norma Torres has been telling me since May that she was going to invite me out for a raspado, which is a Mexican snocone with fruit. As the months went by, and hot weather came and went, this appeared to be yet another politician's empty promise.

Until last week, when she invited me to lunch, with a raspado for dessert. Of course I accepted, having never been invited to lunch by a mayor before.

(Imagine if Ontario Mayor Paul Leon, who's on a major diet, invited me out for lunch. We'd probably eat trail mix.)

At Torres' suggestion we met at Sakura Ichi, the high-end sushi bar at Mission and Garey downtown. I've been there before, and it's pretty good. The ambience is even better -- this is a sharp lookin' place, very sleek.

Torres talked about her tour that morning of the Indian Hill Swap Meet, a collection of vendors that is probably worth a column someday, if the language barrier can be overcome. We touched on many other Pomona topics as well.

I had the sushi lunch combo and she ordered the chicken teriyaki. My chopstick skills aren't so good, but I can manage. The mayor ate with a fork.

She tried to pay but we split the tab at my insistence. Can't be in the mayor's debt, after all. Next, a raspado! Except first there was a detour to check out a Pomona business I'd never before investigated. More on that Monday.

Well, the hiatus is over, and now we can finally learn if they get off the island. No, wait, that's "Lost." Tonight's big return is the Pomona City Council, back in session after six long weeks off.

Feeling lost yourself after six weeks? You could probably go to the City Clerk's office and get copies of the previous year's meetings on DVD, if you feel the need to catch up.

Personally, I think it's better to start fresh. Besides, if there was a cliffhanger at the end of the last meeting, the council's probably forgotten it too.

I bet the DVD bonus features and commentaries would be fascinating, though.