Recently in Around Rancho Cucamonga Category

Actually, my attendance at Rancho Cucamonga council meetings is sporadic at best, but sometimes I surprise them by showing up. (Obviously not last night, since I'm still in New Orleans.)

The city attorney always gives me this shocked look, like "why are you bothering to come here?" Sometimes I sense a mild alarm that, if I'm there, something on the agenda must be ripe for mocking. And occasionally something is, although usually I'm only there because I have time to kill, or space to fill, or feel I need some Rancho material.

I'm rather fond of the Rancho Cucamonga council. There's often some banter among council members that works out well for a humor columnist. Also, the chambers are enormous and comfortable. In Pomona we're packed in like sardines.

What works against the Rancho council is that their meetings are always the same week (first and third of the month) as Pomona's (on Mondays) and Ontario's (on Tuesdays). By Wednesday, when Rancho meets, I'm burned out on council meetings.

Also, going to a third meeting in a week tends to tilt my columns too much toward government news. For those who like that sort of thing, good. For those who don't, it's annoying.

So, to strike a balance, I usually skip Rancho's meetings. Sorry, Rancho.

If you're curious about why I go to council meetings at all, or why I pick Ontario and Pomona to focus on, I'll post about that sometime next week.

Clearing out the in-box of my old d_allen e-mail before the account expires, here's a query from Richard Nunez of Pomona:

"A friend and I were talking about the upcoming Pomona Drags at the Fairplex. [No longer upcoming. -- DA]

"Then he said, Do you remember the Lions dragstrip? Yeah, sure do. Then he said, Do you remember the Fontana Drags? My mind went blank for just a moment. Yeah, I do. My folks would take us kids by there to hear them and see them race.

"OK, I was wondering if you can tell me when they started and when they stopped racing. It was on Foothill, I believe it was just past Vineyard going east on Foothill on the north side."

So the Fontana Drags were in Cucamonga? Hmm. Anybody able to shed some light on this?

* UPDATE: The dragstrip was in the present-day Village of Heritage neighborhood (see comments section for more) far, far east of Richard's memory. Sports Editor Lou Brewster gives extra details: "The strip ran north by east, east of East Avenue, by the San Sevaine flood control channel. The worst thing that happened there was a guy literally losing his head...Races usually ran on Sunday. It was part of a circuit that included Lions (Long Beach), Irwindale and Orange County."

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

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

May 20: "Surf's Up"

May 27: "Bee Movie"

June 3: "Daddy Day Camp"

June 10: "Little Rascals"

June 17: "Shrek the Third"

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

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

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

Reader Brian Hurst tell us a bit about it:

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

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

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

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

Rancho Cucamonga's long-awaited Trader Joe's opened Friday. Joe's has had a smallish Upland store forever but no others in the valley.* The new one fills the empty Vons space in a shopping center on Haven just above the 210.

I met friends for lunch at Corky's in the same center. Just getting into the parking lot took effort, because of the crowds. I've never seen the center, or Corky's for that matter, so packed.

After lunch, we checked out Joe's. It's a 12,000-square-foot store, said to be midsize by Joe's standards, but clearly larger than the Upland store. The aisles are a bit wider and the refrigerated section looks three or four times larger. According to an employee, there wasn't more, or much more, product on display than in Upland, just more of each item.

In a cute touch, the checkout lanes are marked with street signs mimicking Rancho Cucamonga street names: Lemon, Vineyard, Archibald, Haven, Milliken, Day Creek, Base Line and Foothill.

The store seemed to be a hit on opening day and I'd say it's almost guaranteed to be a success. We don't know what took you so long, Trader Joe's, but we're glad you're here.

* Unless San Dimas counts, as two readers pointed out.

Out at Victoria Gardens on my lunch hour Monday, I thought I'd buy gas before the rain started.

I pulled up at the Chevron station near Richie's Diner, Del Taco and The Hat. Above each pump was a pleasant surprise: a reproduction of a vintage (1950s?) illustrated map of Route 66.

Various cities are pinpointed, with Cucamonga obviously inserted. Route 66 attractions depicted at the bottom of the map include "Joshua Tree," "Hoover Dam," "Grand Canyon," "Indian War Dance" (!), "Will Rogers Monument" and "Mississippi River."

The maps are a charming touch, and next time I'm in the area and need gas, that's where I'm going.

Referring to my comment in a recent column about "stuffed animals" at Rancho Cucamonga's Bass Pro Shops, longtime reader Mel Leets writes:

"Animals are now mounted on mannequins using the hot glue system to tailor-fit the skin to the type of animal mannequin. About the only thing they stuff anymore are turkeys."

Correction noted by this turkey.

(Always nice to hear from Mel, by the way. He's been commenting on my columns longer than just about anybody.)

Touring neighborhoods to see Christmas lights isn't my idea of entertainment, although I know a lot of people like that sort of thing. I'm not a Christmas-lights kind of guy, whether my own or anybody else's. I don't even put up a tree.

But an opportunity presented itself to see Thoroughbred Lane in Rancho Cucamonga the other night, courtesy of a Christmas party a couple of blocks from the street, and it was high time I checked out perhaps the valley's most decorated street.

A bunch of us walked Thoroughbred on foot, which I highly recommend, for pollution as well as exercise and aesthetic reasons. You're smart starting at the west, by the way, as traffic from the east, on Sapphire, is ridiculous.

So how were the lights?

Well, once past the letdown that only years of hype can engender, I had to admit the street's decorations were pretty impressive. A tropical-themed front yard, which included a sign reading "Happy Hula Days," was my favorite. Plenty of people went to a lot of effort and, fossil-fuel consumption aside, the effect is quite nice.

Although I was also impressed by the rare houses that did nothing, or nothing beyond a banner by the front door or a bow on a tree. In that neighborhood, that takes nerve.

Around the same time, Phil Godwin of Chino Hills e-mailed with another tip:

"If you want to see the coolest decorated house, go to Chino. South of Philadelphia on Monte Vista, the third house from the corner on the east side of the street. Park where you can see the whole front of the house. Tune your radio to 90.3 FM. The house must have 6 bazillion lights; they all blink in time to the music on the radio. There are three or four songs, all different. The owner went to a lot of trouble for this one. Really a neat visual."

I'll try to check it out, and you lights-fanciers can too.

Comment with any other must-see stops below.

Today's print column closes with a mentiion of Shanty Devlin's.

As described to me, Shanty Devlin's was a bar on the northeast corner of Archibald and Foothill in Cucamonga in the early 1960s. The owner was a San Bernardino man, Dick Devlin.

Perhaps the bar's best-known feature was a piano player known as Elegant Ethel. She may have been in her 80s. She was blind. And she knew her stuff. She played the old songs, like "Won't You Come Home, Bill Bailey?" As Wayne Leavitt told me admiringly: "She would really bang on that piano."

On whatever the local radio station was in those days, Elegant Ethel would come on daily at noon to play a number. Her appearances were sponsored by First Trust Bank.

We're missing characters like Elegant Ethel these days. Or if we're not, and characters like her still exist, we don't know about them.

Anyone oldtimers want to add or correct details about Shanty Devlin's or Elegant Ethel?

U.S. Treasurer Anna Escobedo Cabral will speak at 9 a.m. today at a (closed) symposium at Etiwanda Gardens in Rancho Cucamonga for educators, sponsored by the Stock Market Game and attended by state education Superintendent Jack O'Connell. They'll hear how to teach students about saving and investing. Cabral will discuss the importance of financial education.

I'd be more interested if she were handing out free money. Attendees could have her sign their own currency, except her autograph is already on it, along with that of the Treasury Secretary. The position of treasurer, I learned, involves advising the secretary on currency and coinage and, get this, is even older than the Treasury Department itself.

Treasurer Cabral, you are so money.