Journalist James Fallows was Carter’s head speechwriter from 1977-78. When the former president entered hospice care a month ago, I soon thought of the Redlands native, who’s had more extensive contact with Carter than anyone else from the Inland Empire. He spoke about his former boss on Thursday by phone from Washington, D.C., for my Sunday column.
Are you aware of the Asistencia in Redlands? It was a distant outpost of Mission San Gabriel in the early 19th century but came and went in the wink of an eye. The site was rebuilt in 1937 and, after nearly a century in the county’s hands, was given to a nonprofit in 2018. I visit, learn the slightly comical history of the site and share the results in my Wednesday column.
Metrolink train service will be extended to Redlands starting Monday, the system’s first expansion since 2016. I attended Friday’s dedication ceremony with its hoopla, speeches and moments of humor. Find my report in Sunday’s column.
The staff from the now-defunct local favorite Augie’s Coffee, stung by their firing during the pandemic, formed a co-op to take their future into their own hands. Their worker-owned shop, Slow Bloom, is now open in Redlands. I visit to tell their story in my Friday column.
At the San Bernardino County Museum, artist Barbara Gothard of Palm Springs has produced an exhibit devoted to the Black homesteaders who settled in the Mojave Desert in the early 20th century. They had a hard life, as you’d expect. I talk to her about the show, which was inspired by a Joe Blackstock column, in my Sunday column.
Why does Redlands have a Lincoln Shrine, the only such monument west of the Mississippi? I find out for my Friday column.
In Redlands, strangers apparently ask each other the above question as an ice-breaker. Author Deborah Fallows has a sweet story about it. Also, more about Mentone’s Paul Bunyan, 1909 pennies, Rancho Cucamonga’s former Gilberto’s Lounge and the expansion of Starbucks in Pomona, all in a Sunday column of holiday-weekend leftovers. Happy Labor Day!
The city will research potential new names for the street after reaching out to the community, as we’ve reported. I visit to talk to the short street’s two businesses, whose owners support retaining the name as a nod to its history as site of the city’s long-gone Chinatown. One owner is Chinese American. She makes a good case, but I still think the name is a mistake. I write about the matter in Sunday’s column, my first reported from Redlands.
I know I said that if any more Joan Baez anecdotes came in following 3 1/2 columns on her in the past few months, I might pretend to have died in the meantime. But one more came in, and another hadn’t been used, and she was on national TV as a Kennedy Center Honors designee. So that seemed like enough to justify a partial column — in my mind, at least. Items from San Bernardino and Pomona round out my Wednesday column.