Wednesday’s column begins with news about traffic control cameras that have gone in at three locations on western Foothill Boulevard in Upland. They’re there to control traffic lights. Following that are some valley vignettes, an item about an Upland restaurateur’s hijinks and an item about “The Office.”
In Upland, people are reading Michael Pollan’s “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” which the library is promoting as its first Upland Reads One Book choice. A panel discussion is slated for Saturday at 1 p.m. That’s the leadoff item in Wednesday’s column, which also has a few vignettes and the news that Rancho Cucamonga’s library won national honors.
Wednesday’s column is about my attendance at both a city council meeting in Upland and a Japandroids concert in Pomona the same night. Both were fun in their own way, of course, but I will go way out on a limb and say the concert was more thrilling. There, I’ve said it, and I’m glad.
Re-reading issue 15 (June 1963) of the flagship Marvel comic The Fantastic Four the other night, I found a house ad for FF fan clubs around the country. In a pleasant surprise, one was based in Upland.
Wonder whatever became of Mark Carey of 734 N. 8th Ave., Upland? Hope he’s had a fantastic life.
For all the latest out of Upland City Hall, including a report from Monday’s council meeting, read Wednesday’s column.
The Cubs have at least one diehard fan out here. Seen in Upland.
Sunday’s column is about last week’s State of the City luncheon in Upland, in which the typical dullness of the speech was punctuated now and then by humor — generally involving me.
Wednesday’s column is about Monday’s council meeting, where after a spirited debate, council members decided to grant members of the public four minutes to speak from now on, up from the current three.
You can’t say the Upland City Council never gave you anything.
My first draft of the column was slightly longer, but I decided that chopping the last four paragraphs would result in a stronger ending. As an online bonus, here’s the last bit:
On my way home, as part of my continuing effort to prop up Upland’s economy, I spent $36.55 on gas. (I also tried to buy groceries but the store had closed, and might have bought a hot dog but the adjacent restaurant was closing. It’s not easy conducting business in Upland at the late hour of 8:20 p.m.)
As I was pumping gas, a hapless man was hitting up customers for “50 cents or a dollar” for gas. The driver in front of me claimed he had no cash, just cards. He was driving a Lexus SUV.
Despite my refusal to make eye contact in hopes he would pass me by, the man asked me for money. I stopped cleaning the windshield of my battered Corolla and gave him a dollar.
Make that $37.55 to prop up Upland’s economy.
In the spirit of “why not?,” as well as the spirit of trying to entice people to read my city council coverage, I melded Walt Whitman’s epic poem “Song of Myself” into my account of the latest Upland council meeting. (Probably doing a disservice to both.) One thing’s certain, nobody else has ever done it before. Read my column here and let me know what you think.
For the third anniversary of Rabi’s Cafe in Upland, a group of customers composed a song and had an entire dining room of customers surprise the owner with it. How about that? Also, another Upland council mistake surfaces, a Rancho Cucamonga newspaper resurfaces, a Claremont newspaper cuts its frequency and the movie schedule at the Ontario library is presented again in my column, this time with (oops) the dates attached. All of this can be found in my Friday column.