Playing My (Christmas) Cards Right It’s that most wonderful, horrifying time of the year: time to decide who gets a Christmas card and who doesn’t. Do we send a card to everyone in our address book, or just close friends and relatives? Do only those people who sent us a card last year get one […]
A Hike Through Crescenta Valley in 1910 In 1910, a writer for the Los Angeles Times wrote about a hike he and a friend took from Glendale to Tujunga one January day in a piece titled “A Walk With Bill Through La Crescenta Valley and On To Sunland.” At that time the Crescenta Valley was […]
Suggestion to Vons The letter [in the Nov. 29 issue] about the interaction between a customer and Vons corporate loss prevention folks highlights two problems: 1) there is an big theft issue at that store, so prices are increased for all of us to compensate for the losses and 2) most shoppers are honest, pay […]
1939 Grocery Store Opening Extravaganza When a new supermarket opens today, they usually put out some balloons, give away some free items to entice new customers, and offer some bargains. But in 1939, the opening of a new grocery store in Montrose had elaborate circus entertainment, stage shows, and a dance in the parking lot. […]
Taking the Weekend By Storm This past weekend, while my CV Weekly colleagues were dog paddling down Honolulu Avenue during the Montrose Christmas parade, my wife and I were having our own weathery adventures out of town. We drove north on Highway 14 late Friday afternoon, stopping in Mojave to fuel up and getting our […]
“There ought to be a law for that” I try to seek bill ideas from regular Californians. I have gotten some great ideas from sources as varied as local cops, utility ratepayers and even my father. For example, my friends in the Glendale Police Department came to me a couple years ago and asked me […]
Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree! The good weather made the Montrose Christmas Tree Lighting Festival a great success … no rain fell on this parade. A snow-making machine helped make Honolulu Avenue feel like a Winter Wonderland. Saw little kids and bigger kids with gray hair throwing snowballs. One even hit one of the […]
Home Tour Features Historic Buildings with Good Stories This Saturday the Crescenta-Cañada Heritage Home Tour will open seven historic buildings in La Crescenta and La Cañada. The tour is being called “Sites with a Story,” and at each location local historians have come up with some drama that will thrill those visitors who have enough […]
Laying Out the ‘Sweet’ Facts Jim Chase is wishing a pox on the wrong house. It wasn’t the bakers union that caused the demise of the Hostess products he so loves. Union workers have been giving back benefits and accepting less pay for years while the company struggled with poor management. Meanwhile the executives gave […]
The Dark Side of Black Friday Whoever “they” are, they finally did it. They figured out how to make the days between Halloween and New Year’s one long, seamless spending and shopping season without the interference of that bothersome little holiday known as Thanksgiving. How? By ignoring it. Specifically, what was previously a mostly un-marketable […]