National News in Montrose – The Gettle Kidnapping It seems Montrose just couldn’t stay out of notoriety in the 1930s. Just four months after the great Montrose Flood of New Year, in a neighborhood still devastated by that flood, a nationally famous kidnapping took place with spectacular “gangbusters” style arrests at the culmination. William Gettle […]
Treasured Time One of my favorite bumper stickers is the one that reads, “If I’d known grandkids were so much fun, I would have had them first,” which is similar to what author Gore Vidal advised: “Never have children, only grandchildren.” Good luck with that. I’m in a grandparenting state of mind because this past […]
La Crescenta Motel as a Movie Location Last week I talked about the origins of the May-Lane Motel, now the La Crescenta Motel. Sadly its fate for the last decade has been tenuous. In 2002 it was purchased for development, and since then a variety of plans, from assisted living apartments to office/retail, have been […]
Our Mickey Mouse Experience So, my wife and I celebrated our anniversary this month at Disneyland Park in Anaheim. But you figured that out already, right? Being old school types, we opted not to do the whole “Park Hopper” thing and stayed within the original, classic Disneyland. Then again, I’ve never really understood the concept […]
Thanking the Special People On Saturday, April 21 something very special happened in the Crescenta Valley. There was a gathering of over 800 people … students, community leaders and neighbors who came together for a Special Olympics Track and Field Meet at Crescenta Valley High School. It was a beautiful day, not because the sun […]
May-Lane Motel Memories There are many buildings along Foothill Boulevard that echo the past, and the La Crescenta Motel on the corner of Foothill and Briggs is one of the best. Built in the late ’40s as the May-Lane Motel, it was one of several small motels strung along Foothill, then State Highway 118, the […]
Still Being Blown Away It’s been two months since Hovasnnes Dongelyan wrote about the noise, air pollution and disruption of neighborhood serenity caused by irresponsible use of leaf blowers and over a month since I presented the Glendale Homeowners Coordinating Council resolution to the Glendale City Council asking them to agendize regulation of the devices. […]
Round, Brown & 400 Pounds If you were out of town with no access to television or the Internet, you could be forgiven for not knowing that the Crescenta Valley had a 400-pound, fur-covered, dumpster-diving visitor of the bear persuasion in the early morning hours the Tuesday after Easter. During the morning in question, multiple […]
By Mary O’KEEFE On Saturday, my daughter Molly and I attended a baptism at St. Bede’s the Venerable in La Cañada. After two years of classes, Josh Lacey was to be baptized and we were honored that he wanted to share it with us. Josh is 19, and he has dedicated every Wednesday for two […]
Our Year of Living Adventurously I’m sure my wife would agree that when she married me 26 years ago today, she had no idea what she was signing up for. Poor woman. But lucky me. On that unseasonably cold, early spring day over two and a half decades ago, standing together in the outdoor gazebo […]