What A Wonder-full Summer The smoke may have cleared from last night’s fireworks extravaganza in the skies above our bucolic valley, but now it’s time to fire off a barrage of mental-mortar rounds from my own smoke-filled mind. Wonder along with me, if you will: I wonder … why they give names to hurricanes (alphabetically […]
Sanitariums in CV – Hillcrest Sanitarium Part 2 As I wrote here last week, Hillcrest Sanitarium was a large, high-class sanitarium at the top of Lowell in what is now Markridge Estates. In 1942, the U.S. government set up 10 relocation camps in the western U.S., into which were crowded 120,000 U.S. citizens of Japanese […]
By Mary O’Keefe The search for missing hiker Ertug Ergun, 33, involved Los Angeles Search Dogs, the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department Mounted Search and Rescue, LASD Air 5 and search and rescue teams from Antelope Valley, Sierra Madre, Santa Clarita and our own Montrose Search and Rescue. They spent hours searching in dense vegetation on […]
Fireworks, Flags, Food and Freedom Well, toast my buns and bake my beans! Next Wednesday is already the Fourth of July. Seriously? How in the name of John Phillips Sousa did we get this far into the year this fast? Will somebody tap the brakes just a little, please? Be that as it may, the […]
Sanitariums in CV – Hillcrest Sanitarium, Part 1 Hillcrest Sanitarium was one of the larger sanitariums in the valley, housing from 50 up to nearly 200 patients in several buildings between the late 1920s until the late 1960s. Although they started as a tubercular sanitarium, they treated a wide variety of chronic illnesses, and morphed […]
Pension Reform Voter anger [at] the constant raising of property taxes to feed government needs came to an abrupt end with the passage of proposition 13 over 30 years ago. June 5, 2012 will also be remembered as the beginning of the long decline of the public sector unions brought about by voter anger. The […]
Sanitariums in CV – Dr. Briggs, Utley’s, Kimball’s and Dunsmore As I said last week, there were many sanitariums in the early history of CV, mostly for the treatment of lung diseases. The valley’s pure air quality of the late 1880s and early 1900s brought them here and the foul air quality of the later […]
Holding Down the Fort I’ve had a uniquely special relationship with a certain coworker in my small office for the past 11-and-a-half years. In addition to the “normal” Monday through Friday, 8-to-5 business hours, he and I have worked closely together late into the night on too many occasions to count. We’ve been a team […]
Waiting on Construction Regarding the building that is being built where Plumb Crazy was located, I am going to wait until it is finished before I judge it. The raw shape and framing may not represent what the final outcome will look like. I wish my house was framed with the steel two-by-fours. I would […]
Glad I’m Dad At our house, Father’s Day has always been one of those holidays that sneak up on us. That’s because, somewhat like that kid we all knew in school whose birthday happened around Christmas every year, both my and my youngest son’s birthdays are always right smack dab on or near Father’s […]