We’re overdue to take a dip in the ol’ columnist mailbag. It won’t be as refreshing as a dip in the pool in this 100-degree week, but print can do only so much.
Not the band
The eagles — Jackie, Shadow and Kadie (as she’s now known) — were the players in a pretend soap opera here on Aug. 19. Many approved of that flight of fancy. Others thought it laid an egg. Here’s a sampling of comments.
Suzanne Goodrich: “I thought today’s column was in poor taste. Please set your standards higher.”
Why not set your standards lower? It works for my other readers.
Joy: “I have so enjoyed all of your articles over the years, but I have to say that the one in the paper this morning has to top the list. You are one of the main reasons I keep getting my paper delivered after more than 50 years!!!!”
I’ll share credit with your newspaper carrier, but thank you!
Nancy Zafuto: “What a column today!! I literally laughed out loud until I cried. Thank you, thank you for taking me out of reality.”
I am the newspaper’s version of Calgon. (Look it up, young people.)
Ms. Ashworth: “The bald eagle is the national bird of the great United States, not some punchline for you in your personal attempt to obtain notoriety. My personal opinion is that you should be ashamed of yourself.”
If it’s any consolation, I am ashamed of myself. Not about this column. Just in general.
Lauria Watts: “LOL most emphatically. I can only imagine the comments you’re going to get about today’s column. I read it and the first thing I thought (while laughing) was ‘LOL — you going to hell.’ Then I laughed some more ‘cuz I rhymed it.”
Lauria will show herself out.
Hooray for Hollywood
My back-to-back Sundays in Hollywood, first at the Pantages Theatre (open since 1930), then at the Hollywood Bowl (open since 1922), were the subject of my Aug. 9 column.
If I’d wanted to keep the Old Hollywood streak alive for a third Sunday, I might have returned to Musso & Frank, the restaurant and bar founded in 1919, where I’ve eaten a couple of times.
But I was sorry to find that, post-pandemic, Musso & Frank is no longer open for breakfast and lunch, only dinner. So I let the idea go.
Three of you brought up other similarly vintage Hollywood spots, ones that hadn’t occurred to me.
Dot Cosentino-Phillips of Upland said the Cinegrill Theater, in the 1927 Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, shows classic movies every other Wednesday. She and her husband had just seen 1938’s “The Adventures of Robin Hood.” Dot says: “A wonderful small venue if you’ve never been there.” I haven’t.
Murray Gilkeson of La Verne mentioned Yamashiro, the hilltop restaurant in a 1914 villa, which I tend to forget is there. David Saw of Diamond Bar brought up a 1930s bar steps away from the Pantages.
He enthused: “No mention of the Frolic Room? Best dive bar in LA!”
The A Line
Fellow Claremonter (and Citrus College board member) Laura Bollinger and I got into a conversation last Saturday about the A Line, which she had taken that very day, pleasantly. That’s the light rail that starts in Pomona and travels through the San Gabriel Valley to downtown L.A. and onward to Long Beach, all for $1.75.
Some of her friends express great wariness about the train, asking with wrinkled noses if it’s clean or if it’s full of drug users or if anyone has any Grey Poupon. OK, I made up the last part, but you get the idea.
Laura assures them that the trains are shiny and new and that plenty of normal people ride them, including Citrus students.
This reminds me that after my column in May compiling reader responses about the A Line, two great notes arrived that I’d neglected to share here. Keep reading for those.
Bridge bag
My friend Arthur Weinstein of Pomona, who lives in the Mount San Antonio Gardens retirement community, has been taking the A Line to Pasadena regularly to meet friends to play bridge.
On a trip in May, he accidentally left his bag containing reading material and his house keys on the return train. Did disaster ensue? No.
“Someone who works at Pomona Valley Hospital, who got on the train just after I got off, saw it, retrieved it, contacted me and even had someone deliver it to me,” Arthur reports. “So not only is that train all that you and I said, it is also peopled by some very honest and interesting riders.”
Gettin’ to the Getty
Meanwhile, Linn Rudenauer of Pomona shares this startling account of a then-recent journey.
“Three 80-year-old ladies took the A train to the Getty,” Rudenauer says. Had she been holding a microphone, she could have dropped it and walked away.
The trio made the 47-mile trip to the Getty Center this way. They rode the A from Pomona to the Little Tokyo station, transferred to the E train to the Sepulveda station, then rode the 741 bus to the hilltop art museum.
They left Pomona at 7 a.m., got to the museum after 10 a.m., stayed five hours and left at 3 p.m., getting back about 6 p.m. A full day, and one that did not require navigating the 405 Freeway.
“On the way we met nothing but nice people and had a fun time,” says Linn, “so I highly recommend it. It beats driving home in rush-hour traffic.”
My kudos to them for their sense of adventure. If you’re terrified of public transit, let me remind you: Three octogenarian women felt comfortable taking the train to L.A. and back. You ought to be able to deal with it.
If not, you can hire these ladies as personal security.
David Allen writes Friday, Sunday and Wednesday, insecurely. Email dallen@scng.com, phone 909-483-9339, and follow davidallencolumnist on Facebook or Instagram, @davidallen909 on X or @davidallen909.bsky.social on Bluesky.