Give me … a break

I’m a firm believer in the philosophy that it’s better to give than receive – unless, of course, someone has a three-figure gift card to Bass Pro Shops or Guitar Center with my name on it. I’d happily take something like that off your hands, thank you very much. Other than that, I get considerably […]

The Rocky (Cola) Road To Success

Rocky Cola Café at Honolulu Avenue and Verdugo Boulevard is another of the many gems that make up the “treasures of the valley.” The building Rocky Cola occupies was built in 1923 by the Belanger family as the Montrose Pharmacy. It was the iconic drug store/soda fountain combo that graced so many small town main […]

Letters to the editor

TRIUMPH MEANS MORE THAN TROPHIES The Crescenta Valley High School Falcon Marching Band capped off a season of record-breaking scores with a “personal best” in its final competition. At the prestigious Moorpark “Battle of the Bands” field show tournament on Saturday, Nov. 21, the band earned its highest-ever overall score in a field tournament. The […]

Rain didn’t go away, but ticket holders came anyway

What a stormy couple of days last weekend! I know that I, like most of my foothill neighbors, held my breath anticipating a deluge of mud, rocks and other debris with each rain drop that fell. Thankfully, that didn’t happen. And thankful, too, am I for the many CERT folks, sheriff’s volunteers and others who […]

Driving on the Lanterman Freeway

A fun game my oldest daughter likes to play is to call the freeways of L.A. by their true names. For instance, if we want to get to the beach from La Crescenta, we have a lot of options. We might take the Ronald Reagan Freeway (118) and cut over toward the coast on the […]

The traditions we keep

Tradition is more than a song the character Tevye sings in the acclaimed Broadway musical, Fiddler on the Roof. All you have to do is live or work in the Crescenta Valley this time of year to see and enjoy evidence of many of our own local traditions that take many shapes and forms. At […]

Showing the Love

Congratulations to the Montrose Parade Committee! What a marvelous event we shared last Saturday. And, despite the cold temperatures (we Californians are such babies!), there appeared a good number of folks who turned out for the annual event. Special thanks are extended to Steve Pierce, parade chairman, who pulled it all together. We opened the […]

Planes, trains and first impressions

Now that the Thanksgiving holiday has passed, I have to mention another bunch of turkeys that irritate the stuffing out of me – namely, many of the employees at our city’s primary transportation hubs like Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) and Union Station. I fondly remember my dad’s stories of a time when flying was […]

Mapping the future of CV

Congratulations to the community advisory committee that just finished up its recommendations for Glendale’s new North Glendale/La Crescenta Community Plan. This is an effort to tune up the city’s zoning and design standards to accommodate future patterns of development in the Glendale portion of the Crescenta Valley. Currently when a developer looks to upgrade or […]

Letters to the editor

GRATEFUL FIREFIGHTERS SAY THANKS The Wildland Firefighter Foundation (WFF), a non-profit organization established in l994 to give moral and financial support to injured and fallen Wildland firefighters and families in need, has traditionally relied on firefighters themselves to open their wallets at fire camps and fundraising events in order to take care of their own. […]