{"id":445464,"date":"2026-08-27T21:14:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T21:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/445464\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T21:14:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T21:14:10","slug":"readers-squawk-about-big-bear-bald-eagles-hollywood-haunts-a-line-train-daily-bulletin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/445464\/","title":{"rendered":"Readers squawk about Big Bear bald eagles, Hollywood haunts, A Line train \u2013 Daily Bulletin"},"content":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re overdue to take a dip in the ol\u2019 columnist mailbag. It won\u2019t be as refreshing as a dip in the pool in this 100-degree week, but print can do only so much.<\/p>\n

Not the band<\/p>\n

The eagles \u2014 Jackie, Shadow and Kadie (as she\u2019s now known) \u2014 were the players in a pretend soap opera here on Aug. 19<\/a>. Many approved of that flight of fancy. Others thought it laid an egg. Here\u2019s a\u00a0sampling of comments.<\/p>\n

Suzanne Goodrich: \u201cI thought today\u2019s column was in poor taste. Please set your standards higher.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why not set your standards lower? It works for my other readers.<\/p>\n

Joy: \u201cI 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!!!!\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll share credit with your newspaper carrier, but thank you!<\/p>\n

Nancy Zafuto: \u201cWhat a column today!! I literally laughed out loud until I cried. Thank you, thank you for taking me out of reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

I am the newspaper\u2019s version of Calgon<\/a>. (Look it up, young people.)<\/p>\n

Ms. Ashworth: \u201cThe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

If it\u2019s any consolation, I am ashamed of myself. Not about this column. Just in general.<\/p>\n

Lauria Watts: \u201cLOL most emphatically. I can only imagine the comments you\u2019re going to get about today\u2019s column. I read it and the first thing I thought (while laughing) was \u2018LOL \u2014 you going to hell.\u2019 Then I laughed some more \u2018cuz I rhymed it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lauria will show herself out.<\/p>\n

Hooray for Hollywood<\/p>\n

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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"FoundedFounded in 1919, Musso and Frank Grill proclaims itself the \u201coldest restaurant in Hollywood.\u201d (File photo by John McCoy, Los Angeles Daily News\/SCNG)<\/p>\n

If I\u2019d 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\u2019ve eaten a couple of times.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Three of you brought up other similarly vintage Hollywood spots, ones that hadn\u2019t occurred to me.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s \u201cThe Adventures of Robin Hood.\u201d Dot says: \u201cA wonderful small venue if you\u2019ve never been there.\u201d I haven\u2019t.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

He enthused: \u201cNo mention of the Frolic Room? Best dive bar in LA!\u201d<\/p>\n

The A Line
\n\"FriendsFriends prepare to board the A Line train in Pomona on June 7, bound for the L.A. restaurant Philippe the Original. (Photo by David Allen, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin\/SCNG)<\/p>\n

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\u2019s the light rail that starts in Pomona and travels through the San Gabriel Valley<\/a> to downtown L.A. and onward to Long Beach, all for $1.75.<\/p>\n

Some of her friends express great wariness about the train, asking with wrinkled noses if it\u2019s clean or if it\u2019s full of drug users or if anyone has any Grey Poupon<\/a>. OK, I made up the last part, but you get the idea.<\/p>\n

Laura assures them that the trains are shiny and new and that plenty of normal people ride them, including Citrus students.<\/p>\n

This reminds me that after my column in May compiling reader responses about the A Line<\/a>, two great notes arrived that I\u2019d neglected to share here. Keep reading for those.<\/p>\n

Bridge bag<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomeone 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,\u201d Arthur reports. \u201cSo not only is that train all that you and I said, it is also peopled by some very honest and interesting riders.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gettin\u2019 to the Getty
\n\"TheThe Getty Center, seen in 2015, is off the 405 Freeway in Brentwood, but three women in their 80s got there via transit from Pomona in May. (Photo by David Allen, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin\/SCNG)<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Linn Rudenauer of Pomona shares this startling account of a then-recent journey.<\/p>\n

\u201cThree 80-year-old ladies took the A train to the Getty,\u201d Rudenauer says. Had she been holding a microphone, she could have dropped it and walked away.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the way we met nothing but nice people and had a fun time,\u201d says Linn, \u201cso I highly recommend it. It beats driving home in rush-hour traffic.\u201d<\/p>\n

My kudos to them for their sense of adventure. If you\u2019re 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.<\/p>\n

If not, you can hire these ladies as personal security.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We\u2019re overdue to take a dip in the ol\u2019 columnist mailbag. It won\u2019t be as refreshing as a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445465,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[24853,48,52,51,47,50,49,100,136,3766,7662],"class_list":["post-445464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-david-allen-column","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-transit","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445464\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}