Prospect Park

By John Murphy

The National Football League draft finally ended Saturday and I had no other choice but to go out and exercise.

So I headed across the wash to the rich part of Redlands.

Cruise up Cajon Street between the stately palm trees and past the old Craftsman homes and you wind up at Prospect Park. It’s one of my favorite places.

Thanks to the citrus industry, Redlands was once known as the “city of millionaires.” Not surprisingly, all that moolah attracted politicians. Three US presidents – William McKinley in 1901, Theodore Roosevelt in 1903 and William Howard Taft in 1909 – visited Redlands and walked the winding trails of Prospect Park. Or maybe they just ate an orange and left. I don’t really know.

A century-plus later the place is still nice to walk through with paved paths, stone walls and some trees that are 120 years old. There’s also roses, poppies, marigolds and petunias and lots of bees buzzing around.

At the top of the hill in the middle of the park there are benches. They overlook the valley (see photo below) and it’s an ideal place to relax or meditate, if you’re into that kind of thing.

When my son Kyle was little, I brought him to the park. We’d have a contest to see who could spot a lizard first and the wager was always a candy bar or ice cream cone. Somehow I always lost, but that was OK.

We’d also hike down to the amphitheater in the park that houses the Redlands Theater Festival. I liked to mortify him by taking the stage and, no matter who was around, reciting a few lines of Shakespeare. He’d turn red and just shake his head.

The last stop on our tour was always the regal Kimberly Crest Mansion.

The quaint old place has chateauesque architecture and Italian-style gardens and is rather magnificent.

Seven or eight years ago you could ignore the no trespassing signs and step over a chain-link fence and go right onto the grounds of Kimberly Crest. Naturally, we took advantage of that. We’d take photos, check out the fountain and sometimes even throw a football around. But now they have a gate out front and the place is locked-up tight.

So on this day I decided to head back. It was getting dark and I didn’t want to overdo the whole exercise thing. Too much of anything is bad.

The view from Prospect Park looking down at the valley.

Guilty pleasure

Back in 1997, in the mist of our food coma, Brett Snow and I thought Jim Druckenmiller (above) was the next Joe Montana. We were mistaken.

By John Murphy

The year was 1995 and I was at a journalism conference at an Anaheim hotel.

That was back when newspapers had enough money to send their charges to seminars to learn more about their craft. What a concept.     

Anyway, the NFL Draft was that weekend and my team, the 49ers, picked UCLA’s JJ Stokes in the first round. I had seen Stokes play. I recall thinking he was so great, he’d make the 49ers so unstoppable that the NFL would no longer be competitive. Wrong, wrong and wrong.  

But I love the NFL Draft, which begins today. It’s my guilty pleasure. Give me a cooler of Diet Cokes and a box of Cheez-Its and I could listen to Mel Kiper Jr. and Todd McShay talk about “workout warriors” and “flexible hips” all day. And I have.

Back in ’97 when I was slinging words together for the Victor Valley Daily Press, I invited photographer Brett Snow over for the draft. Brett’s a big Niner fan, too. Anticipation was high. And we were hungry. So I barbecued a bunch of chicken.

The first round commenced. We dipped and chipped.  Mel Kiper Jr. spoke of guys with “tremendous upside” and “high football IQs.” And Brett and I ate ourselves into a stupor, gorging on chicken and fix-uns until we were both sprawled out on my family room carpet. Sound asleep. Snoring even.

Somewhere along the way, the Niners picked quarterback Jim Druckenmiller in the first round. Brett and I high-fived. I spoke of naming my first-born after him. Then Druck started one game in two years, completing 40 percent of his passes with one TD and four picks.

Maybe his hips weren’t flexible enough.

Iron Bridge

By John Murphy

Shelter at home doesn’t mean be sedentary so I ventured out Friday evening.

My destination was the Iron Bridge on Greenspot Road in Highland. It’s more than 100 years old and is an Inland Empire landmark. Getting there would be good exercise; learning about it wouldn’t do my brain any harm.

I parked my car on the left side of Greenspot Road. The huge East Valley Water District building was 75 yards ahead.

Locking my vehicle, I headed out on foot. I was overwhelmed by the smell of citrus and noticed a large lemon grove off to my left.

On the right side of the road and behind a long fence is a wildlife preserve. Regular folk aren’t allowed there — though I saw two bicyclists enter the area earlier by taking Cone Camp Road.

Finally, after about a two-mile walk, I spied the rust-colored Iron Bridge in the distance.

“Santa Ana River Historic Bridge, 0.4” said the sign. That’s the official name of the bridge. It was getting late, but there was no turning back.

Getting closer, I heard a large rush of water – deafening really – roaring down from the mountains.

The Santa Ana River is part of the largest river system in Southern California. Snowmelt and rainfall gather near Big Bear and flow through San Bernardino, Riverside and Orange Counties to the Pacific Ocean.

Just a few more steps now and — ta-da — the Iron Bridge! Two pre-teen girls laughed and took took photos as I approached. “Oh my God,” one of them said with a giggle as I got close. It seemed too late for them to be out alone.

The bridge is a beauty. It was built in 1912 at the Joliet Iron and Steel Works. At first it spanned the Mojave River in Victorville, then was moved to its current location in 1933. It served motorists for 80 years.

In 2015 the bridge was finally closed to motorists and became part of the Highland trails system. It’s been replaced by a four-lane bridge, west of the old one.

Glancing here and there, I read the informational signs and took photos. Then I circled around to the main road for a different vantage point and more photos. Lot of photos!

By this time, vehicles whizzing by had their headlights on. It was getting late. So I tucked my Smart phone in my pocket and headed back.

As I did, I could still see those crazy girls off in the distance, jumping around and giggling at the historic Iron Bridge. I trust they got home safely.  

Texas dreamin’

By John Murphy

I shouldn’t be in Highland, Calif. writing this. I should be at a hotel in Allen, Texas getting ready for the wedding of Felicia Lopez, my de facto daughter-in-law.

The Redlands High grad who goes by the nickname “Mafel” was supposed to get married today. In a snazzy hall in Plano that I visited a few months ago. Her fiance is the down-to-Earth Tenari Tenari, a polite young man from Long Beach she met nine years ago while both were studying computers at UC-Riverside.

But the COVID-19 crisis scuttled all that and will probably postpone things a year. It’s a small price to pay for everyone being healthy.  

“Of course she’s sad but what can you do?” said Maria Lopez (Mafel’s mom) and my better half. “It’s nobody’s fault.”

Mafel and Tenari live in Allen, about two miles from the $60 million football stadium of the Allen Eagles, a Texas prep football powerhouse. Arizona Cardinals quarterback and Heiseman Trophy winner Kyler Murray was an Allen Eagle.

Mafel and Tenari have seen the Eagles live and I plan to at some point as well … whenever prep sports resumes, that is.

I asked Mafel via email what she’s been up to since she postponed the wedding three weeks ago due to COVID-19 concerns. She, like the fiancé, is working from home these days.

“Our house is definitely clean and organized due to extreme spring cleaning over the past few weeks,” she wrote. “Tenari is in deep with yard work. I have also been keeping myself busy exercising and walking the dogs every day. They love quarantine. I’m dreading the day we go back to the office, only because I don’t want to leave my dogs alone again.”  

At least somebody is benefiting. I miss those dogs; not to mention Mafel and Tenari. But eventually a wedding will happen — and that’s not a party I’m going to miss.

Tenari and Mafel in the Deep Ellum district of Dallas. Photo courtesy of April Rew/Local Nomad Photo

Olive Ave

By John Murphy

The quarantine blues envelops me, so I cross the wash and head for south Redlands. The old part. I park on stately Olive Avenue — my favorite street in the city.

I believe it’s known as the Smiley Park Historic District. Many of the homes are built with American Craftsman designs, but some are larger.  

Heading on foot toward Olive Avenue Market, it’s a pleasant walk with birds chirping and brightly colored flowers and American flags everywhere. One house I admire near Smiley Park has Chinese lanterns.

Soon I arrive in front of a large, white house that’s two stories and has four columns. It reminds me of “Animal House” and I imagine a toga-wearing John Belushi in front, downing a bottle of booze in one gulp. But there’s no Belushi so I take a selfie and then move on.

Making me smile, also, is a tented home for sale with a sign saying “Free pizza with home purchase.” I make a mental note to tell my brother, a Bay Area real estate agent. Sounds like a ploy he hasn’t tried.

Before I know it, I’m in front of the historic Olive Avenue Market. At one point it was one of 15 in town, but most are gone now. Ideal place to suck down a vintage soda, but it’s closed due to the pandemic, so I move on.

Gazing across the street I see the McKinley School with its painted collection of smudge pots out front. My daughter-in-law, Felicia Lopez, went here. She’s out of state now and I thought she might like a photo, so I cross the street.

“March 16-27 Spring Break. March 30 back to school,” the message board says. Except we all know the kids never made it back, thanks to the danged pandemic. So sad.

The last landmark on my trek is a large house set back from the road behind a chartreuse hedge of flowers. The barrier protects a sizable orange grove in a city once known for them.

“PICKING PROHIBITED,” the sign says. “This is a city of Redlands heritage grove … costs of upkeep are supported through sale of fruit through a local packing house …”

Well, no packing house needed. There’s oranges right here! Mine for the taking at just $5 a bag.

I reach for my wallet … but forgot it on this day. A good excuse to come back tomorrow.

Capitola days

By John Murphy

Back in the early 1980s rents were low and you could find incredible places to live for not very much money.

So it was around 1981 that I wound up in Capitola, a quaint little seaside community nestled between Santa Cruz to the north and Aptos to the south.

I lived in this ideal spot near the beach and within walking distance of the Esplanade. The Esplanade was a row of restaurants and bars that was popular throughout the region. The Venetian Court — a famous row of brightly colored cottages — was just across the street from me.

My roommate was this guy named Donovan. Unfortunately, he was not the Donovan who sang “Jennifer Juniper” and “Hurdy Gurdy Man” but rather a perpetually broke, older Cabrillo College student from New Jersey who wore V-neck white T-shirts and liked to call me and my friends “dumb rookie punk kids.” Donovan was a trip.

Our rent was only $450, split two ways. I had a decent job so I had all the dough I needed and every afternoon off — plenty of time to go running and hang out at the beach or in our fave watering hole on the Esplanade, the River’s End.

Near the River’s End was a new pizza joint called Pizza My Heart, a nod to the title of the old Janis Joplin song. The owner was a little Italian guy from New York who would serve us slices of pepperoni for $1 and tell us how bad California pizza was. And he was right. His authentic New York pizza was thin and greasy and delicious. The place took off like a 747 and spread to Santa Cruz and over the hill into San Jose and beyond. Dude sold the franchise for a fortune, but we knew him way back when.

Back in 1981 all I knew about Capitola was that it was Heaven on Earth and inexpensive. But through research (Wikipedia, actually) I also learned this morning it was the home for many years to baseball Hall of Famer Harry Hooper. Hooper was a lifetime .281 lifetime hitter who played on four world series champions with the Boston Red Sox and was a teammate of Babe Ruth. He owned peach orchards in the area and served as the postmaster in Capitola for 24 years. Fascinating stuff!

Me? I didn’t last nearly that long. Donovan ran out of money and had to move. Since his name was on the lease, I had to move too.

So then it was off to Aptos — to another dirt cheap, magnificent pad where a whole new set of adventures awaited. Ah, the memories.

Historic District colorful, fascinating

By John Murphy

About a half mile from where I live is the Historic District of Highland, one of the coolest places in San Bernardino County.

I headed there on foot Monday and arrived about 10 minutes later on a dark, overcast day.

There’s an ancient commercial building — now shuttered — on the corner of Palm and Main that has a mission vibe. It’s beige and has cool archways and glass at the top of the archways divided into small squares.

One of the squares was broken out, so I climbed onto a ledge a few feet above the sidewalk, hoisted myself up and peered in. Frozen in time is a small, weathered room where someone apparently once lived — complete with peeling walls, the remains of an old space heater and a framed print that provided decoration. I carefully angled my Smart phone through the missing window and took a photo (see below).

Jaywalking across Palm, I happened upon the Bella Highland Café & Bar, known to the locals simply as The Belle. It wasn’t opened on this dark, overcast day due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but I’ve been inside a time or two over the years and it’s a quaint place.

Highlights of The Belle are a century-old HIGHLAND sign from the old Highland Railroad Depot that was on the Northeast corner of Palm and Pacific (it’s long gone) and an actual bell from the El Camino Real.

A Belle tradition is that when somebody rings the bell, he had to buy a round for the house. But there was no house on this day, so I moved on — hanging a right on Pacific and ambling past an old house where a pair of pit bulls came bounding out to greet me. They were halted only by a sturdy fence, or else I’d be dead.

Next stop was the brick Sunkits Highland Orange Growers’ Association building that takes up much of the rest of Pacific Street. Oranges are not processed here anymore but some sort of business exists — judging by the workers in a large pick-up truck who delivered cargo.

Ahead I trudged, past the corner of Church and Pacific, which is the eastern border of the Historic District, a 290-acre area of vintage houses and some commerical buildings. It is recognized in the National Register of Historic Places.

Not recognized by much of anyone is the foot bridge across the 210 freeway that is just east of Church Street and outside the district. I headed up there to check it out and found lots of graffiti, some damp bits of clothing and your odd cigarette box and Dorito’s bag. I took a few selfies as 18-wheelers and cars whizzed by on the freeway below.

Retreating, I headed down Church and hung a right back onto Main. This is an interesting block, made up largely by the back of the sprawling Sunkist property. On the residential side of Main are old bungalows, some well maintained and some not.

There is a small street connecting Main and Pacific streets whose name I can’t remember. One house had a rusted smudge pot out in front and a sign on the mailbox saying, “Prayer is the Best Way to Meet the Lord, but Trespassing is Faster.” A caricature of a 44 magnum adorned the sign.

Between the pit bulls and the sign, my visit had ended. Best not to push my luck, but I will be back.

Easter like no other

The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles. Photo by David Leigh Ellis

By John Murphy

Have experienced some unique Easters in my time, but quarantine Easter on Sunday broke the mold.

St. Adelaide’s in Highland, right up the street, was out of play because of the whole social distancing thing. So CalTrans Girl and I found ourselves searching Sunday morning for a televised Mass and found one on channel 13, live from the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in downtown Los Angeles.

Been there. Nice place.

While searching for the Mass, my better half was robo-texting her elderly mom in Torrance who also wanted to tune in. .

“She’s got it on, but she says there’re no people there,” CalTrans Girl said.  

“Does she expect there to be?” I said.

Well, this deal IS unprecedented – churches shuttered, priests and ministers sidelined, services being telecast and livestreamed from grand cathedrals. But I have to say, I wasn’t hating it.

There’s something to be said for taking in Mass from the comfort of your own home. I even nibbled on an empanada as the service began.  

Mostly it was a beautiful Mass, presided over by Archbishop Jose H. Gomez. There were only about 5-6 others in the cathedral – three priests, an organ player, a singer and maybe one other. No altar boys … or altar girls. No sense in putting them at risk.

Watching the service, my mind drifted back to many mornings spent at St. Robert’s Church in San Bruno where I was once an altar boy.

As a first grader, we attended Mass every day. That was rough. By second grade they made it once a week. Still, there’d be 400 kids jammed into the church and the windows were always shut tight. Inevitably, a kid or three would stagger out, gasping for breath. But some, I’m sure, were just faking it.

And if you found yourself in a certain pew, you’d see “November 22, 1963” carved into the wood by a kid with a pocket knife. That was the day JFK was killed and it was a very big deal at St. Robert’s. The nuns, ya know, they loved Kennedy. Most everyone did.

But I digress.

I think the televised Mass works in a pinch. In fact, another one came on later in the day from a place called “Our Lady of the Rosary” and I watched it for maybe 10 minutes.

Then I remembered how my late mom used to say, “Too much of anything is bad.” So I changed channels to “Pretty Woman, Behind Closed Doors” as our Easter like no other continued.

Down for the count on Mitty Way

By John Murphy

Today is Brian Yocke’s birthday, according to Facebook. Naturally, this reminds me of a story.  

Brian Yocke used to be the Archbishop Mitty of San Jose softball coach. Now he’s their baseball coach.

Anyway, I was living in San Jose 4-5 years ago and working for Prep2Prep. It was scorching hot and the Mitty girls were playing St. Francis or Valley Christian or one of those West Catholic Athletic League teams.   

So I drove out to Mitty Way, but hadn’t really had much to eat and wasn’t all that ready for the searing heat.  

Out at the ballyard I saw my boy Glenn Reeves, who was working I think for a newspaper affiliated with the San Jose Mercury. He was primed for the heat, rocking a hat I later described as being “as big as a pizza box” and dutifully recording every play.  

Long story short, the Monarchs won the game (don’t they always?) and I was sitting in the Mitty dugout interviewing Yocke with a tape recorder. Just then I started feeling dizzy but I was still asking questions … and then things really started slowing down … and then THE LIGHTS WENT OUT. I passed out!    

Next thing I know, I’m staring up at some paramedics who start peppering me with questions. What is your name? Do you know where you are? Can you count to 10?

This all amused a Mitty assistant coach who quipped, “Yocke’s so boring, he put the poor guy to sleep!”

Well, somebody handed me a bottle of water and I quickly recovered. Then I made a few quips of my own, made it to my feet and headed for my car, trying to walk as normally as possible.

By chance I was parked next to a Mitty player and her mom, and the teen handed me a small bag of granola that I quickly consumed.

That’s how they roll at Mitty and I always loved going there … but I always went on a full stomach after that.  

Sunday mornin’ comin’ down

Young women serve up baked goods Saturday at the Red Ribbon Bakery.

By John Murphy

Stir crazy from days of being inside, CalTrans Girl and I on Saturday hopped in the Corolla and headed West on the 210. Destination: Seafood City in Rancho Cucamonga.

This is a normal trip for us. She likes to buy fish and vegetables, as well as baked goods from the adjoining Red Ribbon or Valerio’s bakeries. I like to eat whatever the heck she makes.

En route, I started fretting about my growing, unkempt hair.  

“David Foster’s wife gave him a haircut,” my better half said.  

“Who?” I said.  

Informed Foster is a songwriter, I said, “Well, I bet he’s no Townes Van Zandt.” (referring to the late country songwriter/singer from Texas).

But it turns out CalTrans Girl was correct. Foster has had some big hits, penning tunes for Whitney Houston, Celine Dion, Peter Cetera and some other folks I don’t listen to.

Thankfully the topic was dropped, and we focused on the snow-capped mountains to our right, then headed for our destination.

Finally arriving at Seafood City, we found a line of maybe 20 people waiting outside, many wearing masks. They were being admitted a few at a time due to the COVID-19 pandemic you may have heard about.

The Filipino man in front of us was chatting in Tagalog on his cell phone before being waved in. Meantime, Some customers were already leaving the store, pushing shopping carts full of groceries.  

Well, we made quick work of Seafood City and then it was off to 85 Degrees, an upscale place known to some as the “Starbucks of Taiwan.” (No offense, 85 Degrees).   

Once inside, CalTrans Girl quickly chose some gourmet cookies and pork buns; then we waited in line, paid for them and left.

Climbing into our chariot again, I hit the ignition and the gravelly voice of the late, great Kris Kristofferson poured through my speakers.

“Now THIS is a songwriter,” I said, turning up the volume …

“On a Sunday morning sidewalk/I’m wishing Lord that I was stoned/’Cause there’s something in a Sunday/That makes a body feel alone/And there’s nothin’ short of dyin’/That’s half as lonesome as the sound/Of a sleepin’ city sidewalk/And Sunday mornin’ comin’ down.”

Even CalTrans Girl couldn’t argue.