Friday, June 20, 2008

Summer Solstice in Pomona

Here's a few events this weekend that you won't read about on M-M-M-My Pomona:


Tonight WAS (yeah, I know, a little late on this one) the first night of a 12 week series called Claremont Friday Nights Live. There will be three venues for music spread throughout the village and the event will run from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. for the next 11 Fridays.

Saturday morning:



9 a.m. Meeting for the Lincoln Park Garden. I was there at last week's meeting, where the garden design was finalized. It will be a keyhole shape in the middle, with petal shapes branching off around it. Tomorrow's meeting will involve some actual garden work. Please come out if you can. Last week, the principal and several teachers were in attendance, Farmer Randy who will be donating the wood chips, Pastor Sham who I'm told is an irrigation expert, Fred Van Allen from the Garden, Todd from Food Not Lawns, a few Spanish speaking members from the community and Mr. Big and I. Everyone is welcome to be a part of this community garden. Email me if you'd like to be kept in touch about future meetings.





10 a.m. Hula Hooping in Lincoln Park. Each week at the hooping classes, I am meeting some great women from all over town. A few Claremonters have even joined us. We've had people from as far away as SAn Bernardino! And last week, we had our first G-U-Y (other than Mr. Big) join in. I won't say who, only that it was one of the men I've mentioned above in attendance at the Lincoln Park Garden Meeting.

Thanks to musicmuse_ca from Flicker from the retro photo of a hula hooper. This week is the 50th Anniversary of the Hula Hoop, so forget the 103 degree weather and make this the Saturday you come out and shake your hips 'til you drop.

A reminder to check out the summer classes being offered by the City of Pomona. Swim sign ups are next Saturday, June 28 at the Ganesha Park Swim Complex. Also offered this summer are all sorts of cool classes for adults and the kids, including one taught by Tim Kreitzman of Kreitzman's Mixed Martial Arts (just another Pomona do-gooder):



Kreitzman's studio is located at 410 N. Park, Pomona, 620-7919.

Not exactly sure how this happened, but I left 5 year old Mr. Big at the computer looking at karate videos on youtube. When I returned, he was grinning from ear to ear having found his way to a youtube video called "Hot Babes of 2008," featuring bikini-clad women.

In other news, a huge old growth -- but very dead -- Camphor Tree was removed from Lincoln Park this afternoon. When last I checked with Pomona's tree guy, Steve Mittleider (spelling?), they were still trying to figure out why it died. Anyone know? What a loss.

THE END

12 comments:

Garrett Sawyer said...

Food not lawns? I've not read that yet but it's a very popular book. How is Todd associated with Food not Lawns?

This community garden sounds neat. If only I could get up that early!Maybe I can force myself to help out one of these days. Will there be a meeting next Saturday?

I still want to do this Hula Hooping class, ugh...Why am I such a night person!? lol. These times for these things are nice because they're at the time of day where it's not hot during the Summer (mornings) but I can never get myself up early enough for that unless I go to bed at 9pm or something and I almost always stay up til 3am. Perhaps I'll emerge from this habit just to meet some new people for a change.

meg said...

"Here's a few events this weekend that you won't read about on M-M-M-My Pomona"

Gee, GOP, I didn't realize that you and Ed were having a contest!

Anonymous said...

I am interested to know more about the LP garden. At first I thought maybe you meant the ornamental garden in Lincoln Park and were talking about redoing it. But after some thought I am guessing that this would be a community vegetable garden? Am I right? Where is it going to be? from the pic it looks like a location downtown. So many questions!

Anonymous said...

I miss the Pomona hula hoopers! I've busted out the trusty travel hoop in both Nebraska and DC. Can't wait to get back to Pomona in August! Thanks for the blog -- always nice to read a little hometown news.

Ed said...

I'm guessing the Lincoln Park garden is actually the Lincoln Elementary school garden. Thanks GoP for getting involved! Do you know if the school has plans on using it for educational purposes or is the plot just a "community garden"?

Meg, Meg, Meg! My calendar choices are purely self-centered. Going to the Fairplex...maybe, Hula Hooping...not a chance. My masculinity is far too fragile. The E-waste drop-off at St. Josephs was mighty handy today.

me said...

Wow, obviously everyone is inside at their computers hiding from the heat today, as I didn't expect to get 5 responses to this sort of post.

first off, the hoola hooping will be moving up to 9 a.m. as of next weekend. This is due to the Summer heat.

The garden that I'm speaking of is the one at Lincoln Elementary. Sorry, I probably should not have referred to it as the Lincoln Park community garden. But given that it is within walking and biking distance of those of us in Lincoln Park, we are all invited to be a part of it. I think at this point is it a garden club that students may elect to join, but I'm not sure if there are educational plans for it beyond that. The teacher who has taken the lead reads the blog and maybe she will join in. I do know that the principal is very excited about the idea of the greater community joining in, including local home schoolers and intra district transfers, etc. This year's new principal, Michelle Bauer, is super cool btw and is interested enough about the community that she has even peeked at the blog. Yes, there will be another garden meeting next SAturday. I am hoping it will either be earlier than 9 a.m. with this heat, or later in the day. Sad to say, I missed today's meeting because the heat kept me up so late last night that we overslept. According to photographer Richard, there were only four people out at the garden today. AGain, if you are interested, email me and I can get you on the email string. If this garden and Tri-City are successful, they can be used as models (and Proof) for building other community gardens within the city. I should have more info to announce about Tri City garden later this week.
(Tri City was the first community garden spearheaded by Farmer Randy up on N. Garey)

Pride-we miss you too. I know you are going to like the group of women who have formed since you left.

I think it's pretty cool that Ed has become the self-appointed stats and calender guy. How can I even start to compete with the latest e-waste drop off news? ;)

Oh lastly, someone asked about Todd, well he organizes Claremont's Food Not Lawns chapter.

G of P

Andrew said...

I'm not sure but i bet the camphor's death has something to do with it being in the midst of a lawn. at that age it may become sensitive to the high amounts of water it gets from being in the middle of turf grass. It's common with Oaks that take very little water. it may have affected the health of the camphor

Ed said...

I'd even encourage parents from outside Lincoln's boundary to consider sending their children to that school. The principals (Mr. Amancio and Ms. Bauer) we've had experience with have both done excellent jobs. As I've commented before, the teachers at Lincoln are as good or better than any we've experienced in the other three school districts that our children have attended (which includes Claremont).

"Self-appointed stats and calendar guy...." I'm thinkin' that doesn't read quite the way you intended.

The e-waste roundup was actually a fundraiser for St. Joseph's school. Their goal is to provide each classroom with at least one computer. I thought it was worthy of mentioning!

Anonymous said...

hey ed ren here you might want to check out school dist. around pomona.they update there computers seems like all the time i seen them just thrown into a scrap pile outside in the heat and rain to be taken away what a waste so you might check with them nothing wrong with them there just replacing new with old so check them out the other school dist.

Anonymous said...

speaking of gardens Park West High down here on west second st. they have a garden there.they use old tires and they stacked them about 4 or 5 high filled with dirt.my friend Frank Garcia started it back when he was principal at the school and the garden is still going strong.

Garrett Sawyer said...

Yes Park West has a nice little small garden. I thought it was cool when I went to school there for a while. I was never in a class that did anything with the garden though. I wonder what class takes care of it?

Vejar elementary HAD a garden once upon a time, a rather big one in fact, before the new school was built and the old one was converted to Mendoza Annex. Fremont Middle also had one. For a while the one at Vejar was doing well when they had this one hippy guy come and teach the lower grades how to garden. But my last year there the garden wasn't doing so well. The garden at Fremont was never that great when I went there.

Ms. Bermudez said...

The Lincoln Elementary Community Garden will be meeting next Thursday, July 3 at 6 pm. We are trying to beat the heat and get more community participation. As G of P stated, everyone is invited to be a part of this great project! In the fall, we plan to use the garden for educational purposes. Several teachers will have their students involved in the planting and growing of vegetables, herbs and flowers. Thank you G of P for your wonderful blog and updates on the garden! And thank you Ed for your positive comments about Lincoln Elementary and its staff. We try to do our Best!!!