You heard it here first: stabbing at Stater Bros.

So it seems the mystery of Thursday's low flying helicopters is solved. Word on the streets is that early Thursday evening, a man was chased through the Stater Bros. parking lot and stabbed immediately in front of the store. The man, who was stabbed five times in the stomach, is supposedly still in the hospital. It's said to be another situation where a member of gang "A" attacks a member of gang "B." How original! While I am sorry that anyone got injured, hopefully this will be a wake up call to Stater Bros. to keep their parking lot secure, and for the City to clean up the houses that border Stater Bros.

This segues into what was going to be my post anyway. Those of us who shop at Staters are all too familiar with the beige victorian I have as today's picture. It's the one across from the Alvarado side entrance and exit to Staters. This place never fails to provide Jerry-Springer-like-antics for passersby. Yesterday morning as Mr. Big and I were leaving Stater Bros., I heard a woman yell out, "I hope you get knifed." The yelling was, of course, coming from the seedy beige victorian. As I looked over, I saw a woman with attitude-a-plenty storming off the front porch of said victorian while another woman, with more attitude than teeth, sat on the porch with arms folded yelling back at her. Attitude woman marched in Stater Bros. and emerged as I was driving away with a bottle shaped paper bag in her hand. And where was she headed, now that she'd been 86'ed from beige victorian? To the Pomona Motor Lodge of course. (The subject of another post.) I am assuming she was either going to drink the contents or use it to bang on top of someone's head. I was on my way to the serenity of my Lincoln Park home by that point.

The good news? The telephone booth between beige Victorian and Pomona Motor Lodge no longer accepts collect calls (and advertises a great deal on calls to Mexico).

Be sure to click on the purple house link below to read a former post about how the beige Victorian is half of a former mortuary.

A Farewell to the Purple House

Sometimes it's not until things change or go away that you realize you had an attachment to them. So it is for me with the purple house on Alvarado, two doors east of Garey. It seems like every city has at least one crazy purple house, except for San Francisco of course, which has hundreds of purple painted ladies. Last month, Pomona's purple house on Alvarado was painted a beigish peach with white trim and brown accents. The only purple left on the property is the purple flowers in front of the home, which serve as a living tribute to the home's purple history. Gone also are the white greekish statues and the black tinted windows, which looked like they came off a muscle car anyway.

Someone told me that the purple house on Alvarado was formerly a mortuary which had been cut in half and moved to it's present location. I think the other half of the home is located across Garey, also on Alvarado (the taupe/green/maroone number that has been undergoing a partial repainting job itself). Apparently the purple house is haunted and has scared many of the tenants away. Oddly enough, the other half of the house is not haunted, at least not by ghosts. Perhaps the new neutral color scheme will be more to the ghosts' liking and the house will make some lucky homeowner a wonderful home (it's for sale by owner). At least us nosey people will be able to see into the windows now. Oh, and in case you need a purple house fix, I found another one on Pasadena Street, just west of Palomares.

Another Pomona landmark which has recently gone by the wayside is the Smiling Moustache Man of the La Favorita Market at Indian Hill and San Bernardino. An otherwise incredibly sleazy corner, the large moustache man painted on the front of the market always made our day as we drove by, whether en route to Montclair or driving aimlessly and desperately around trying to get Mr. Big to take his nap (for some reason driving east does the trick). Recently repainted and perhaps under new management, the La Favorita Market chose to remove the moustache man altogether on the actual market facade in favor of a sun-inspired logo (causing Mr. Big and me to get both mad and sad). For a while a smaller version remained on the street sign, but now that ones gone too. It's just not the same without him. I've heard they have great fish at this market --that is, if you can get past what they did to the smiling moustache man.