Before the year ends, let me dig into the mailbag for your comments on some recent, and at this point not so recent, topics. Nothing like a deadline of Dec. 31 to concentrate the mind.
Tequila! (Tequila?)
Ranchera music singer Vicente Fernandez, a titan whose death Dec. 12 at 81 was felt in the Inland Empire, always downed a shot of what was purported to be tequila during his marathon concerts. In his later years, at least, his beverage appears to have been something milder.
“He was known for having a glass in his hand,” said Steve Eckerson, who was general manager of what was then Citizens Business Bank Arena in Ontario for Fernandez’s 2009 and 2012 concerts. “His health was in a precarious state. I don’t think anything in the glass was alcohol.”
What was it, though? A decade ago, teacher Doug Evans had one of Fernandez’s nieces as a student at Chaffey College.
“She shared a picture of her and her uncle with their arms around each other from after the show,” Evans said of a then-recent concert, “and she told me a secret: The tequila he drank onstage every night in concert was actually apple juice.”
Apple juice!
“Drinking for-real tequila would have messed up his ability to perform,” Evans explained, “but he had an image to maintain.”
Don’t we all?
Fernandez would have had good company. Singer Dean Martin is said by his daughter to have sipped apple juice during performances to make audiences think he was drinking bourbon.
Stop your engines
Based on a Facebook post on where to take out-of-town-visitors to Riverside, I compiled a partial list for a column in November. Reader Tim from Menifee wished that history allowed the list to lengthen.
“Where would I take out-of-town visitors to Riverside? Easy: Riverside International Raceway. Oh, that’s not there anymore,” Tim wrote. “Next: Riverside International Raceway Museum. Oh, that’s not there anymore either.”
I’m sensing a trend. The track closed in 1989, the museum in 2016, “and I believe it’s still a sore subject with many people,” Tim lamented. It’s safe to say he’s one of them.
Goodbye, Gus
My item on the Nov. 10 death of Gus Grebe of Upland at age 102 brought a note from Stacey Guzman. A recreation coordinator for the city, she said Grebe would register in person for day trips, bringing with him a white poofy dog that he clearly loved, as well as his winning smile and affable personality. She was sorry to learn of his passing but glad he’d been memorialized here.
Rod Landon, meanwhile, never met Grebe but listened to him on the radio in Wichita, Kansas, in the 1970s and saw him broadcasting college sports there. Landon is now in the Inland Empire doing marketing for KCAL/KOLA, attributing his radio career to the inspiration of Grebe and others.
“Gus Grebe is a treasured name in the Wichita area,” Landon said. And those of us who knew him around Upland were fond of him too.
Books and records
My column in November on hitting bookstores and record shops in the Bay Area while on vacation was a hit with book readers and music fans.
“I felt like I was right there with you browsing through those delightful bookstores like I used to do with my late husband, Bob,” writes Peggy Sosbee of Covina. “We spent many happy hours poking around dimly lit stores with creaky wood floors looking for bargains.”
“As a former Berkeley resident with the same addiction to such places,” writes Dan Ozer, “your column brought back many happy memories of Moe’s, Cody’s, Rasputin’s, etc. Thank you!”
“You really captured the passion of hunting for secondhand books and music,” writes Bill Graham. “Grew up in the Bay Area and spent a lot of time in some of the places you wrote about.”
Craig Chubbuck of Beaumont was surprised not to see San Francisco’s City Lights Bookstore among my stops. Great store, but I wasn’t near the North Beach neighborhood and am more a fan of used books anyway. Or as Chubbuck surmised: “Not musty enough I guess, huh?”
Chubbuck went on to thank me for keeping him interested in reading our newspaper and said he hopes I won’t join the spate of people changing jobs. Nope, I’ll still be here next year — which starts Sunday!
brIEfly
Naomi Fraga, a botanist at the California Botanic Garden in Claremont, was recently given the Center for Biological Diversity’s E.O. Wilson Award for Outstanding Science in Biodiversity Conservation. I’ll narrow the reasons this is significant down to two. One is that the award’s namesake, Edward O. Wilson, an entomologist who was known as the “ant man,” died Dec. 26 at age 92. The second is that the award is shaped like an ant, but a large one, about a foot long, mounted on a wood base. It is a conservation piece that will double as a conversation piece.
David Allen writes Friday, Sunday and Wednesday, columns as welcome as ants at a picnic. Email dallen@scng.com, phone 909-483-9339, like davidallencolumnist on Facebook and follow @davidallen909 on Twitter.