July 2010 Issue | Download the Full Issue

Fallbrook has a sizable population of collectors of vintage motorcycles, including some bikes that were loaned to Guggenheim Museum’s “Art of the Motorcycle”—which inspired Mary Perhacs, executive director of the Fallbrook Art Center, who put together the first “Wheels of Desire” Motorcycle show in 2003 and again in 2004.
Due to the illness of the first curator, Rainbow resident Dick Pearce, the show was sidelined for a few years, but now it has returned.
The third annual “Wheels of Desire” will be held July 11–Aug. 15 at the art center.
Featured are some of the rarest and most sensational motorcycles to be found in southern California, including a 1899 DeDion, 1917 Harley Davidson board tracker, 1947 Vincent Black Shadow, one of the first Hondas, and some modern custom motorcycles.
A section of the show, sponsored by Monster Energy, is devoted to motocross/supercross for younger enthusiasts.
The primary curator is Fallbrook resident Greg MacDonald, who will have bikes in the show and has worked with several area collectors to gather “the best of the best” examples of bikes spanning over 100 years—and who has managed to get his hands on the 1899 DeDion Trike.
Perhacs praises MacDonald, “who had the connections (as well as a very fine collection himself), and more importantly, the respect of his peers who agreed to lend their wonderful bikes.”
The other curator is Jim Swan, also of Fallbrook, who has assembled a collection of Monster Energy Supercross/Motocross bikes from the dawn of motocross, in the 1960s, to the present.
The difference between motocross and supercross is that motocross is raced cross-country while supercross happens in stadiums.
Swan, who sits on the board of directors of the Art Center’s nonprofit parent organization, Fallbrook Arts Inc., is very familiar with the history of the “dirt bike” as he owned a motorcycle dealership in Illinois. He secured the Monster Energy sponsorship, along with its help obtaining historic and current bikes of this genre.
According to Swan, “Motocross started in the 1960s, probably in Europe, and in the early 70s, the Japanese companies got involved. I’ve got an early 70’s Husqvarna, a Husqvarna 250 MX.”
He has also obtained a Hodaka Super Rat (circa 1970) that was one of the very earliest Japanese motocross bikes, made by a combination of Japanese and American interests.
“We will also have some stepping stone bikes. By the early 70s, the Japanese had started to dominate motocross, so one of the earliest bikes is an Elsinore by Honda, one of the real stepping stones in the history, that was done to penetrate the American bike market. Nineteen seventy three [1973] was a watershed year for a major manufacturer,” recalls Swan.
He says the exhibit will also probably have a championship bike from the mid-1980s, the heyday of motocross, and then a current Team Kawasaki Monster Energy, Kawasaki 250 Supercross, that has been ridden by Christophe Pourcel, who just won the 250 Supercross Championship in 2010.
This addition is new, and is in keeping with Perhac’s philosophy, of, as she puts it, “always expanding our audience, and realizing the regional popularity of this sport, it seemed like a natural addition.”
Visitors will be treated to a wide cross section of bikes—not only the diversity of the makes and models, but they will also be able to read the stories posted by each bike with notes about the bike’s history and the history of the bike’s owners … some of whom discovered their treasurers in ‘baskets’ and worked for over 20 years restoring the machines.
Not all the bikes are ‘museum’ pieces … some are ridden daily by the owners who are loaning their “babies” for the five week show.
The exhibit will also include motorcycle-related art from several artists :
Mark Jurecki is a sculptor who lives in Carlsbad. His two pieces are ceramic. One piece, “Won’t Start” shows a man failing to kick-start a chopper based on a 61 panhead. His companion has lost interest. This work was inspired by a roadside tableau in Florida.
Menifee artist Don Roth’s whimsical work “Touring Tabby” is from his “Kool-Kat Kollection.” The work is acrylic on canvas with some use of airbrush.
Finally there’s Murrieta artist Rich Stergulz. Rich has created two new works just for the show, including a painting of “Harley Mike” who rides a 1930 Harley Davidson.
There will be an opening reception on Saturday, July 10, from 5-7 p.m. ($20 per person, FAC Premier Level Members Free), with the show running daily from July 11 to August 15.
Hours: Mon-Sat 10-4, Sundays Noon-3. Admission is $8, FAC Members Free. Fallbrook Art Center is located in Fallbrook’s Historic Downtown District at 103 South Main, Fallbrook CA, 92028. For other information, please call FAC at 760-728-1414 or visit www.fallbrookartcenter.org.

It’s the Grand Tradition for July 4th Fireworks

Summer fun is coming to Fallbrook, with the annual Independence Day Celebration put on by the Fallbrook Beautification Alliance (FBA).
Thanks to the generous support from the community, the Fallbrook Beautification Alliance's Independence Day Celebration and fund-raiser will once again be held on July 4, from 4-9:30 p.m. at The Grand Tradition. No admittance is allowed after 8 p.m.
“It’s a traditional, hometown fourth of July celebration,” says Mary Jo Bacik of the FBA. “The activities, foods and atmosphere of the event are reminiscent of earlier days. It’s a fun family atmosphere.”
For the last four years, guests attending the annual fund-raiser event have enjoyed world-class fireworks thanks to the generosity of philanthropist Arlyne Ingold, whose contribution of $20,000 helped make the event possible, along with a key contribution from the county supervisor’s office.
The event ticket prices have not changed over the years, a fact that the FBA is proud to say allows families to afford the popular community celebration.
Tickets are $25 each in advance, $35 at the door and $10 each for children ages 6-12. The price of the ticket includes admission and ten booth/food/beverage tickets. Children age five and under are admitted free and are given five booth/food/beverage tickets per child. Parking is $5 per car and $25 per motor home.
For groups, Firecracker Seating is available for $750. These tickets include admission for ten and a reserved table, along with ten booth/food/beverage tickets for each guest.
There will be no 8 p.m. “fireworks only” ticket sales at the event this year.
Advance tickets can be purchased in the Fallbrook area at Major Market, A Few of Our Favorite Things on Main Street, and at the Fallbrook Chamber of Commerce.
The celebration begins when the gates open at 4 p.m. The event also includes a military tribute, live entertainment, dancing, games and activities for kids, a silent auction, food and beverages, the Quack-Up Cup rubber duck race, a rubber raft regatta and fireworks, which begin at 8:45 p.m.
Returning again this year to bring the live music will be the band, The Corvettes, a group that plays classic rock and dance hits from the 60s and 70s.
To make the most of the fun, attendees are encouraged to bring blankets and chairs for lawn seating, as well as sunscreen and hats to stay protected from the sun. Outside food and drink, umbrellas and pets are not allowed.
The dinner menu consists of a chicken dinner with beans and salads, barbecue beef sandwiches, hot dogs, hamburgers and pizza. The dessert options are popcorn, cotton candy, snow cones, watermelon slices, cookies and pie. To drink, there will be plenty of beer, wine, soft drinks and water, along with free coffee on hand.
The Quack-Up Cup rubber duck race is an exciting event in which rubber ducks will race across the Grand Tradition Lake. Ducks are available for advance sponsorship for $5 each, $25 for a pack of six and $100 for a Grand Pack of 25.
Each duck will have a number, corresponding to its sponsor. The ducks will be released, and the first duck to reach the other side will be declared the winner.
The winning duck sponsor will receive a $1,000 U.S. Savings Bond from the First National Bank of Southern California. Second place will receive a $500 gift certificate to Major Market, and third place will receive a $250 gift certificate to Myrtle Creek Nursery. Full contest rules and entry details are available at www.fallbrookbeautification.org.
Proceeds from the event go to help to beautify and maintain community parks and other public areas in Fallbrook. The inaugural event in 2005 raised over $25,000 to help pay for these non-county funded needs, and this is the only source of income for the FBA.
The event is sponsored by Supervisor Bill Horn, Arlyne Ingold, The Ingold Family Trust, Angel Society of Fallbrook, Fallbrook Vintage Car Club, Rally for Children, Coldwell-Banker Landmark Group, Earl and Beverly McDougal, Bill and Jan Schultz, Don and Diane McNutt, Mickey and Dawne Goodwin McCullough, First National Bank of Southern California, Major Market and Myrtle Creek Nursery.
For more information, visit the FBA Web site at www.fallbrookbeautification.org or call the Fallbrook Chamber of Commerce at 760-728-5845.

Get Your Best Hat Ready for the Del Mar Racetrack’s Opening Day

Get your best hat ready, because the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club (DMTC) is set to celebrate opening day of the 2010 horse racing on July 21.
The DMTC was founded in 1937 by, among others, famous singer Bing Crosby. Today, the Del Mar Race Track has a reputation for its atmosphere of summer fun along with the thrilling horse racing action.
Located just minutes north of San Diego, the Del Mar Race Track offers racing daily from July 21 through the first week of September. On opening day, the racing action runs from 2-5 p.m., but get there early to enjoy all the sights, sounds and fun the track has to offer.
Be sure to hit one of the track’s many concession areas on your way in to see the races. Fans can enjoy the atmosphere in the large Plaza de Mexico courtyard, located just inside the main entrance, or simply wander the grounds before the races get started.
If you like to get close to the action, the infield has a lake, picnic tables and even a tiki bar. Clubhouse ticket holders can check out the grandstands, watch the horses come out for the post and even lean against the fence along the front straightaway to see their horse of choice up close.
Some groups opt to rent tables at the one of the outdoor trackside restaurants. For $60, the table is reserved all day and makes for a home base of operations. Food purchases are required for table rentals.
One of the draws of the track is its laid back, carefree atmosphere. Fans can stroll the grounds, get up close to the action, and enjoy the Southern California sun while enjoying one of the world’s oldest sports.
Another way to be a part of the race is to place a wager on the horse of your choice. Fans can purchase a ticket at any of the betting windows, or at the automated machines. Entry bets are $2 each, and the staff at the track is friendly and helpful, especially to new bettors.
But perhaps the most fun is the spectacle of what the ladies will wear to the track this summer. Every year, the track becomes a gallery of hats both fantastic and colorful, as ladies from all over the country show off their styles in celebration of another year at the horse races.
Racing begins July 21 and continues through Sept. 8. Visit the DMTC’s Web site at www.dmtc.com to purchase tickets and find out more information about the upcoming season.

Comic-Con: It’s a State of Mind

Someone in an Iron Man outfit rubs shoulders with Wonder Woman while the Incredible Hulk thumbs through a collection of vintage comic books from the Golden Age.
Geeky nerds, (or is it nerdy geeks?) armed to the teeth with iPads or iPods with specialized convention “apps” gawk at impossibly proportioned beauties in costumes that defy gravity and flirt with violating the law.
Nothing is too outlandish or outre to merit more than a passing glance or an upturned eyebrow from the thousands of people who crowd the San Diego Convention Center for Comic-Con International, which bills itself as “the home of the largest comic book and popular arts convention in the world.” For the four days that it is in San Diego, it effectively brings the great city almost to a standstill as every downtown hotel room is booked, every parking lot is filled, and every mode of transportation is filled to overflowing.
Comic-Con is the largest convention in the Western Hemisphere, and the second largest in the world. It is estimated that in 2007, 125,000 people attended.
For the past couple of years, the event has sold out entirely in advance and the venues have spread out in all directions to try to address the growing numbers of attendees. So, for example, several events were held at the Midway floating museum several blocks from the Convention Center.
Although Comic-Con is its title, the event has grown into a celebration of all “popular culture” including horror, anime, manga, animation, video games, webcomics, and fantasy novels, to name a few.
Although there are certainly plenty of old folks in their 30s and 40s and above who wend their way through the dealer’s stacks or crowd screening rooms to see the previews of upcoming science fiction and fantasy movies, Comic-Con especially belongs to the young.
Samantha Carr, a freshman at Cal State San Marcos who was recently named as Director of Youth Projects with the Fallbrook Film Festival and Factory, comments why she attends every year. “It will be an exciting opportunity to meet the talented film makers and ask them about their craft and the process of creating comic and fantasy based films. I plan to bring my video camera to swipe as many interviews as possible for my new video blog.”
She adds, “I love attending the convention because it seems like everyone there is passionate about something. The talents are passionate about their craft, the press about the process, and it seems like the fans are passionate about everything! It's a fun weekend and an interesting look into some of the most creative minds in the industry.”
If you were to ask some of the even younger attendees, they might say they go because it's THE coolest thing going on in San Diego perhaps for the entire summer.
We all remember that as teens and pre-teens we “collected” experiences. More specifically kids go to see movie tie-ins and meet the stars and other talent.
Some of the more technology-savvy kids who have their own blogs try to snag interviews with the many stars who can be found at almost every turn and corner of the incredibly crowded convention center.
One 16-year old named Bryce told us, “What do I like about Comic-Con? There are freaks and geeks everywhere who share the same interests that I love!
“Being that there is so much to do and see, you just can’t get bored. Movies, video games, television series and mostly comics—all of these give me the thrill to keep going and going. Another ‘Marvelous’ thing is the freedom to dress up as something you love and not be ridiculed for it, because everyone there loves and respects that creature/hero/villain you became.
“If it weren’t for Comic-Con, my summers away from school would be dull and unentertaining. These are the things that drive me back to this once-a-year event!”
For more information about Comic-Con check out their Website at www.comic-con.org.
If you don’t have your tickets yet, don’t bother trying to go this year—it’s sold out!

Escondido History Center: Six Museums In One

Have you ever wanted to learn how to be a blacksmith or to build a wagon wheel?
Are you curious about life at the turn of the century in a house with no indoor plumbing or what Escondido looked like when it was a young, vigorous town full of promise?
Then the Escondido History Center may be for you.
Escondido Grape Day Park—you know, the park with the sculpture of a giant pile of grapes and the old Santa Fe train depot—is the home of one museum in six structures—most of them moved to the park from their original locations.
Director Wendy Barker has been running the museum with a minimum staff—but lots of dedicated volunteers—for a dozen years. She recently gave me a tour of the facilities.
The History Center’s headquarters was the city’s first library, a yellow one-story building first built in 1895 on East Grand Avenue & Hickory. The center began in 1956 as the Historical Society. After collecting artifacts and photos for two decades, it opened as a small museum. It has been in Grape Day Park since 1976. In 2006, the 50th anniversary of its founding, the Historical Society changed its name to the Escondido History Center.
Next to the old library is the Victorian Country Home, originally built on North Escondido Boulevard. It is furnished to give a look back in time to 1890.
The Penner Barn, which was moved to the park from the east part of town, houses old farming equipment and some vintage cars. The barn is open for special events. Volunteers have been doing a lot of restoration work on it in recent years.
The blacksmith shop is the only facsimile in the collection and is a reproduction of the Bandy Blacksmith Shop that was located on Kalmia Street in the early 1900s.
A team of blacksmiths offers classes in this ancient craft. They include the legendary Phil Ewing, who also teaches a “wheelwright” class. Ewing is one of a handful of people in the United States who still know how to build a wagon wheel.
Next is the Sante Fe Depot, one of Escondido’s oldest buildings, originally located on West Grand, between Quince & Spruce.
When the city was first being laid out, the developers and city fathers “bribed” the Santa Fe Railroad to bring a railhead to Escondido, according to Barker. “The original plan was to someday take the railroad from Escondido to San Diego,” she says. Escondido is still waiting for that to happen!
The depot’s freight room contains general exhibits of the city’s development, and a collection of photos showing prominent buildings of the early 20th century. Many still exist, although usually shorn of the baroque embellishments that made them so memorable in their day.
The railroad car, housed on the other side of the station, was built by the Pullman Company in the 1920s.
Besides restored leather passenger seats and a mailroom, it houses a diorama showing buildings along the Santa Fe railroad from Oceanside to Escondido during the 1920s, the era in which the car saw service. The mailroom contains the usual “pigeon holes” of the period and a swinging arm used by the moving train to pick up mailbags left along the tracks when stopping was not part of the schedule.
Stopping IS part of the schedule for the free walking tours of Escondido that are one of the most popular activities offered by the center. These tours are held twice a month, on Tuesdays and Saturdays, and include tours of different sections of town, such as Old Escondido East and Downtown Escondido.
One thing that isn’t free, but which is a lot of fun, is the annual Echoes from the Past, which will be held Oct. 3 at Oak Hill Memorial Park. This tour of Escondido’s only cemetery focuses on some of its most well known “residents.”
Tours of the six museum structures by school groups and occasionally senior groups are a big part of what the museum does, according to Barker.
History isn’t all that the History Center does. It also hosts Saturdays in the Park, free programs every Saturday afternoon from 2-4 p.m. in May and June and 3-5 p.m. from July–September.
The first Saturday is devoted to family fun, the second Saturday to art, the third to music and the fourth to performances. It’s all free and kid friendly.
There are also special events at the park. In May it hosted the American Heritage Car Show, and in June the Community Peace Walk & Festival.
July 4 will be a traditional Independence Day Celebration, with fireworks, and on September 11, there will be the annual Grape Day festival.
This summer, on the third Saturday, beginning at 7 p.m. are Movies in the Park, this year screening recent science fiction movies appropriate for the family, such as Planet 51 and Up.
These activities, while not history-related, do have a purpose, to bring families back to a park that has, in recent years, acquired a reputation for being overrun by the homeless.
Any visitor will discover that this is still quite true, but, as Barker explains, “We are reinvigorating the park. If we can get more people to use the park, the other elements will leave.
The History Center, jointly with the Children’s Museum, also located in the park, has gotten grants to put on some of these activities and to add playground equipment.
“If we don’t do anything, the city won’t do anything because they have a lot of parks to manage. Activity is the best security, and if we can get individuals and families to start coming here things could turn around,” says Barker.
“We are impacted by the park’s reputation more than anyone. It’s a beautiful park. It just needs to be used more.”
With family activities such as these, and all of the resources that help the visitor to uncover the past of the “hidden valley,” the Escondido History Center should be on your short list of places to visit soon.
For more information, contact the Escondido History Center at 760-743-8207 or ehc@escondidohistory.org.

Americana Music Series

The Fallbrook Americana Music Series is in the midst of its tenth year of bringing homegrown, counter-commercial folk music to an enthusiastic audience.
Fallbrook resident Phee Sherline started the series with the help of Pat Sica, also a Fallbrook resident, who knew that she had been booking the San Diego Folk Heritage concert series (www.sdfolk heritage.org) for several years and came to her to see if she could do something similar for her hometown.
“She told me ‘If you start a music series I will help you,’ ” recalls Sherline. “I thought that it was about time to start such a series in Fallbrook, too.”
The series, which usually includes eight to ten concerts, runs from January to October and plays to audiences in two venues, the Fallbrook Woman’s Club and the Mission Theater for the occasional larger concert.
“We book acoustic music, which includes the standard instruments such as guitars, banjos, fiddles, used one way or another. We don’t use anything electronically projected,” says Sherline. “We are looking for a very homegrown, counter commercial style.
“The word used to be ‘folk’ music but that has lost its meaning, so the word now is actually ‘Americana,’ and that’s because no one can think of a good word for it,” she says. “It doesn’t blare at you from the stage. It doesn't have mindless lyrics, it’s not like what you will hear going mainstream.”
The musicians are not talented amateurs. Most of them dedicate their lives to this type of music, “but they have made the interesting choice to make less money,” observes Sherline. “It’s a hard, lean lifestyle and many people live their lives on the road. Some perform every week of the year.
“Whereas mainstream musicians make thousands at each concert and attract thousands, our people attract forty to sixty, and sometimes up to two or three hundred. They have made a conscious choice to stay away from pop music and to live their lives differently. Sometimes they are very interesting people,” she says.
Past concerts have included artists with colorful names such as Trails and Rails, Paddy Doyle’s Boots, Bayou Seco, Small Potatoes, Prickly Pair and Riders of the Purple Sage.
Sherline and her husband, Ken Graydon, although never professional musicians like the dedicated folks mentioned above, have done a bit of touring themselves over the years—so they appreciate the form and know many of the people who practice it.
It’s harder for Sherline to do music these days because she is partially deaf and has to rely on a cochlear implant, a surgically installed hearing prosthesis. However, she has worked very hard to train herself to use it and can appreciate the musicians that she books just fine.
The remaining concerts this year are:
July 17—Larry Robinson, a Fallbrook favorite, put together a show for the Americana series several years ago combining his fine baritone with the voices of his adult children, at least one of whom will be with him this time as well. The house was sold to overflow last time. At the Woman’s Club.
August—Dark
Sept. 25—Ken Graydon and Friends. Audiences usually see Ken solo in cowboy mode. This time they will see the cowboy but other facets of his talent as well and hear his rich baritone voice blended with those of some friends. At the Woman’s Club.
October 23—Willson & McKee, touring together since 1990, they have combined contemporary songwriting with traditional Celtic foundations to create a wild musical ride with rich vocal harmonies complimented by harp, accordion, guitar and exciting hammer dulcimer. At the Woman’s Club.
January 2011—Tim Flannery and Friends return. Date not firm yet.
Ticket costs are $15 for adults and $7 for kids 7-17. Tickets for concerts that occur at the Mission Theater can be purchased at the theater box office and tickets for shows at the Woman’s Club can be purchased at Major Market. Tickets can also be purchased at the door for both venues.
For more information on concerts, call Phee Sherline at 760-723-7255.

Palomar College Expansion

As you drive north up I-15 and pass where that freeway and Hwy 76 meet, look off to the east and you may see what will someday be a community college campus.
Someday, perhaps in ten or even 15 years, the Palomar College North Education Center near Fallbrook will be ready for students.
It will be built in the midst of what are now three potential developments, including properties owned by the Pappas, Passerelle and Pardee groups, all in various degrees of planning.
The North Education Center—like those developments—will take advantage of the probability that future growth will be in the north, because there is no more land left to develop on the coast.
The campus site is undergoing environmental review under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). There will need to be some mitigation for the impact on wetlands and sage. That will be addressed with the purchase of offsite mitigation land.
Once various environmental reviews and sign-offs are completed, a ground-breaking will be held. However, it will be many years before the campus begins building or reaches its full potential.
The nearly 84 acre campus site was purchased a few years ago by the Palomar Community College District, to address expected growth for the next half century. The huge district of 2,500 square miles encompasses Borrego Springs, Camp Pendleton (north to the Riverside County line), down to Poway and Rancho Peñasquitos and over to the coast almost to Oceanside.
The North Education Center is part of a $1 billion building program, with $694 million provided by Prop. M bonds—which voters approved in November of 2006—and $300 million from the state. This is the district’s first major building program since the last Palomar College buildings were finished over 50 years ago, and the first bond passed since the district was created in 1946,
About one seventh of that $1 billion will go for a South Education Center, with another seventh devoted to the North Education Center, according to Bonnie Ann Dowd, Vice President, Finance and Administrative Services for the district. A small amount will be devoted to the seven acre Escondido “outreach site” with the remainder of the $1 billion going to renovate the existing 200 acre site in San Marcos.
The North Education Center will be a full service campus, not a “satellite” or “outreach” site, such as ones the district operates in Ramona, Pauma Valley, Fallbrook High School, Mount Carmel and Borrego Springs. It will be a comprehensive campus, with student support services. A student could, theoretically complete all or most of his general education requirements or earn a certificate there.
The land, purchased from the Passerelle development, is on Horse Ranch Creek Road, parallel to the freeway, directly across from the Pala Mesa Resort’s golf course.
No detailed plans have been developed for the North Education Center, although its general outlines were laid out in the Palomar College Master Plan 2022.
It is called Master Plan 2022 because a demographic study of the district determined that it would reach 50,000 students by 2022. Currently 33,000 fulltime students attend classes.
Fifty-five of the 84 acres on the Fallbrook site will be set aside for buildings and the rest reserved for mitigation and native plant areas.
“Within Prop. M, we had the money to buy the land, and we are estimating that we can put up 150,000 square feet of buildings. Prop. M doesn’t provide the money to fully develop the site,” notes Dowd.
The 150,000 sq. feet of buildings will house 2,500 “fulltime equivalent students.” This unit, similar to ADA (average daily attendance) for a K-12 classroom, is used by the state to pay a community college. It represents one student taking five classes, or five students taking one class. Once the campus achieves 1,000 fulltime equivalent students, the state will provide operational support funding.
The first series of bonds from Prop. M were sold in May, for $160 million. That money is being spent as you read this article.
For example, the ground-breaking was just held for the new planetarium at the San Marcos campus, which will replace the old planetarium and multimedia lab at a cost of $6.9 million.
Completed in time for classes in August will be the state-of-the-art Heath Sciences building, devoted to nursing and dental programs, which cost about $4.6 million.
San Marcos Campus
The bulk of the building in the master plan will be done at the San Marcos campus, where all buildings will be replaced or remodeled.
For example, $16.6 million will be used to construct a new 26,000 sq. ft industrial technology center to provide instruction in automotive, welding, waste water treatment, electro-mechanical equipment technology and water technology programs.
Another $9.95 million will be spent to completely renovate the 29 year old campus theater, whose second phase, including a dance studio, was never completed. This will take the theater from 20,180 sq. ft. up to 35,180 sq. ft.
Another $9 million will be spent for information services technology projects, to bring up-to-date telecommunications equipment systems to classrooms and labs.
Another $5.2 million will be spent for a natural science building, $6.4 million for parking lot improvements, with $2 million to relocate the baseball field, and $2 million for landscape improvements.
A new learning resources center/library, will be built for $2.5 million.
The $1 billion that is being spent and will be spent over the next two decades will help Palomar Community College serve educational needs of the region until nearly the end of this century.

Local Cowboy Poet Taps a Rich Vein

HE’S A COWBOY
By KEN GRAYDON
On a trip to Hawaii some years back, I became aware of the Hawaiian ranching culture and the cowboy, the paniolo. I realized people tend cows much the same way in places all over the world.
On the Pampas they called him a gaucho,
A vaquero in Nuevo Leon
In Hawaii he’s called paniolo,
In Kenya, as Masai he’s known.
In Australia he’s labeled a drover
And he spends his time pushing a mob
But he’s a cowboy whatever you call him.
What doesn’t change much is the job.
From Mexico north to Montana
On across the Canadian line,
From Brisbane west across Queensland
And beyond where the Kimberleys shine,
Throughout Tanzania and Kenya
At Naalehu where Kilauea still throbs,
Though the methods of herding may differ,
What doesn’t change much is the job.
And it’s let ‘em spread out in the daylight.
At night, bunch ‘em so they don’t stray,
And the flies and the heat and the dust clouds
Are all just a part of his day.
He’s a cowboy whatever you call him
And he’s usually rough as a cob
And though he’s ridden from Hell to wherever
What hasn’t changed much is the job.
Fallbrook resident Ken Graydon describes himself as “venerable,” and certainly his art, that of the cowboy poet, has been around for a spell. At age 76 Graydon himself fits the term “venerable” too—although his rich baritone suggests the vitality of a much younger man.
He’s grizzled, with a white moustache, and is usually accoutered in a Stetson and cowboy boots. He stays pretty active. The last time I talked to him, he had just returned from helping a neighbor work on a water pump.
“I try to keep active. You don’t let things coast either physically or in your writing. You keep new things happening,” he says.
He also attends four or five cowboy poet events a year, in various parts of the country.
Cowboy poetry dates to the 1800s, to the birth of the term, “cowboy” when something like the modern version of cowboy poetry appeared in letters sent home by young men who had followed Horace Greeley’s advice to “go West.” They described the problems and joys of the West as they carved out lives alien and strange.
Some of these poems were published and presented to a larger audience.
According to the Library of Congress: “Cowboy poetry in the United States dates back to the period of the long-distance cattle drives from Texas to Kansas that followed the Civil War, and it has been a thriving and ever-changing tradition ever since. As a genre, it has been influenced by literary works—the Bible, the Odyssey, Shakespeare’s plays, the works of the Beat Generation - by popular writers such as Robert W. Service and Rudyard Kipling, by Victorian popular culture and its fondness for schoolhouse and parlor recitations, by Hollywood cowboy films, by country-western music and by political developments from the advent of homesteading and barbed wire in the 19th century to contemporary vegetarianism, environmentalism and economic development associated with the ‘New West.’ ”
The first “surge” of Cowboy Poetry occurred in the 19th century. The second occurred in the Dude Ranch era of the 1920s & 30s. “Ranch hands would often try their hands at it to entertain the guests,” notes Grayson.
But as has always been true, some wrote because they had to. It was in their DNA. Graydon, who has written and performed cowboy poetry for more than 30 years, is one of those. “With me it’s more than a hobby—it’s a compulsion!” he says.
He came to the genre pretty late, although he says, “I’ve been entranced with folk music since the days of Burl Ives. He was my first awareness of that kind of music.”
What does that have to do with cowboy poetry? Well, cowboy poetry is sort of a literary version of folk music.
Graydon calls it “handmade music,” music that comes from the inside. “These songs were written about events and feelings and had a closer grip on reality that struck a chord and continues to resonate,” he says.
Graydon grew up in Delano in the San Joaquin Valley. His childhood was spent with horses and cattle on the family ranch, but he eventually made a living with a different kind of horse: wiring hotrods. This work let him travel and go where the jobs were.
In Los Angeles in the 1960s, he joined Songmakers, singers and musicians devoted to traditional and contemporary folk and other forms of homemade music. He also met the woman who became his wife, Phee. “You could say I found a home,” he recalls.
In the 1980s, they spent two years on the road, criss-crossing the country, finding folks who loved the kind of music they did.
One day they had car trouble outside of an Idaho town so small that its liquor store also carried auto parts. Its Baptist church had an autoharp circle that met in the basement. It was a typical experience along the way.
They made friends with local musicians, and found kindred spirits in large cities and small towns along their travels.
During this period, Cowboy Poetry entered its third “surge.” “Several people were curious to see what cowboys and ranchers were writing and they uncovered a mother-lode, and to our satisfaction, they put together the first modern cowboy poetry gathering,” says Graydon.
This movement was enabled by the founding of the Western Folklife Center in Elko, Nevada by its director Hal Cannon. The center will sponsor the 27th annual National Cowboy Poetry Gathering on Jan. 24-29, 2011.
The people investigating this literary phenomenon soon discovered that not only were people writing cowboy poetry, but that plenty of people all over the country wanted to listen to it.
According to Graydon, cowboy poetry is outdoors oriented, and it occasionally contains political rhetoric about the plight of the rancher and those he has to deal with, such as the Bureau of Land Management and ecologists. It contains lots of humor.
“In the cow camps, they sang the songs they knew. The cowboy poets deal with what they have to deal with. It’s sometimes wry, sometimes humorous and sometimes angry,” says Graydon. “I tend to lean towards humor and whimsy.”
Sometimes he starts with a phrase. Sometimes a poem comes to him all at once. “One time I dreamed it and woke up and grabbed pen and paper and wrote it down.”
Unlike many modern writers, Graydon sticks to old-fashioned pen and paper.
One poem, Windmill, took him 20 years to complete from the moment he was inspired by an issue of Arizona Highways magazine that featured windmills. It turned out that no one else had done a poem about these windmills, so he decided to do it.
He worked on it in “fits and starts,” until, one day, it suddenly fell onto the paper.
“Sometimes it flows and sometimes it comes one word at a time,” he says.
His poems take between a minute and a half and five minutes to recite. “I’m not writing any Beowulfs,” he says.
Today he is part of a genre that is, “a very live and living movement. It’s not archaic. It’s not made up of museum pieces. It’s very vital!”
Ken Graydon has done four recordings and a book of his poetry and songs called The Way I Heard it....The Book, available for $20 through Graydon at 760-723-7255. His website is www.kengraydon.com.

Dominic's: Homemade Goodness Made To Order

Eighty percent of the dishes served in Dominic’s Italian Gourmet in Escondido are cooked to order, says owner, chef John Moetamedi, who has owned this longtime area eatery for a little more than a year.
However, Moetamedi, who grew up in Mission Viejo, has been in the restaurant business for over two decades. He previously owned Jays Gourmet in Encinitas before moving inland.
“We make our own meatballs, our own sauce and our own sweet Italian sausage,” he says. “If I could I would grow my own tomatoes.”Moetamedi specializes in unique home cooking and a kid friendly, down-to-earth atmosphere.
They also make their extremely tasty Italian salad dressings that make Dominic’s salads such a memorable experience. Their homemade Caesar dressing, made with hand-squeezed lime juice is award-winning and is served on shrimp, chicken or spinach Caesar salads.
“I could probably buy dressing for less than it costs to make it, but you’re not going to find that dressing anywhere else,” says Moetamedi.
The cuisine is chiefly Sicilian, which means lots of herby sauces, and sauces cooked with marsala or white wine. They are served on four kinds of pastas: linguini, fettuccine, mostaccioli and angel hair.
Some favorite dishes of both customers and staff are the chicken alfredo, the chicken Marco Polo and veal Marco Polo.
The chicken Marco Polo is made from marinated chicken cooked with marsala wine, bacon, eggplant, mushrooms, onions and black olives, served over angel hair pasta and topped with melted mozzarella cheese.
That’s a dish that is great with chianti or cabernet, and so it’s nice to know that Moetamedi hand-picks the wines that he serves and on Tuesdays bottles of wine are half price.
They also make their own bread and sandwich rolls every day at Dominic’s. “Some customers come in just for the bread,” says the maître d’, Jennifer, who can usually steer a customer to just the right dish. “I sell what I like!” she says with a grin.
So I have to ask, what’s her favorite? “My favorite is chicken Marco Polo and the vegetarian and Spinach manicotti,” she tells me.
When I visited Dominic’s, I tried one of their Chicken Caesar salads and the flavor was truly unique. I followed it with an out-of-this-world fettuccini super-iore. This rich, creamy dish is made with sauteed diced jumbo shrimp and garlic in red or white cream sauce made with basil, cream and romano cheese—served over fettuccine.
“I buy the best shrimp there is,” says Moetamedi, beaming, while I linger over the shrimp’s melt-in-your mouth goodness.
“We’re known for customizing our dishes to your liking. Except for the marinara sauce, nothing is premade,” he says.
You could visit Dominic’s every day and not have the same thing twice because they offer different lunch and dinner specials every day.
They also have a wide selection of pizzas, casseroles and calzones.
Dominic’s is open Sunday–Thursday, 11 a.m.–9 p.m. and Friday–Saturday, 11 a.m.–10 p.m. Catering is available.
Dominic’s is located at 391 N. Escondido Blvd., in Escondido. Call them at 760-480-1704.

Oak Mountain Winery

“It’s a continual learning experience,” says Oak Mountain Winery owner Valerie Andrews about the process of making wines.
She and her husband, Steve, who is the winemaker for Oak Mountain, as well as for their first winery, Temecula Hills, marketed their first label ten years ago.
Temecula Hills is ten acres located up in the hills overlooking Diamond Valley Lake. It grows Rhone style grapes, whereas the Oak Mountain Winery, also ten acres, grows Bordeaux grapes.
Oak Mountain is the only winery in Temecula to house two wineries under one roof.
“We like a lot of different wines,” Valerie Andrews told us when we dropped by for a visit recently. As we said, Steve is the winemaker. “I’m the wineseller and everything else,” says Valerie with a laugh.
They built their winery on the Oak Mountain property four and a half years ago. “We started from dirt in both locations,” she says. They also have another ten acres that they rent from other growers in the region.
The wine grapes that they grow include:
Counoise: This is a unique varietal grape that they haven’t bottled yet. This year will be the first year for it to be sold.
Pinotage: They are getting ready to bottle their first vintage of this grape in about a month.
“This is done in the South African style, where this type of grape is extensively grown,” she says. They will be mimicking that style of wine. “Steve talked to the largest Pinotage wine maker in South Africa and picked his brain about temperatures and fermentation and the best yeasts to use.” Pinotage wines are known for having the “nose” of plantains.
Other grapes they grow are: Cabernet Franc, Malbec, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Petit Verdot, Mourvèdre.
Probably their signature wine is their Cabernet Franc 2006. “It has a nice fruity flavor with pepper spice in the middle,” she says. “It finishes with nice tannins. It’s great with poultry or lasagna or by itself. It’s one of our most popular wines.”
One that they run out of frequently is their Raspberry Champagne. “That one is hard to keep on the shelf,” she says.
The Malbec is also very popular and unusual for the fact that not many wineries make a 100% Malbec because it is usually used in blends.
“It tasted so good by itself and holds up on its own that we decided to let it and its unique nuance of violets show by itself,” says Valerie. They also use the Malbec in various blends.
In addition to wines, they also carry infused avocado oils and some locally produced balsamic vinegars. They are working on introducing a “zinegar” made with Zinfandel later this year and hope to eventually offer some of the olives that they grow in their winery store.
“Olives go great with Cabernets,” she observes.
But then again, lots of good foods go with great wines, which is why Oak Mountain hosts its Winemaker Dinners, prepared by Chef Michael of the Ritz-Carlton, who assembles seven course meals paired with wines and where the comment, “Can we eat this? It looks too good,” is frequently heard.
The next Winemaker Dinner will be held Friday, July 30 at 6 p.m.
When you’re visiting the winery store, keep your olfactory senses attuned for the popcorn that they occasionally make with roasted garlic oil and misted with chili oil. They give away samples on the weekend.
When they do that you’ll see noses go up in the air and conversation take on a different timbre.
Other events include:
Live Music every Saturday in the Pavilion, 1–5 p.m.
Friday Night Jazz twice a month during the summer from 6–9 p.m.
The Andrewses also like hosting charity events, such as the October Cause for Paws, which benefits dogs with diabetes. They sell a special “Wings of Health” wine at their Temecula Hills winery that benefits Michelle’s Place in Murrieta, which helps women with breast cancer.
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Visit Oak Mountain Winery at 36522 Via Verde in Temecula. You can call them at (951)699-9102 or visit them online at www.oakmountainwinery.com.

Celebrating The Fourth of July

What do we do to celebrate America’s birthday? Of course, we eat hot dogs, hamburgers, and watch the fireworks. So what’s the history of this trifecta of food and fantasy?
Let’s start with my favorite, hot dogs. I can remember growing up in Pennsylvania in the 1950s when hot dogs were the fast food of choice, even more popular than hamburgers. Sausages go way back in time all the way to about 900 B.C. But the idea of putting the wiener into a roll was clearly a 20th century invention and it probably first happened at the old Polo Grounds baseball field in New York where the then New York Giants were playing on a cold April day.
A concessionaire, Harry Stevens, who because of the cold, was having a bad day selling ice cream and cold drinks, sent two co-workers out to buy up all the wieners and rolls they could find and stuffed the you-know-what into the you-know-what and starting hawking, “get your red hots here.”
But probably the most famous hot dog maker ever, was a man named Nathan Handwerker. In 1916, Handwerker started a hot dog stand on the corners of Surf and Stillwell Avenues in Coney Island. That stand—Nathan’s—and those hot dogs are still around today. When Handwerker was challenged about the contents of his hot dogs many years later, he stated, “I’ll gladly wrestle anyone who has been living on champagne and caviar for the last 39 years.”
Now how about hamburgers? The story of hamburgers is a matter of which you want to believe. Ground meat goes back a long time in history—all the way to Genghis Khan. However, the credit of actually putting the meat in a bun gets somewhat debatable depending on whom you want to believe.
I choose the story of Charlie Nagreen of Seymour, Wisconsin. In 1885 at the age of 15, Charlie started selling an early rendition of hamburgers from his cart at a local county fair. He apparently was having trouble selling his meatballs because people could not carry them around the fairgrounds very easily. So he flattened them out, stuck them between two slices of bread and there you go! He kept selling them at the fair into the 1950s when he died. The town of Seymour proclaimed itself the home of the hamburger and celebrates every August with a burger festival.
We can thank the Chinese for introducing fireworks to the world. Gunpowder rolled up into bamboo sheaves were the first fireworks and were used to celebrate this country’s independence as early as 1777—even before it was actually independent. The inauguration of George Washington as our first president in 1789 was accompanied by a splendid display of fireworks.
And soon thereafter Pepto Bismol was invented. Have a wonderful 4th of July celebrating America’s birthday.

 

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