news of the Ponz-economy

Ms. Lois from the Pomona Public Library -- and can I get a wha-wha for the fact that we have our own library and aren't part of the execrable LA County Library system? -- wrote to ask me to commend to your attention an article in the Daily Bulletin. It's about an AP English class at Village Academy High making a DVD about how the economy has affected them personally -- all spinning out of a reading assignment on The Great Gatsby.

I find the DB website really annoying (non-accessability-compliant, pop-ups, you name it), so I'm not going to link to it. That'll show 'em, huh? But I will link to the students' DVD, which they thoughtfully posted on YouTube.

Speaking of the Daily Bulletin, Joe Blackstock, the paper's History Guy (kinda like the Comic Book Guy on The Simpsons but taller and smarter), was the guest speaker at Pomona Heritage's feast on sunday night.

Joe opened his speech with a deep bow to Dave Allen, saying that he was going to riff on the Pomona A-Z columns with a "Top Ten Pomona Personalities of Yore" kind of thing.

I think my favorites were numbers 2 and 5. Two was Reverend F.T. Scott, who fought in the Battle of First Street. What, you didn't learn about the Battle of First Street in school? According to the SB Sun's timeline of the Inland Empire,

Battle of First Street. Pomona resident mobilized to take on Southern Pacific Railroad workers in downtown. SP wanted to build another track along First Street but Pomona officials said no. About 1,000 Pomonans battled with the SP workers and drove them away. Pomona later won the dispute in court.

Number 5 was Clarence Uno (I think I got that right -- I was taking notes on my cellphone, like a big dork. Oh, wait, I am a big dork), who was a World War I vet and president of the El Monte American Legion... and who was nonetheless interned with all the other Japanese-Americans at the Fairplex in 1942. I guess he just hadn't demonstrated his patriotism enough.

In seeing whether I could find out more about American hero Uno, I discovered that in fact a number of WWI vets were interned at Fairplex. You can read about them in this article (which, I have to warn you, puts a happy smiley face on the whole experience), including more about Mr. Uno's death at the more permanent concentration camp in Wyoming, where he was buried in his U.S. Army uniform.

Thanks, Clarence, and thanks, Joe. (And thanks to everyone who worked to make the feast a success.)

The frontispiece is of Clarence Uno's funeral, from Life magazine in 1943. You can see a photo of Mr. Uno upright (and alive) too.