By Jim Tortolano The slower pace of summer often gives way to reflection. One of my favorite mental pastimes is the premise of “What If?” In the context of this website, some […]
Ladies and gents, your Long Beach Angels!
A citrus ‘war’ in the OC
By Jim Tortolano The County of Orange was not named after the golden fruit, but in the time before the great post-war boom, it might as well have been. Oranges, along with […]
Dark shadows at the Greenbrier Inn
By Jim Tortolano If you drive up Harbor Boulevard in Garden Grove you’ll see a skyline rising of hotels, with more on the way. It’s the newly-named Grove District of the Anaheim […]
Fatty’s big, tragic career
By Jim Tortolano Orange County has produced its share of movie stars and celebrities, ranging from Diane Keaton to Kevin Costner, but none have had the impact and tragic life of our […]
Oil and encyclopedias
By Jim Tortolano Many people in the frigid winter regions of the Northeast dream about life on the sunny California shores. It’s been that way for over a century, and that’s the […]
Packing House packs history
Second in a series on historically significant places in Orange County. By Jim Tortolano Few cities in Orange County did as thorough as job of destroying their downtowns as Anaheim did in […]
Not always fair weather for OC Fair
By Jim Tortolano If it’s July, it must be time for hundreds of thousands – perhaps over a million – of Orange County residents to head down to Costa Mesa for the […]
Westminster’s English roots
By Jim Tortolano Westminster is a city best known for its mall and its large Vietnamese population, clustered in an area known as Little Saigon. So what’s with the Olde English-style architecture […]
The charm of Old Town Tustin
Second in a series of places of historical interest in Orange County. By Jim Tortolano Much attention lately has been focused on the burgeoning downtowns of Santa Ana, Orange and Huntington Beach. […]
A.G. Cook planted Garden Grove
First in a series about the “Founding Fathers (and Mothers)” of Orange County and its cities. By Jim Tortolano The Civil War had been over for just nine years. General George Custer’s […]
