Parade

Santa made an appearance It looks like your Burbank on Parade reporter needs new glasses (“Parade goes Hollywood,” April 29). How could he not see the smallest “float” in the parade? Thousands of kids and adults saw good old Santa in his electric wheelchair. And they waived to him! Boy was his arm tired from waving back to his multitude of fans, both young and old folks too. That arm had to keep on waving for the entire parade route. Seventy-five-year-old Santa flew in from the North pole (OK, so it’s Burbank)

LA CAÑADA FLINTRIDGE — Fiesta Days, this Memorial Day weekend, will be an opportunity to honor the men and women who have fought and died for this country, but it is also a time to celebrate life, organizers said.   "It's a time for family and friends as well as a time to honor the military," said Pat Anderson, executive director of the La Cañada Flintridge Chamber of Commerce, who has helped organize the event for the past three years. "We observe Memorial Day to remember the sacrifices our men and women have made in the military but it is also a time to celebrate life, and family, and togetherness."

EFFORT PROVIDES MEALS TO SHUT-INS The city of Burbank coordinated with Providence St. Joseph Medical Center on the program to deliver holiday meals to shut-ins and those without family Christmas Day. Receiving the meals were those in the city of Burbank?s Home Delivered Meals program, said Renee Crawford, social services supervisor with the city?s Senior and Human Services department. Providence St. Joseph Medical Center donated the meals, said Joy Cantrell, who is in charge of the meal services there.

COMMUNITY COMMENTARY Taking a stroll down memory lane, I recall with a certain fondness the pageantry of community events like Burbank On Parade. I would often watch the parade in front of Olive Park, not far from the Joslyn Center shuffleboard court, with two scoops of rocky road ice cream from Thrifty's. The marching bands would boom-boom-boom their way through, the old cars would honk with their funny-sounding horns, and the Shriners would zoom along in their little go-carts.

Hoover grad's classic gets Car of the Year The Road'ers Car Club presented the Car of the Year award to Chris Christensen of Castaic, a 1960 graduate of Hoover High School. Judging took place during the club's Jan. 17 Cruise In at Bob's Big Boy in Glendale. Christensen built the 1934 Ford two-door sedan from the tires up with help from his wife, Melinda. They started the project on their wedding anniversary, March 25, and it only took them six months and three weeks to complete, which could be a record, Chris said.

Parade isn't required to clear its schedule The parade doesn't have to explain the parade date to any group. The parade day was set years ago. What is going on in our city? This is Burbank, U.S.A., not Armenia. We have our holidays, parades and memorials on U.S. dates, not on something that happened in 1915 overseas and is not part of city, state and U.S. history. What's next? Are we going to make the Armenian Christmas a school holiday, like Glendale did?

James Petrillo If there's a silver lining in the disturbingly endless parade of celebrities finding themselves in the court room, it has to be that it's open season on them in the court of public theater. In Grove Theater Center Burbank's latest production, Robert Blake's in the limelight. Thoroughly hilarious from start to finish, "Blake ... da Musical" revisits that fateful night Blake's wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, was shot to death behind Vitello's in Studio City.