The U.S. Census provides “quick facts” about U.S. jurisdictions, including business facts. While the business facts are ten years old, they still provide an indication of business health.
For Ontario, the U.S. Census Bureau has documented over 14,000 firms, over $4 billion in manufacturers shipments, and over $4 billion in retail sales. These figures have presumably increased in the last ten years.
If you own or manage one of these thousands of businesses, and you need to let other businesses know about your offerings, perhaps you should turn to the Ontario, California content marketing expert. Bredemarket can assist your firm with the following:
I don’t know if this is true in other parts of the country, but catalytic converter theft is rampant in the Ontario, California area. Even if you capture the license plate of the alleged thief, you still have to find the car. Which is where automated license plate recognition, or ALPR, comes in handy.
Ontario, CA – Ontario Police arrested two suspects in connection with multiple catalytic converter thefts.
On Friday, April 8th, 2022, at 5:37 P.M., Ontario Police officers received an alert from an automated license plate reader (ALPR) of a vehicle suspected to be involved in catalytic converter thefts. Officers responded to the area of Milliken Avenue and 4th Street where they located the suspect vehicle occupied by a female passenger in an adjacent parking lot.
While conducting surveillance, officers observed a male lurking between cars before returning to the suspect vehicle and attempting to drive away. Officers stopped the suspects and recovered five catalytic converters, an electric saw, and a floor jack. Officers confirmed two of the catalytic converters were missing off a vehicle where the suspects were parked. Both suspects were arrested for grand theft, felony vandalism, and conspiracy to commit a felony.
The suspects have been identified as Carlos Gerardo Morales (age 25) and Alexis Lena Sanchez (age 25). Both suspects are from San Bernardino.
The Ontario Police Department has partnered with Flock Safety to place multiple ALPR cameras at strategic locations throughout the city. This is just one example of how OPD is using technology to deter and reduce crime throughout the city.
Anyone with information about this incident is asked to contact the Ontario Police Department at (909) 986-6711. Information can also be reported anonymously by calling WE-TIP at (800) 78-CRIME or online at www.wetip.com
The most commonly known authentication factor is “something you know.” This includes such items as passwords, personal identification numbers (PINs), and the name of your childhood pet. This authentication factor is very common and very controversial, to the point where some want to eliminate it altogether. (I don’t.)
Another authentication factor that I know very well is “something you are.” Biometrics such as fingerprint identification and facial recognition falls into this category, as well as gait recognition, “behavioral biometrics,” and other biometric identifiers.
The third authentication factor that NIST recognizes is “something you have.” This could be a driver’s license, a passport, a key fob, a smartphone, or perhaps a digital identity application.
But those aren’t the only authentication factors. Two others have been identified, as I have previously noted.
“Something you do” differs from both gait recognition and behavioral biometrics, because this is not an inherent property of your being, but is a deliberate set of actions on your part. For example, you could gain access to a nuclear facility by putting your left foot in, putting your left foot out, putting your left foot, in and shaking it all about. Note, however, that this particular “something you do” is as common as the password “12345” and should be avoided.
And the fifth factor is “somewhere you are.” For example, if I am buying something at a a store in Virginia, but I am physically in California, something appears to be wrong.
OK, that’s it. End of post. Those are the five authentication factors. There aren’t any more, and there never will be any more. Oh sure, you could come up with a sixth authentication factor, but chances are that it would map into one of the five existing authentication factors.
Or maybe not.
Why?
I’d like to propose a sixth authentication factor.
What about the authentication factor “why”?
This proposed factor, separate from the other factors, applies a test of intent or reasonableness to any identification request.
Let me give you an example. Assume for the moment that I am at a McDonald’s in Atlantic City and want to use my brand new credit card to buy some healthy Irish cuisine.
You could, of course, apply the existing authentication factors to this transaction:
I physically have the credit card.
I know the PIN that is associated with the credit card.
My face matches the face of the person who owns the credit card.
I am physically at the McDonald’s where the food is for sale, and I physically have a hotel key associated with a nearby hotel, and I physically have a badge associated with a trade show in the city. (The latter two facts are actually a combination of “something you have” and “somewhere you are,” but I threw them here for the fun of it.)
If my credit card company has implemented it, I can perform the super secret finger pattern (or hokey pokey dance) associated with this account.
But even if all of these factors are authenticated, or even if some of them are not, does it make sense that I would be purchasing a meal at a McDonald’s in Atlantic City?
Did I recently book a flight and fly from my California home to Atlantic City? This could explain “why” I was there.
Is it lunchtime? This could explain “why” I was making this transaction.
Is my stomach growling? This could indicate that I am hungry, and could explain “why” I was at such a fine food establishment.
Admittedly, employing data warehousing and artificial intelligence to use the “why” factor to authenticate a small fast food purchase is overkill, just like it’s overkill to require three biometric identifiers and a passport to open a physical mailbox.
But perhaps use of such an authentication factor would be appropriate at a critical infrastructure facility such as a nuclear power plant.
Assume for the moment that I am a double agent, employed the the U.S. Department of Energy but secretly a spy for an enemy country. All of the five authentication factors check out, and I am the person who is authorized to visit a particular nuclear power plant.
But why am I there?
Am I there for some regular U.S. Department of Energy business that is totally above board?
Or am I there for some other unknown reason, such as theft of secrets or even sabotage?
How to implement the “why?” authentication factor
I believe that a “why?” authentication factor could be very powerful, but it would take some effort to implement it.
First, the authentication system would have to access all the relevant data. In the McDonald’s example above, that includes (a) my flight data, (b) the time of day, and (c) my health data (“biometrics” in the broader sense). In the nuclear power plant example, the authentication system would have to know things such as nuclear power plant inspection schedules, trip authorizations from my supervisor, and other data that would indicate a reason for me to be at the plant. That’s a lot of data.
Second, the authentication system would have to process all the relevant data to glean knowledge from it. By itself, the data points “United Flight 123 from Ontario to Atlantic City yesterday,” “1:30 pm,” and “haven’t eaten in six hours” do not allow the system to make an authentication decision.
Third, the authentication system would have to collect and protect that mass of data in a way that protects my privacy and the privacy of others. In the United States at present, this is where the whole system would probably fall apart. While a whole bunch of data is collected about us and placed in silos (the TSA-airline silo, for example), putting it all together could be pretty scary to some. Although certain lawyers in Illinois would love the moneymaking opportunities that such a system could provide via Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act lawsuits.
So a complete implementation of the “why” authentication factor is probably impossible for now, due to both technical and societal constraints.
But is it possible to implement a subset of the “why” authentication factor? For example, since a company presumably has access to employee corporate travel schedules, could the company use the knowledge of an employee’s flight from Chicago to Los Angeles on Sunday to provide the employee with physical access to the firm’s Southern California office on Monday?
I recently learned that Bill Fries passed away earlier this month. You may not recognize his name, but people of a certain age are very familiar with his voice.
Fries, an advertising executive, provided the voice of the character “C.W. McCall” in the 1970s song “Convoy,” which dealt with truckers using citizens band (CB) radio to communicate with each other about driving conditions and “smokeys” (police officers enforcing the then-universal 55 mph speed limit). The music was provided by Chip Davis, famous today for Mannheim Steamroller.
Across the United States, more than 70% of all goods used in our daily lives—from food to manufactured products—are transported to our stores and homes by trucks. As the nation’s demand for goods continues to reach record levels, our cities are facing an increase in congestion, noise, and air pollution.
The statement on trucking above was taken from the Volvo LIGHTS website. LIGHTS is an acronym for Low Impact Green Heavy Transport Solutions, where “Low Impact” aims to reduce impacts on congestion, noise, and air pollution.
Regardless of how you feel about the good and bad points of fossil fuels, battery power, solar power, nuclear power, coal power, etc., battery power is a part of our transportation solutions. The Volvo LIGHTS project lists five community benefits from using electric trucks. All five are listed here, but I’m only going to highlight one of them.
Less Congestion from being able to make deliveries at night with much quieter truck engines
This particular benefit addresses both congestion and noise, and the other four benefits address these two impacts as well as the impact of air pollution.
Volvo LIGHTS is performing several proofs of concept, three of which are taking place in the Inland Empire.
From Volvo LIGHTS (additional details here, including the vehicles deployed and the charging infrastructure):
TEC Equipment owns the West Coast’s largest network of full service, heavy-duty truck dealerships. Through the Volvo LIGHTS project, they introduced a comprehensive sales and service strategy for battery electric trucks and provided fleet operators the opportunity to lease battery electric trucks from TEC Equipment for real-world trials.
In August 2021, TEC Equipment was named Volvo Trucks’ first EV Certified Dealer in North America, indicating that their maintenance and repair crew at their Fontana dealership is fully trained and equipped to meet the service needs of fleets operating these advanced zero-emission trucks.
Back in 2020, TEC Equipment commented on the initiative on its website:
“We are proud that our Fontana dealership will be first in in North America to pilot the Volvo VNR Electric model,” said David Thompson, president and CEO of TEC Equipment. “Through the Volvo LIGHTS project, we are gaining valuable hands-on experience for our drivers and maintenance staff to ensure that we are well prepared to support the widescale deployment of these advanced, zero-emission trucks throughout the Southern California freight corridor.”
Dependable is demonstrating the ability for battery electric trucks and equipment to successfully transport goods in its daily routes, as well as at its warehouse facilities. To ensure the ongoing reliability of the trucks and maximize uptime, DHE is road testing Volvo’s remote diagnostic onboard technology, which will alert TEC Equipment in advance when its battery electric trucks need maintenance.
The onsite smart chargers use Greenlots’ cloud software to integrate with Volvo’s truck telematics to balance the needs of the vehicle, facility, and utility grid. To further mitigate grid impacts and energy costs, DHE also integrated onsite solar panels and hopes to garner the benefits of second-life batteries.
In this Vimeo, Dependable’s drivers identity other benefits of electric trucks, including an increased ability to hear emergency vehicles, as well as a decrease in smelly fuel-saturated clothes after your shift is over.
Incidentally, the references to “Greenlots” on the Volvo LIGHTS website for Dependable (and for NFI, below) are outdated. Shell acquired Greenlots in 2019, which now does business as Shell Recharge Solutions. Shell isn’t putting all of its eggs in the fossil fuels basket.
NFI is demonstrating the ability for battery electric trucks and equipment to successfully transport goods in its daily routes, as well as at its warehouse facilities. Having confidence that the trucks can reliably complete their routes was critical for NFI. Their fleets are road testing Volvo’s self-learning driveline control algorithms enabling drivers to optimize energy usage and range.
The onsite smart chargers use Greenlots’ cloud software to integrate with Volvo’s truck telematics to balance the needs of the vehicle, facility, and utility grid. To further mitigate grid impacts and energy costs, NFI continues to explore the viability of onsite solar panels.
NFI is working with Volvo, Daimler, and others on an ambitious project to “[o]perate the first 100% zero-emission drayage fleet in the U.S. with the deployment of 60 battery-electric tractors.” NFI wants to achieve this by 2023.
What does this mean?
These and other initiatives allow trucking companies to realize the benefits described above, from improved distribution to nicer smelling uniforms. The initiatives also allow flexibility should our diesel supplies be threatened.
And the Inland Empire, with its extensive warehousing footprint, provides an ideal proving ground to see whether these technologies will work in practice.
But I don’t know that electric trucks will give us any good songs.
Now I am nowhere near an expert on franchising, but there are possible benefits to buying an established franchise rather than starting a new franchise. For one, you have instant revenue due to the existing sales (gross $480,000 from both foot traffic and delivery orders), so you don’t have to build up your business from scratch.
And the business owner, who is retiring, has some advice for the new owner. Depending upon what source you check, this location opens at 10:00 am and closes at either 6:00 pm or 7:00 pm, presumably because the owner doesn’t want to work early in the morning or late in the evening. But this offers an opportunity for the new owner.
MUST CHANGE THE HOURS OF OPERATION Please open it for breakfast and dinner. There’s no place except MOD Pizza for dinner in that shopping center.
So if you want to run a sandwich shop and have six figures to spend, go for it.
And if you buy it and need some specialized marketing help, Bredemarket serves Eastvale businesses. I can’t answer all of a restaurant’s marketing needs (I don’t do menus, for example), but perhaps I can help you write the words for a B2B catering service that augments the restaurant’s regular revenue. Perhaps my Bredemarket 400 Short Writing Service could help you come up with a two-page handout to local businesses needing your catering.
Especially if you expand the shop’s hours and offer breakfast and dinner service.
If you’re an Eastvale business of any type who can benefit from Bredemarket’s content marketing and/or proposal services:
Behind the scenes, I have been spending the past month examining the services Bredemarket offers, and how my service offerings can best meet my goals for 2022 (including the super-secret goal that I am not publishing). As a result of this examination, I plan to make several changes to Bredemarket’s service offerings, one of which I am announcing today.
Effective immediately, Bredemarket is no longer offering editing services.
Bredemarket presently offers its services to identity/biometrics, technology, and general business firms, as well as to nonprofits. I offer my services to firms in my hometown of Ontario, California, as well as firms in Eastvale, Fontana, Montclair, Rancho Cucamonga, Upland, other cities of the Inland Empire West, and throughout the United States.
This post concentrates on the services that Bredemarket can provide to businesses in my local area. Read on if you own a small, arty business in the Emporia Arts District of Ontario…
…or perhaps a larger, less arty business north of Holt in Ontario, or perhaps even a business in one of the other cities that I mentioned, or one of the ones I didn’t (sorry Narod).
There are a lot of local businesses out there
Even if you don’t count sole proprietors (such as myself) or freelancers, there are somewhere around 7.7 million businesses in the United States. (This figure is from 2016; I’m not sure if it’s gone up or gone down in the last five years.) Now if you include sole proprietors in the total, then you’re talking about 32 million businesses. (This particular number may have actually increased over time.)
Obviously I can’t target them all. Well, I could try, but it would be a little ridiculous.
So what if I took a subset of those 32 million businesses and tried to see if Bredemarket could serve that subset?
The local small business persona
When you want to market to a particular group, you develop a persona that represents that group. You can then develop a profile of that persona: the persona’s needs, aspirations, and expectations; the persona’s underlying goals and values; and perhaps some other elements. The persona may be developed via extensive research, or perhaps via…a little less quantification.
When I initially looked at this topic last September, I concentrated on a particular persona, but my thoughts on this topic have evolved over time. While I will still serve artists as I initially proposed last September, I’m now thinking of other businesses that can best use the type of content that I provide.
For example, the business may be an incorporated business that is based on the Inland Empire West, provides its products or services to customers in the local area, provides excellent service that is loved by its existing customers, and needs to get the word out to new potential customers by creating content that can be downloaded from a company website, shared via a company social media account, or handed out at a trade show or other in-person event.
Regarding the values of this particular persona, you can probably already deduce some of them based upon the customer love for the company.
The business puts the customer first and strives to provide services that satisfy its customers.
However, the business also prioritizes the well-being of its employees.
While the business may not have explicitly articulated a vision, its actions testify to a vision of excellent service, customer satisfaction, and care for employees.
But what does this business need in terms of types of content? For my example, these businesses are ones that need customer-facing content such as the following:
A document (online or printed) that explains the product(s) or service(s) that the business provides, and that discusses the benefits that the product(s)/service(s) offers to the customers. This document may take the form of a product/service description, or it may take the form of a white paper. For example, your business might issue a white paper entitled “Seven Mandatory Requirements for a Green Widget,” and the white paper just might happen to mention at the end that your green widget just happens to meet all seven mandatory requirements. (Coincidence? I think not.)
Portion of the concluding section of a white paper in which Bredemarket provided the text.
A document (online or printed) that tells a story about how an individual customer benefited from the product(s) or service(s) that the business provides. You could call such a document a case study, or you could call it a testimonial. Or you could call it a casetimonial.
These types of documents are more valuable to some businesses than to others. Your average convenience store has little need for a 3,000 word white paper. But perhaps your business has this sort of need.
How many words should your content contain?
When I originally wrote this last September, I started off by discussing my two standard packages, based on word length. But now that I’ve thought about it a bit more, there are some questions that you need to ask BEFORE deciding on the content length. (We’ll get to content length later.)
(Owen Lovejoy) “How long should a man’s legs be in proportion to his body?”
(Abraham Lincoln) “I have not given the matter much consideration, but on first blush I should judge they ought to be long enough to reach from his body to the ground.”
Abraham Lincoln. (Legs not shown.) By Hesler, Alexander, 1823-1895 – This image is available from the United States Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs divisionunder the digital ID cph.3a36988.This tag does not indicate the copyright status of the attached work. A normal copyright tag is still required. See Commons:Licensing for more information., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18705107
So how far away is the ground? Let’s ask some other questions first before we determine the answer to content length.
Bredemarket’s initial questions for you
Before I create a single word, I start by asking you some questions about your content to make sure our project starts on the right foot. (Even though I am left-footed.)
What is the topic of the content?
What is the goal that you want to achieve with the content?
What are the benefits (not features, but benefits) that your end customers can realize by using your product or service?
What is the target audience for the content?
Once I’ve asked you these and other questions (such as a potential outline), we will both have a good idea of how long the final piece needs to be.
The length of the content also dictates the length and complexity of the review process.
Returning to the content length question
Once we have a good idea of the content length, there are three options that we can pursue to actually create the content.
If your content is longer, say 2800 to 3200 words, then I create the content using a similar (but more detailed) process through my Bredemarket 2800 Medium Writing Service.
If your content falls between these two lengths, or is longer than 3200 words, or needs a more rapid delivery time, we’ll talk and come up with a solution.
(And we’ll even come up with a spiffy name if you like)
(Welcome to my A/B test. For the other version of this post, click here.)
As I’ve previously noted, the 2009 NAS report on forensic science has revolutionized fingerprint identification and a number of other forensic disciplines.
One part of this revolution was the Department of Justice 2018 document entitled “UNIFORM LANGUAGE FOR TESTIMONY AND REPORTS FOR THE FORENSIC LATENT PRINT DISCIPLINE.” A PDF version of the report can be found here.
This document applies to Department of Justice examiners who are authorized to prepare reports and provide expert witness testimony regarding the forensic examination of latent print evidence.
Based upon the NAS report and subsequent efforts, Part IV of the DOJ document (“Qualifications and Limitations of Forensic Latent Print Examinations”) sets some clear guidelines about how a latent print examiner should describe his or her findings.
So a pre-2009 latent print examiner who appeared in court and said “I am 100% certain that these two fingerprints belong to the same person, to the exclusion of all other persons, because I have never been wrong in the last 25 years” would fail the 2018 DOJ criteria.
But would a jury know that?
That’s what CSAFE discussed in a recent post, “AAFS 2022 RECAP: UNDERSTANDING JUROR COMPREHENSION OF FORENSIC TESTIMONY: ASSESSING JURORS’ DECISION MAKING AND EVIDENCE EVALUATION.” Feel free to read the entire article, or if you like you can read my “succinct” excerpt from two portions of the article:
Koolmees and her colleagues examined whether jurors could distinguish low-quality testimony from high-quality testimony of forensic experts, using the language guidelines released by the Department of Justice (DOJ) in 2018 as an indicator of quality….
Only when comparing the conditions of zero guideline violations and four and five violations were there any changes in guilty verdicts, signifying jurors may notice a change in the quality of forensic testimony only when the quality is severely low.
So this raises the question of whether the NAS report, for all of its revolutionary effects, will have any true results in courtroom testimony.
Will jurors heed the advice from the DOJ guidelines to accurately consider the testimony of a forensic expert?
Or will the jurors’ “common sense,” based on old Perry Mason and C.S.I. TV shows, prevent jurors from consiering expert testimony in the correct light?
(Welcome to my A/B test. For the other version of this post, click here.)
I feel like Ben Maller, a sports radio broadcaster who likes to take three seemingly unrelated phrases and spin them into a monologue.
For this post, the three phrases are “common sense,” “succinct,” and “expert juror testimony.”
I want to (succinctly) pose the question, “Is ‘common sense’ enough for a jury to consider expert testimony?'”
Common Sense
Mitch Wagner recently shared a New Yorker article by Matthew Hutson that claimed that artificial intelligence was lacking in “common sense.” Here is one of the examples cited in the article:
By definition, common sense is something everyone has; it doesn’t sound like a big deal. But imagine living without it and it comes into clearer focus. Suppose you’re a robot visiting a carnival, and you confront a fun-house mirror; bereft of common sense, you might wonder if your body has suddenly changed.
But is the human ability to discern that one’s body was NOT modified truly “common sense”? I argued otherwise in a comment on Wagner’s LinkedIn post.
But is there really a difference between “common sense” and the data acquisition that AI engines perform?
Take the fun-house mirror example in the article. When I first encountered a fun-house mirror, I would either (a) think like a robot and wonder if my body had changed, or (b) draw upon a vast reservoir of past experiences with mirrors and bent objects to deduce that this particular mirror had properties that would display my body in a different way. A person who had never encountered a mirror or a bent object would not have the “common sense” to realize how a fun-house mirror operates.
Perhaps I’m wrong, but it seems that everyone takes cues from their past experiences (touching a hot stove, or watching “Perry Mason” or “C.S.I.” on TV), and that helps form our “common sense.”
Succinct
If you read my original comment on Wagner’s post, you’ll notice that I only reproduced the first part here, since the other parts weren’t relevant to this post.
Concise writing is something that Becca Phengvath of Robin Writers reminded us about in a recent post. She started by telling a story about a meeting with one of her college English teachers to review a writing assignment.
“This is good,” she said. But I felt her preparing to say more.
“But look what happens when you remove ‘able to’,” she added, pointing to several spots where I wrote the phrase. “It’s never really needed, see?”
She read a few of my sentences with “able to” omitted and I was shocked at how it immediately strengthened my writing. Since then, I have very very rarely used that phrase in my writing thanks to her.
I liked this post so much that I shared in on various social accounts, with the following comment:
I really need to do this more often.
I should do this more.
Expert Juror Testimony
Now let’s get to the meat of the post. (I could have left the first two parts of the post out, I guess, but I wanted to provide some background.)
As I’ve previously noted, the 2009 NAS report on forensic science has revolutionized fingerprint identification and a number of other forensic disciplines.
One part of this revolution was the Department of Justice 2018 document entitled “UNIFORM LANGUAGE FOR TESTIMONY AND REPORTS FOR THE FORENSIC LATENT PRINT DISCIPLINE.” A PDF version of the report can be found here.
This document applies to Department of Justice examiners who are authorized to prepare reports and provide expert witness testimony regarding the forensic examination of latent print evidence.
Based upon the NAS report and subsequent efforts, Part IV of the DOJ document (“Qualifications and Limitations of Forensic Latent Print Examinations”) sets some clear guidelines about how a latent print examiner should describe his or her findings.
So a pre-2009 latent print examiner who appeared in court and said “I am 100% certain that these two fingerprints belong to the same person, to the exclusion of all other persons, because I have never been wrong in the last 25 years” would fail the 2018 DOJ criteria.
(Remember that even experienced examiners have been wrong before, as was shown in the Brandon Mayfield case.)
But would a jury know that?
That’s what CSAFE discussed in a recent post, “AAFS 2022 RECAP: UNDERSTANDING JUROR COMPREHENSION OF FORENSIC TESTIMONY: ASSESSING JURORS’ DECISION MAKING AND EVIDENCE EVALUATION.” Feel free to read the entire article, or if you like you can read my “succinct” excerpt from two portions of the article:
Koolmees and her colleagues examined whether jurors could distinguish low-quality testimony from high-quality testimony of forensic experts, using the language guidelines released by the Department of Justice (DOJ) in 2018 as an indicator of quality….
Only when comparing the conditions of zero guideline violations and four and five violations were there any changes in guilty verdicts, signifying jurors may notice a change in the quality of forensic testimony only when the quality is severely low.
Think about it. While forensic and criminal justice professionals, who have been immersed in forensic science testimony debates for over a decade, would be unimpressed by someone testifying that two fingerprints are a “100% match,” there’s a good chance that a jury would be very impressed with an “expert” who provided such convincing testimony.
So this raises the question of whether the NAS report, for all of its revolutionary effects, will have any true results in courtroom testimony.
Will jurors heed the advice from the DOJ guidelines to accurately consider the testimony of a forensic expert?
Or will the jurors’ “common sense,” based on old Perry Mason and C.S.I. TV shows, prevent jurors from consiering expert testimony in the correct light?
(Thanks to Route 66 News for sharing the links to the California Historical Route 66 Association/Beth Murray Facebook post and the Bono’s Restaurant and Deli Wikipedia link that I cite below.)
Those of us who live here know three things about California’s Inland Empire:
The Inland Empire has been heavily influenced by the citrus industry.
The Inland Empire has been heavily influenced by Route 66.
On occasion, those influences merged together.
One of these “get your citrus kicks” Inland Empire mergers of the citrus industry and Route 66 occurred in 1936. In that year, Bob DeVries built a huge fruit stand that looked like an orange and placed it near Fontana, California. Because that’s what people did on Route 66.
“We squeezed oranges for 14 to 18 hours daily. We worked until 9 to 10 p.m. each day to make enough juice to see the next day. We would put it in gallon bottles and put them into Coca-Cola cases with ice. We picked the fruit and also got some at the citrus plant on Mango Avenue (still there). They paid $2 a trailer load.
“This was not the only thing sold at the stand. The large black olives and the pimento stuffed green olives were the first seen by the easterners. We made $20 a week, which was considered good in those days. The olives sold for 98 cents a gallon. Honey was from Colton, dates from Indio, and the Cherry Anne drink was sold by the gallon (or glass for a dime).”
Hey, twenty dollars a week wasn’t bad in the late 1930s.
But time passed, and the orange stand in Fontana, as well as similar orange stands throughout California, began to decline in the same way that Route 66 itself declined.
After the 1950’s the stands began to decline as roads were converted to higher speed freeways which made it more difficult to easily pull over and stop for a glass of orange juice. This combined with the emergence of air conditioning in cars, began the decline of the giant orange juice stands.
The Giant Orange ended up with the Fontana Historical Society, who gifted the orange to Joe Bono.
Perhaps you’ve heard of Joe Bono’s (claimed) cousin (I couldn’t substantiate the Wikipedia claim; Sonny was born in Detroit and moved to Los Angeles as a child, but to my knowledge never lived in Fontana—although of course he lived in Palm Springs later).
Coincidentally, the Bono family was a long-time competitor of the DeVries family, and had its own orange back in the day.
Anyway, Joe Bono placed the DeVries-built Giant Orange in front of his restaurant and promptly put his name on the orange. Eventually the restaurant closed, was reopened, and closed again.
According to Murray, the Fontana Historical Society reclaimed the Giant Orange, which is now in the parking lot of Fontana Public Works.
There are plans to restore the orange to its original 1936 glory. But the restored orange will not have Bono’s name on it. Apparently the “Bono’s” on the orange has been a point of contention for years.
THERE IS something of importance that needs to be corrected in the information in newspapers. The Orange (was in 2013) at Bono’s Restaurant and has the name “Bono’s” on it. This is incorrect. The Fontana Historical Society loaned it to him when it had to be moved from the Wal-Mart store. The Society cannot give it to an individual, only to another historical non-profit. The name on it should be “Fontana Historical Society Orange Stand.” The lady who donated the Orange has been very angry about the name situation.
A little postscript: if you own a giant orange, restaurant, or other Fontana business and need some help promoting it, you might want to contact the Fontana, California content marketing expert, Bredemarket.
And for those like me who now have an ear worm in their head, here’s a song from Joe’s purported cousin and his then-wife.
Bredemarket 