Some Shelter and other things; photos

Top photo is one of the then brand new, not even yet open to the public, Devore animal shelter. This was actually the second one built, first one finished. It had been in the wooden framed stage when unusually strong but not uncommon Santa Ana winds blew through from the Cajon Pass. It was totally and literally blown away!
It had taken over three years get the money and to find a place and get a shelter built. Before this was done we had to impound animals from the San Bernardino city pound to the Riverside Humane Society to shelters in Ontario. It was ultimately built on a section of land at an old dump site in the Devore area on County owned land to save money. Now I really do not get why so many people forgot over the years, but when we were all told about the shelter finally getting built and at the dump location in about 1984, then department head Pat English said it was only to be a "temporary" location. Due to it being built on a dump site made it to where no permanent structures were to be there for more than ten years! Of course it's still there today. Its been expanded and renovated several times over the years. For a long time there were plans to move in a bunch of trailer offices and make the place the operational home of the department. That hasn't happened, but I was told in talking to a friend of mine that still works for the department that the shelter has been getting another 'face lift' for the last year. 23 years, I guess it will be there forever!

Above is a photo of the only Alligator that was actually impounded by the department. It had been a person in Chino's exotic pet, until he'd gotten arrested for something that is. Then it was picked up and taken to Devore for a few days. I actually no longer remember what exactly happened to it, the owner couldn't get it back, it wasn't legal to keep it. But unlike so many exotic pets that usually wound up being destroyed, I think this one went to a reptile park in L.A.

This photo is when I went to the Phelan area with a stock trailer to help pick up two very large Pot Bellied pigs. Supervisors had pick up trucks in those days to be able to carry equipment like the dog trap I had in this one at the time. I carried can food and other stuff in the tool box behind the cab.

Bottom photo is from the late 1980's of one of my early Radio Boxes. A plastic tool box loaded with an AM/FM Cassette auto deck with 4 inch speakers. Underneath that is a Cobra 40 channel CB radio, great for truck to truck and about 2 to 5 miles range. On top is a Radio Shack 200 channel scanner. All powered by by a 12 volt plug into the cigarette lighter plug. On the front is a cup holder and on the seat next to it is a hand held scanner and some home made music or story tapes. A few years down the road it was XM satellite radio all the time and Ham radios for their better clarity and range for me and Stacy to stay in touch. With mountain repeaters, I could talk to Stacy up in the desert while I was down in the San Bernardino valley.
At the very end it was still XM radios but no more radio boxes. Didn't need them anymore because the trucks were all finally equipped with decent sounding in dash radios with 4 speaker sound and we had cell phones to stay in touch by then.