Jon Blickenstaff has moved out of La Verne. This is a seismic development, given that Blickenstaff, 80, had lived in town his entire life. All his schooling took place within city limits, from kindergarten at Roynon Elementary School through La Verne College, to which he walked from home.

Blickenstaff played among citrus groves, became an Eagle Scout and pumped gas after school at the Texaco station downtown. He married Joan Johnson, whom he met at a YMCA dance in Pomona.

While his career as a teacher and principal was in nearby Azusa, Blickenstaff stayed put in La Verne. He served as a volunteer firefighter for 14 years and was elected to the City Council in 1980.

Two years later, Blickenstaff became mayor, a position he held for 27 years before retiring in 2009.

Now, Jon and Joan have sold their home to relocate to Santa Ynez, near Santa Barbara, to be near children, grandchildren and their first great-grandchild.

Last Monday, the night before the moving van would pull out of town, the couple was honored at a La Verne Historical Society meeting. Jon and I chatted moments before the event began.

“We weren’t asked to leave,” Blickenstaff told me dryly. More seriously, he said: “After 80 years, it’s going to be a big change.”

The meeting had been set up months ago as a speaking engagement for yours truly. A few days beforehand, Sherry Best, the Historical Society’s president, realized the event — hours before the Blickenstaffs’ departure — was the perfect opportunity for a public farewell.

So the couple was invited and added to the bill. This can only have improved attendance.Faced by an audience of 100 people at Hillcrest Manor’s community room, I began by guessing aloud that five were there for me and 95 for the Blickenstaffs. I read a few columns from my most recent collection and presided over a lively Q&A, all recorded by a TV camera for the city’s public access channel.

Then, as a segue, I read my 2009 column about Blickenstaff’s retirement as mayor.

I’d praised his calm demeanor, respect for others and cheerfulness, while sharing my sense that under it all, his velvet gloves held fists of iron. In reading that comment aloud, TV camera rolling, I could only hope I hadn’t been off the mark.

A couple of speakers came up.

Jeff Allred, a former assistant city manager, said he’d heard the news about Blickenstaff while driving. “I had to pull over,” Allred said. “This is Mr. La Verne.”

After Allred’s lengthy tribute, Matthew Neeley, the head of Hillcrest, went to the lectern. He began: “I love Jon Blickenstaff. May he rest in peace.” In the audience, Blickenstaff burst into laughter and threw up his hands.

Soon Blickenstaff was beckoned up. “This is really overwhelming,” he said. “I appreciate the 95 people who are here for David and the five people who are here for me.”

He summed up his feelings as “gratitude, feeling humbled, feeling blessed.”

Among the columns I had read earlier was one on Roberta’s Village Inn, a diner that is a La Verne institution. Blickenstaff referenced it in his comments, saying he was part of a group of friends that’s met there every Thursday for 50 years under the once-accurate name the Young Men’s Group.

A few years ago he brought along a relative, who looked at the faces and said in confusion, “Where are the young men?”

Mingling afterward, Blickenstaff said farewells to friends and posed for photos. We spoke again. He said of my column on his retirement: “You knew me well.” Whew! So he did have fists of iron inside those velvet gloves? He said it was true.

Only once, he said, did he feel he’d lost control of a council meeting. Back in the 1980s, a woman speaking at the lectern dropped the F-word. As mayor, Blickenstaff said, “I was speechless.”

A cake decorated with a thank you in icing to Jon and Joan was cut and served. What was left was packed in the original, oversized cardboard box. Blickenstaff lugged it out.

The couple can enjoy the leftovers in Santa Ynez.

Brian Worley, RIP

Five months after the death of Tony Sheets, son of the late artist Millard Sheets, Brian Worley has died too. A Riverside native, Worley, 75, had been Millard Sheets’ last assistant. In recent years, Worley restored “Pleasures Along the Beach,” a Sheets mosaic mural that is now a permanent feature at the Hilbert Museum in Orange, and the Sheets mosaics on a former Home Savings in Redlands, now a restaurant. The Claremont man died May 26.

Leading edge?

You may recall that at a Home Depot in Pomona on April 22, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents snagged a dozen day laborers.

At the Mayor’s Gala in Pomona on Thursday night, held to raise money for the Public Library ($700,000 in the gala’s five years), I buttonholed Mayor Tim Sandoval.

Did he think Pomona had been a precursor of sorts to the recent arrests and protests at Home Depot stores in L.A., Paramount, Whittier and Huntington Park?

“It gives you the idea of which direction they were going,” Sandoval told me. “Target a high-traffic place like Home Depot, say you’re going after criminals, but while you’re there, round up other people too.”

The dinner’s emcee was Richard Montoya, a founder of Culture Clash, the Chicano performance troupe. The satirist kept things light but naturally made reference to recent events. “Tonight,” Montoya assured the audience, “the only ice is at the bar.”

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Charles Phoenix, who grew up in Ontario and has spent his adult life in L.A.’s Silver Lake, often touts the Inland Empire in his popular slide shows and talks. While emceeing the Claremont Heritage gala June 8, Phoenix broke some news: “I just three weeks ago moved to Claremont.” He added: “After 40 years in L.A., I thought, it’s time.” Appropriately, the Midcentury maven bought a 1953 home.

David Allen can be reached by email dallen@scng.com or phone 909-483-9339.