In summer 2020, Riverside was a foreign land for me. I could locate the Mission Inn and Simple Simon’s and that was about it. I didn’t know a soul in town. Like Bob Dylan, I was a complete unknown.

But that had to change in a hurry. After 23 years focused on Ontario, Rancho Cucamonga and the like for the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, my column was going to also appear in The Press-Enterprise, Riverside County’s Pulitzer-winning newspaper.

Was I worthy? We would soon find out.

Actually, pandemic restrictions on gatherings slowed the process of meeting, greeting and assimilating. As time passed, more chances to be out and about came.

Things began to click. At a ceremony one year in, a Riverside reader recognized me from the newspaper and said hello. (Thank you, Charlotte McKenzie.)

Two specialties of mine, local history and culture, began to assert themselves in these new environs.

At a museum reception in early 2023, after a curator asked my name and I provided it, she chided herself: “Of course.” Of course? “Everyone knows you write about the arts,” she replied earnestly. They do? I glowed inside.

As I grounded myself in Riverside history, names and dates started sticking in my mind. I have no idea what data was displaced to make way for them. But I can tell you without looking it up that the architects of the Mission Inn (1902-1931) were Arthur B. Benton and G. Stanley Wilson.

A core group of civic-minded people make Riverside hum. It’s a large city, but it’s like a small town. I can see why people like it.

Five years into this gig, there remain plenty of VIPs I haven’t met and parts of town I haven’t seen. Generally I’m in Riverside only one day a week and I’m on the clock.

Still, at a few establishments I am recognized as a regular. That’s a warm feeling. I have made friends. (A surprising number are named Nancy.)

At events or receptions, I see familiar faces, am greeted by name and meet new people who introduce themselves as readers. Even as a visitor, I am a small part of the city’s civic life.

It’s everything I could have hoped for five years ago as the new guy.

At one recent event I met Glenn E. Freeman, a former P-E journalist and chronicler of his hometown’s history. He’s been following my work.

“You really embraced Riverside,” Glenn said approvingly.

I’m glad it shows.

As promised Sunday, this is part two of a look at my five years in the P-E. So many of you responded to my solicitation for comment that part one excerpted what you had to say.

But I wanted to pause to reflect in this space myself. It’s not something I allow myself to do often. And perhaps a peek into how I approach what I do, and the challenges in doing it, will be of interest.

To refresh your memory, in mid-2020 all four of our Southern California News Group newspapers in the Inland Empire — the P-E, Sun, Redlands Daily Facts and Daily Bulletin — merged staffs for economic reasons.

I was suddenly the columnist for all four of these papers and thus had to include all those regions in my work. If you want to think of me as the personification of newspaper decline, be my guest.

Daily Bulletin readers have cause to lament my territorial expansion.

They used to have my full attention. Now they have to share me with the rest of the IE.

“They’re like an ex who’s mad that you don’t write about them anymore,” jokes Linda Trawnik, who’s active in Upland circles. “I hear things like ‘David only writes about Riverside now’ or ‘He never writes about Upland anymore.’”

I get it. A part of me misses those days, too. They’re my version of simpler times. But I’ve gotta go where the readers are, and these days, most of them are east of the 15 Freeway, not west.

And bear in mind that with a population of 319,000, Riverside is not only the largest city in the IE, it’s the 12th-largest city in California. Of course it’s going to get a lot of ink.

But not all the ink. At various points in the first half of 2025, columns have originated in bursts from Pomona, Ontario, Rancho Cucamonga and San Bernardino — plus, for the record, one in March about Upland’s potholes.

During this stretch, the City of Arts & Innovation was uncharacteristically absent. One Riverside official asked a mutual friend: “Does David not write about Riverside anymore?”

These are the sort of worries that wake me at 3 a.m.

It’s an anxious occupation, writing a newspaper column. Not to bore you with my problems, but from Monday to Friday I am researching and writing a 1,000-word column basically every day and a half. I am fast, but there is not a lot of time for quiet contemplation.

I’ll be the first to say that the geographic mix here could be better. What makes it into print is sometimes based on what’s achievable by deadline.

Distance can make some potential columns infeasible. I live in Claremont, having so far resisted the idea of moving east. I like living here, the same way you like living wherever you live. It’s home.

Because I can’t dematerialize and rematerialize elsewhere, like on “Star Trek,” some stories are out of reach physically. I have no appetite for driving home in the dark from an event 40 or 50 miles away. There is both a lack of time and a lack of daylight.

Within those constraints, as well as a mental bandwidth that isn’t unlimited either, I’m doing my best and hope my humble efforts find favor with most of you.

“You connect the communities,” reader John W. Crowe of San Dimas told me by email. “I think you are doing well and need this broader canvas.”

Thanks for reading and for your support. It means everything, honestly. After a vacation, I’ll see you back here July 23.

David Allen writes Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, year in, year out. Email dallen@scng.com, phone 909-483-9339, and follow davidallencolumnist on Facebook, @davidallen909 on X or @davidallen909.bsky.social on Bluesky.