Fountain

GLENDALE ? The largest annual junior tennis tournament in the United States is taking place in Fountain Valley and some of the area's best young talent made the trip to compete. Players from all over the Los Angeles area, including Glendale, La Cañada and La Crescenta, are playing in the 105th Annual Southern California Jr. Sectional Championship. Play began on Saturday and will continue on through the upcoming week into the following weekend. Of the local junior players who have competed thus far, four have come out victorious in at least one match.

The subjects of life, death and love are (literally) tripping through writer-director Darren Aronofsky's mind in his latest film, "The Fountain." Set, more or less, in three different eras ? Spain during the Inquisition, present-day New York City, and sometime in the future ? Aronofsky's tale is an ambitious one amid so much of today's safety-first movie-making. That Aronofsky comes up short of his wild ambitions is not the story of a movie gone bad, but one with elements of wild-eyed interest and too much of the just plain ordinary.

GLENDALE — A pair of workers planted another tree on the sidewalk at Adams Square Wednesday, putting some finishing touches on a long-awaited streetscape project. The project's completion is about a month away. But already, the street and landscaping improvements, where an enclave of shops and residential homes on Chevy Chase Drive, Acacia Avenue, Adams Street and Park Avenue co-exist against a hillside backdrop, lend a European feel. There's even an old fountain and a newly-installed trellis to complete the look.

The official "Opening of 2006 Duck Season" is Friday, Sept. 8 at the fountain of the Glendale City Center Plaza on Brand Boulevard between Wilson and Broadway. The "First Duck" of the season, followed by the whole flock of ducks, will be launched in the Plaza fountain around 12:30 p.m. The community and all public is welcomed to participate in this opening ceremony with the Hoover High School Marching Band, complete with lots of rubber ducks, media coverage and prizes, all produced under the leadership of the Kiwanis Club of Glendale.

SOCCER Crescenta Valley wins Samba Invitational: The Crescenta Valley Soccer Club's under-13 squad captured the Samba Invitational with a 1-0 overtime victory against the Conejo Valley Avalanche. Vanessa Capra scored the winning goal for Crescenta Valley. Crescenta Valley advanced to the title match with 1-0 win against the Claremont Stars. Sylvie Martinez scored the goal off a corner kick by Jordan Royer. Cecilia Martinez and goalkeeper Eirene Kim played well for Crescenta Valley.

Improvements started seven years ago are unfinished as work that was completed begins breaking down.SOUTHEAST GLENDALE -- Members of the Adams Square Merchants Assn. are frustrated that the city has not completed a renovation project that was conceived in 1992. John Cianfrini, founder and president of the Adams Square Merchants Assn., said the unique and historic business district that features structures that were built as far back as the 1920s was supposed to be renovated with federal Community Development Block Grants.

Mark R. Madler Aaron Crasnick stood in front of the panels holding eight of his pictures at the KidsArt gallery Sunday afternoon, among them a picture he had never shown before. The painting shows a large white rock rising out of a green forest and looked like something out of "The Lord of the Rings," said Aaron, 9, of Sunland. "These were all of my best ones," he said of the collection, which was the most by a single artist at the gallery showing of its students' work.

Josh Kleinbaum If Rick Caruso has his way, the Glendale Town Center will have a fountain nicknamed after Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, a pear-shaped park nearly the size of a football field and a mix of architectural styles to make the project look like an evolving urban downtown. Although they did some nitpicking, the city's two Design Review Boards liked that plan, unanimously approving Caruso's Stage II design for the Town Center on Thursday.

DAVID SILVA "Six children and two adults." The woman in the ticket booth looked past my parents at my brothers and sisters and me. Linda and Diana, the second and third oldest of the kids, were taller than my mom. The oldest, Yvonne, was smoking. "You're telling me these girls are under 12?" the woman asked, her half-lidded expression signaling her incredulity. My mother nodded in grave earnest. "Um, do you mind if I see their IDs?" "Oh, they're much too young to have IDs," Mom replied.

Bob McGrew, who worked for Bob's Big Boy for 25 years, says he has lots of memories of his years with Bob's and also a few tangible items that he came across in the course of his time there, but "nothing old and nothing rare." McGrew started at Store No. 1 on Colorado Street after he graduated from Hoover High School in 1959 and Glendale Community College. "I inherited the job from my little brother," he said. He was a part-time fountain boy when he started, then moved all around.