Rock Stars! This Saturday

Toys and Tools

Bugs, Bugs, & More Bugs

Desert Scorpion from Palm Springs (Pat Murkland Photo)

Madagascar hissing cockroach (Pat Murkland Photo)

Collection of jewel scarab beetles from South America (Pat Murkland Photo)

Texas Vinagaroon (Pat Murkland Photo)

Bugs that crawl, hop, run, fly, and creep will dazzle ... or repulse you. Learn all about them and Native American stories and songs, too. Bug-fun activities! Join the biologists from Loma Linda University and their bug friends at the Learning Center's Second Saturday Sidewalk Storytelling program on Saturday, April 14, for family-friendly fun from 1-3 p.m., corner of Hays & San Gorgonio Avenue, Banning, CA. FREE.

October

Come fall into fall this Saturday.

Discover autumn at Dorothy Ramon Learning Center.

Our Second Saturday Sidewalk Storytelling is all about October.

Free family fun!

Native American storytelling and songs with Ernest H. Siva (Cahuilla/Serrano).

Free crafts (sage sachets and leaf prints).

Details:

1-4 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 8

Corner of Hays St. and San Gorgonio Ave., Banning, CA

Information: 951.849.7736

Come back at 6 p.m. for our Native American flute class with members of the Inland Empire Flute Circle. Only $10.

Tortoises

It was a fun Second Saturday with Barbara Drake (Tongva) and the California Turtle & Tortoise Club Inland Empire Chapter ... and a couple friends.

The Serrano Indian word for tortoise = Qerperc

The Cahuilla Indian word for tortoise = I'yeel

Our friends from the California Turtle & Tortoise Club

Barbara Drake uses a tortoise shell to tell about the 13 moons on a tortoise's back: a calendar.

Fun crafts for all ages ... a felt tortoise, and a pinhole drawing

Free family fun! Missed this second Saturday?

Come to the next. Or come again!

Second Saturday Sidewalk Storytelling

OCTOBER! Oct. 8 1-4 p.m.

Fall is here, an important time for the First People. Come discover more with Ernest Siva (Cahuilla/Serrano). Crafts. Free family fun.

Dorothy Ramon Learning Center, corner of San Gorgonio Ave. and Hays St., Banning, CA

We save and share Southern California Native American cultures, languages, history, and traditional arts.

Thirteen Moons on a Tortoise's Back

© Pat Murkland

We're celebrating turtles and tortoises ...

so, don't poke along, please hurry to join us.

We're having a special Second Saturday Sidewalk Storytelling this coming Saturday, September 10.

Elder Barbara Drake (Tongva) will share traditional stories about turtles and tortoises, which are important to Native American cultures throughout Southern California.

A representative from the California Turtle & Tortoise Club and a desert tortoise also will be on hand to meet and greet you.

Come learn all about California's state reptile and other turtles and tortoises.

The club is looking for homes interested in adopting rescued desert tortoises and other turtle and tortoise rescues.

Could that be you?

Come learn about these interesting reptiles and fill out an adoption application.

Come for an afternoon of free family fun.

Enjoy crafts for kids!

DETAILS:

Saturday, September 10, from 1 to 4 p.m.

Dorothy Ramon Learning Center, corner of San Gorgonio Avenue and Hays Street

Snakes Alive!

It's snake season.

Teach snake safety to your kids.

Learn about rattlesnakes and other venomous animals.

Learn Native American stories about them, too.

It's all at the next Second Saturday Sidewalk Storytelling event, from 1-4 p.m. June 11.

Come discover the Center at the corner of San Gorgonio Avenue and Hays Street in Banning.

Music, Music, & More Music

Second Saturday Sidewalk Storytelling has been a hit since our debut earlier this year.

It's all about learning and free family fun.

This coming weekend our event features MUSIC:

• Learn about our Southern California music from Ernest Siva, the Center's leader.

Photo © Carlos Puma for The Center

• Discover animals that are in songs.

• Find out why we have dragonflies on our doors at the Learning Center.

Photo © Pat Murkland

Learn the Dragonfly Song! Make your own dragonfly to take home.

• Discover musical instruments of Southern California.

Make your own instrument to take home.

• Learn about flutes, hear flute music,

and play a flute.

Photo © Pat Murkland

DETAILS:

Corner of Hays and San Gorgonio Ave., Banning

1-4 p.m. this Saturday, April 9

INFO: 951.849.7736

Spring is for music

True Cowboy and Indian Tales of the Pass

A few Morongo brands © Pat Murkland Photo

Welcome to the Old West. The real Old West.

San Gorgonio Pass has a rich history of cowboys and Indians.

For starters, the first cowboys WERE Indians.

And when it came to good guys and bad guys, there's a story of how Cahuilla leader Juan Antonio caught a whole gang of bad guys.

He and his men had no guns but the bad guys did.

Want to hear this story? Want to hear more stories?

Did you know Wyatt Earp was in the Pass?

Come to Dorothy Ramon Learning Center’s family sidewalk event this Saturday (March 12) for “True Cowboy and Indian Tales of the Pass.”

The event from 1 to 4 p.m. at the corner of San Gorgonio Avenue and Hays Street is part of the Learning Center’s Second Saturday Sidewalk Storytelling series.

Here you'll find free family fun with hands-on activities for children, along with storytelling.

The first two events drew standing-room-only crowds of all ages to our nonprofit that saves and shares Southern California’s Native American cultures, history, languages, and traditional arts.

“True Cowboy and Indian Tales” will feature stories by Richard Hanks of Riverside.

Hanks has a background in journalism, public history, and archival work. We like to tell people he has an ear for listening to voices not usually found in the history books, and an eye for ferreting out telling details amid a library's vast holdings.

He can tell a good story or two or three, and on Saturday, that's just what he'll be doing. The true stories are much more interesting than the Hollywood clichés.

Hands-on activities will help teach children about real Pass cowboys and Indians — including American Indians who were and still are cowboys.

© Carlos Puma for the Center

For example, try a lasso.

Family fun! And it's free!

All are welcome.

Information: (951) 849-7736.

Serrano Toys & Tools

What tools did American Indians use?

What toys did American Indians play with?

Find out this coming Saturday, Feb. 12, from 1 to 4 p.m. at Dorothy Ramon Learning Center, corner of Hays and San Gorgonio, Banning.

You're invited to Serrano Toys and Tools. Try out some Indian tools for yourself. Make and take home a toy.

And learn and take home some accurate and interesting information about our region's Serrano culture, language, history, and traditional arts.

Each month we host the FREE Second Saturday Sidewalk Storytelling event.

It's for families. For kids of all ages. It's for you.

And it's FREE.

This month, staff members and volunteers from the San Bernardino County Museum are going to bring lots of interesting and fun toys and tools. Don't miss this program!

Flutes At the Center

We had a standing-room-only crowd at our new Second Saturdays event.

Participants weren't just standing, though ...

They were making flutes with Antonio Flores.

Thank you all for coming and helping save and share Southern California's American Indian cultures, languages, history, and traditional arts.

Read about the flute-making event — and why it's important to Banning's downtown — here.

Fun With Flutes this Saturday!

All Photos by Pat Murkland

He comes with a pile of sticks.

But once Antonio Flores sets up a table and tools, a crowd appears.

People of all ages transform the sticks into handmade flutes, each with its own melodic voice.

By popular request, flute-maker Antonio Flores will return to Dorothy Ramon Learning Center, at the corner of Hays Street and San Gorgonio Avenue, from 1 to 4 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 8, to teach people how to make and play their own Native American wooden flutes.

Flores, a volunteer, drives from his Oakland home to the nonprofit Center in downtown Banning.

Making and sharing the small, wooden Pomo-style flutes is his joy.

During his most recent visit at the downtown Phineas Festival in November, nearly 100 sticks of elder wood became flutes, custom made to fit each player’s hand.

Flores also teaches the flute-makers how to play their flutes, often adding stories or a little music from local Native American cultures.

Second Saturdays

His free flute-making session is part of “Fun With Flutes,” this month’s theme for a new family event called Second Saturday Sidewalk Storytelling. Every second Saturday, the nonprofit Learning Center plans to host hands-on activities, storytelling and traditional singing that help save and share Southern California’s American Indian cultures, languages, history, and music and other traditional arts.

Along with free flute-making, “Fun With Flutes” will feature stories and songs from Learning Center leader Ernest Siva, a Cahuilla-Serrano culture bearer, and others.

Future Second Saturday Sidewalk Storytelling events at the Learning Center include:

• Serrano Toys and Tools, Feb. 12, from 1-4 p.m. Families can learn about Serrano toys and tools and make some of their own to take home. Co-hosted by the San Bernardino County Museum. FREE.

* True Cowboy and Indian Tales, March 12, from 1-4 p.m. People will learn real stories from the Pass and can try their hands at some traditional cowboy and Indian skills. FREE.

What would you like to see at a second Saturday? Let us know.

Come join the fun. Share the stories. Sing the songs.