Ninety Minutes, Fifteen Dancers, and a Wall Full of Pastels

For the second time in four seasons, Redlands FC will settle its playoff fate on the final weekend of the year. And for the second time, it happens at Dodge Stadium against the Ventura County Fusion.

The math is simple in one direction and messy in every other. Win, and Redlands go through as the number two team in the Southwest Division. Draw or lose, and results from FC Tucson and Capo FC decide the season. The Fusion have already clinched the division, but they arrive with an unbeaten regular season to protect. The two clubs drew scoreless in Ventura earlier this year.

Here is the part that matters most. If Redlands advance, the postseason is played entirely on the road. That makes Saturday the last home night of 2026 either way, on a high school field that has quietly become the best sporting atmosphere in the Inland Empire. Tickets start at five dollars. Every playoff scenario, at Community Forward Redlands.

Kayla Smith gets up at 5:30, paints for an hour and a half, then goes to her full-time job as a campaign coordinator. She has kept that up long enough that her work now hangs in national exhibitions. Starting Saturday, it hangs on State Street.

Smith moved to Redlands at seven, graduated from Arrowhead Christian Academy, and earned an environmental studies degree from the University of Redlands in 2022. She did not pick a brush back up until a marine internship in Palau her senior year. The science is not a detour from the art. It is the engine. She approaches a landscape the way a researcher approaches a question, working out why every part of the painting has a reason to be there.

Her featured show at the Redlands Art Association runs Saturday through August 7, with an artist reception Saturday from 1 to 5 p.m. She is bringing extra pieces for that afternoon only, including hand-painted ceramics made with the Redlands Pottery Project. Originals are for sale. Admission is free. Read her full story at Community Forward Redlands.

Six thousand years of this valley, in one hour. Ernest Siva (Cahuilla/Serrano) has been the Morongo Band's tribal historian since 1996, and he is one of the last singers of the Paa'chucham, the only song tradition unique to the Serrano people. On Sunday, July 19, he speaks at Trinity Episcopal Church, 419 S. Fourth St, on the original peoples of the Santa Ana watershed: water, plants, animals, and how life worked in these mountains long before any of us got here. Salad luncheon at 11:15, program at noon, and the whole thing is free.

RSVP for lunch at 909-793-2014, or call Linda Apmadoc at 909-844-6760.

The Repair Café comes back July 25. Bring the lamp that quit, the bike with the bad shifter, the shirt you keep meaning to mend. Volunteer experts fix it free, 9 a.m. to noon at the Flores Senior Center, 111 W. Lugonia Ave. Register at repaircafe.ancaredlands.org to claim a drop-off time.

A first look inside the Museum of Redlands. Dr. Nathan Gonzales, archivist at A.K. Smiley Public Library, walks through twenty-seven years of work on the project and previews the opening exhibits. Thursday, July 16, 1 to 2 p.m. at the Joslyn Senior Center, 21 Grant St. Free.

Burgeson's marks sixty years. Dianne Burgeson started as a receptionist at the company her father founded and now runs the place. Six decades later, theirs is still the number you call when the air conditioning quits in July.

The Three Stags Irish Pub — Live Music, check @thethreestags.irishpub for this week's performer
📍 328 Orange St, Redlands, CA | 🕐 8:00 PM
The quietest way to start your weekend a day early.

Hangar 24 Craft Brewery — Taylor Gray, then Bitter Honey (Country/Rock)
📍 1710 Sessums Dr, Redlands, CA | 🕐 6:00 PM and 8:30 PM
Taylor Gray over dinner, Bitter Honey loud until close.

The Three Stags Irish Pub — Live Music, check @thethreestags.irishpub for this week's performer
📍 328 Orange St, Redlands, CA | 🕐 8:00 PM
Best pint of Guinness downtown, in a room built for conversation.

Septembers Taproom and Eatery — Live Music, check @septemberstaproom for this week's performer
📍 515 Orange St, Suite B, Redlands, CA | 🕐 8:30 PM
Long tap list, big room, and the patio is where you want to be in July.

Tartan of Redlands — Live Music, check tartanofredlands.com for this week's performer
📍 24 E Redlands Blvd, Redlands, CA | 🕐 Evening, set times vary
Sixty-two years old and still the closest thing this town has to Cheers.

Hangar 24 Craft Brewery — Kim Martin, then Last First Kiss (Country/Rock)
📍 1710 Sessums Dr, Redlands, CA | 🕐 6:00 PM and 8:30 PM
Kim Martin over dinner, Last First Kiss for everything after.

Ritual Brewing Co. — Live Music, check @ritualbrewingco for this week's performer
📍 1315 Research Dr, Redlands, CA | 🕐 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM
Industrial park outside, two of the best hours of music in town inside.

The Three Stags Irish Pub — Live Music, check @thethreestags.irishpub for this week's performer
📍 328 Orange St, Redlands, CA | 🕐 8:00 PM
Saturday at the Stags fills fast. Go early or stand.

Tartan of Redlands — Live Music, check tartanofredlands.com for this week's performer
📍 24 E Redlands Blvd, Redlands, CA | 🕐 Evening, set times vary
Prime rib and a live band. It is a formula for a reason.

The Three Stags Irish Pub — Ken O'Malley (Traditional Irish)
📍 328 Orange St, Redlands, CA | 🕐 4:00 PM to 7:00 PM
One of the most enduring Irish voices still working a room, and he owns every minute of it.

If you do one thing this weekend, put five dollars down at Dodge Stadium on Saturday night.

This is a squad of college kids playing for a town, on a field most of us walked past a thousand times growing up, and win or lose it is the last home night of their season.

Bring a neighbor, and make it loud.

See you around town,
— Carlos Samaniego, EA
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