Ready, set, go... to the Avocado Festival

"Now, fellas, we've got a chance to put Fallbrook on the map. Our avocado

growers need help. What's it going to take to promote this wonderful fruit?" In

1962, Fallbrook Chamber of Commerce then-President Sherman Loudermilk might have

said those very words to local businessmen and farmers hunkered down over coffee

cups and lemon pie at Harrison's Pharmacy soda fountain counter, now the Art &

Cultural Center.

At a time when avocados were grown on three- and four-acre farms and the

harvest scant, grocery stores were reluctant to sell the green gold fruit, so

the Avocado Advisory Board lau...