OUT OF THE FOG: After a gloomy...

OUT OF THE FOG: After a gloomy June left Oxnard hotels with batches of empty rooms, the sun finally peeked through in July (Valley Business, Page 7). . . . Occupancy was up 11 percentage points to 66.6% last month, said Carol Lavender, executive director of the Oxnard & Harbors Tourism Bureau. . . . “The tourists returned with the sun and warm weather,” she said. “We’ve had a few more sunny days, and the fog was less cold and damp.” Still, bookings were down from 71% for July, 1994.

FOUR-PEAT: Girls on the softball team from Newbury Park didn’t like it last year when they won their third-straight Bobby Sox national title and their local Little League counterparts got more attention. . . . This time, the boys have fallen in the playoffs. But the 12- to 15-year-old girls begin competing Friday for another championship. . . . “We’re better than last year’s team,” Coach Mark Yamaguchi said. “There wasn’t any animosity [toward the boys] last year. It’s just that both teams rose as high as they could go, and one team got more recognition. We didn’t think that was fair.”

POOR MAN’S POLO: Moorpark’s blue-collar polo matches (B1) hark back to a brief west county flirtation with the royal sport. . . . Although Sylvester Stallone would sometimes show up, riders who frequented the Victoria Avenue field near Oxnard were mostly regular Joes. . . . “They used to play pretty near every week,” neighboring farmer Joe McGrath remembers. “But it wasn’t anything fancy. It was a poor man’s polo. It didn’t last very long. I think they ran out of money.”

GUINEA PIGS: Pending school board approval, dozens of Oak View students will soon test their visual acuity to see how it relates to reading well (B1). . . . The youngsters may check with second-grader Collin Barker, a veteran of educational experiments, to find out what’s coming their way. . . . “I think there’s a disadvantage to being a principal’s son,” school Principal Nancy Barker said. “You are always the guinea pig.”