Opinion

This is my last Funny Papers Again column for the Valley newspapers, so if you have been a fan over the past couple of years then, well, just read slowly, I guess. More on this at the end of this column. Last Wednesday was the...

For members of previous generations, a “wakeup call” meant having a hotel employee ring their room at a certain time to rouse them from bed. Today the term is used when we’ve been doing something self destructive for some time (perhaps without realizing it)...

A few weeks ago I asked you, dear readers, about your first memory. I wanted to know who might be reading my words and allow me to know how you might have grown up. No name, no address or anything really that you don’t...

I have mentioned often about my young life in Wasco and the field work I did before I left for the military. Well, it occurred to me this morning that you might have thought I was a deprived young man. To the contrary, I...

Today seems like it might be a little different than most Sundays; there is an Artichoke Festival. This year it is in Monterey instead of Castroville. I was going to accompany my bride and her friends and go with them, but I needed to...

When you are crawling toward 24 years of marriage and over 26 together, the fireworks are not always going off, unless the neighbor decides that the Fourth of July cannot come soon enough. You are mostly like two comfortable-ish chairs, grumbling about the thing...

Have you ever had a situation that required you to step way out of your comfort zone? Perhaps meeting someone that is important to your future for the first time? Or maybe you are looking for a new job that might be a little...

Something just crept up inside my tiny brain and said, “Oh, you have vacation coming up next month with a lot of moving parts. Maybe you should check on some of those pieces?” I do listen these days when the female intuition kicks in,...

I know I have told you many times how much I love living here in the Valley. It is a place where magic happens on a regular basis. Of course, we have to pay a price for this privilege. You remember the rain that...

Believe it or not, it’s time once again to talk about influenza. The typical flu season in the United States begins after Labor Day, and can extend into the early spring of the following year. Our best defense has always been, and continues to...