Opinion

How long have you lived in the house you live in now? I ask, because I was truly startled by the answer my bride gave me when asked: “34 years,” she said. I asked again just to make sure I was using the same...

I was cruising around Greenfield the other day and noticed the construction at the old Greenfield Grammar School, which is what back many years ago we called the present-day Mary Chapa Academy. I noticed that the buildings being renovated were a couple of the...

There is perhaps no better sound in the world than that of a familiar wave slapping against a familiar beach. I was born and grew up with that sound on the East Coast of England. When I return to my source, it is almost...

Because I can bring to memory the Greenfield of the late 1950s through the early 1970s, I like it when old things see new life instead of falling into disuse and disrepair and the ultimate end such brings forth. I remember the fine old...

No matter how I may wish to deny I am old, at two years and seven decades it is nonetheless a fact and, having never been old before, I am unrehearsed for the role. I am not alone in that realization, evidenced by how...

What if they started a war and nobody showed up? These words went to a paper I wrote about 40 years ago while stationed at Fort Bragg, N.C. I was an instructor with the U.S. Army Institute for Military Assistance. I attended an evening...

To the Editor: Mr. J.J. Burnes, thank you for your letter to the editor regarding Black history (“Black History,” Feb. 24). The information on Mr. Bass Reeves, 1838-1910, the first Black American Deputy U.S. Marshal in Oklahoma Territory, was very informational. Let me be your Paul...

They were the best of friends from a very young age. Though quite different — my sister was very bossy and her friend very sweet and accommodating — they were the ying to each other’s yang. I’m sure sister frequently got a good telling...

For decades in the Salinas Valley, the short-handle hoe, known as “El Cortito,” was used for weeding and thinning rows of crops that kept farmworkers stooped over for long hours each day. Workers were only able to stand and stretch when they reached the...

Here is a little story about one little incident back in my days of riding motorized two-wheeled transports, also known as motorcycles. Like many of my stories, this one takes place in Greenfield back in the halcyon days of teenhood. (Hey, if there can...