Opinion

When I began my newsie career in 1991, the newspaper had a circulation of about 25,000 on Saturdays and slightly less during the week. Circulation was therefore a key department as well, because the well-oiled machine of putting the paper out was really no...

Today is a day when my dad would greet everyone he met with the most common phrase in the farmers lexicon. “Hot enough for you?” Actually, he didn’t say that very often. When you wake up over in the San Joaquin Valley, summer is...

By my reckoning 140 years, give or take, of my family’s timeline was spent in prisons; the years accumulated by my parents, a brother and his wife, a niece and myself. And it seems the family occupation within the California Department of Corrections (CDC;...

Aahhhh February! This has to be one of my favorite months. For a month that only has 28 or 29 days, there are a lot of days that we celebrate this month. Of course, we have Valentine’s Day. This is the day Saint Valentinus...

Aren’t emotions the weirdest things? They can make you feel so good or bad depending on the situation. If you read my scribbling last week, you might remember that my two sons were going to take me out for a night on the town...

In my wanderings about the village, I get the occasional opportunity to get inside different buildings, some are older and designed for specific purposes as are the VFW hall, numerous SVF buildings and the MCDT studio. Many are older and re-designed from days of...

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...

Do you have proper emergency preparation in place? The recent wildfires should be a reminder to everyone to have emergency plans ready. The idea is to be prepared, whether the threat is a wildfire, earthquake, flood, long-term power outage or some other widespread problem. A...