Guest Column | Tackling the Commercial Property Crime Epidemic
As the once-owner of Salinas Valley Ford Truck Center in Salinas, I find myself grappling with a profound sense of loss and frustration. For more than three decades, our family business provided excellent service to the local community and government agencies. Then, in the blink of...
Window on the World Column: The Lucky Ones
It has been a most interesting year; what an understatement. I have never felt so fortunate and yet so frustrated. I’ve found skills this year I didn’t think I had. I have dug deep for patience I never believed I possessed. Four years ago,...
Window on the World Column | Training It
I landed at London Heathrow Airport, as I have done many times these past 37 years. I checked into my fave airport hotel — the Hilton Garden Airport Hotel at Terminal 2 and relaxed for the rest of the day, culminating in a delicious...
Funny Papers Again Column | From Loop to Loop: Roads We Once Drove
Funny how the mind works. Today I was blankly sitting in front of my laptop with no idea what to write about, tuned to KCBX, the local NPR radio station, when a report from Chicago mentioned the famous circular downtown roadway known as the...
Who will fulfill the vision of Cesar Chavez?
More than three decades ago, Cesar Chavez, founder of the first successful union for farmworkers, predicted a future in which the cities of California would be run by people who looked like him.
“History and inevitability are on our side,” he said in one of his best-known...
Window on the World Column | Bucket Listed
I’ve no idea where the term “bucket list” came from because it makes absolutely no sense. Fortunately, everyone understands what it is. Most of us of a certain age have such a thing — a checklist of sorts for our bucket — places we...
Funny Papers Again Column | ‘The Nutcracker Ballet’: What Have I Been Missing?
Very soon, in fact just two days from today, the Monterey County Dance Foundation will present the Monterey County Dance Theatre’s 62nd anniversary production of “The Nutcracker Ballet” on the Robert Stanton Theater. That will be a treat for me as I have never...
Funny Papers Again Column | Meet the Nippers and the Nipper’s Nippers
If any of you readers have paid attention over the past few years, you know I do not include a lot of family stuff; we all have family stories, so my use of space in a newspaper as a journal about my family seems...
Guest Column | New Year Could Mean a New You Through ‘Fresh Start Effect’
For many of us, the new year represents a fresh start, and that is a concept that holds a lot of power. Hitting our internal “reset” button on Jan. 1 gives us the mental clarity and internal incentive to put our best foot forward...
