Opinion

Let me begin this week’s column by stating I don’t anticipate the subject to bring anyone to tears but myself. It is important to me to tell this story, but it will be a bit cryptic in that I will not use any proper...

Driving into the Correctional Training Facility at Soledad and you are reminded of how a secure institution can be. Acres of barren land, no trees, double high-wire fences, guard towers. And that’s how it should be, we know that. But head over to the...

I am an avid reader, but with limited scope. I don’t read any contemporary novels and don’t know most of the names I see on various Top Ten Books lists. I am a fan of mysteries, though, but usually limit myself to Conan Doyle,...

What is going on with our weather? I buy a new jacket and then the sun comes out like the fires of you know where. I love the warm weather, but it has to follow the rules. This out of sync weather plays the...

As astute readers have already realized, last week’s column was a combination of three pieces I had put together in the past couple of months and that explained its confusing and debatable message. Not to worry; like many others I am over political topics...

I have notes scribbled on scraps of paper scattered about my work area, in pockets and various other places I will no doubt discover after this goes to print. But I have enough here for a short column to cap off another year in...

At the present moment I am, to put it poetically, “far from the madding crowd,” I don’t even know who is headed to the World Series as “seeking the sounds of silence”; practically speaking, I am a ways up the Arroyo Seco Canyon sans...

It was football season 2011. I still have the ticket stub for no reason, back when they gave you paper tickets. It was going to be a game in San Francisco, indeed, the famous Candlestick Park. I had already attended an American baseball game...

Excuse me if I am a little maudlin this week. Lots of things happening and most of them are about where I am in life. Have you ever sat down to reflect on your position and what went right or wrong? I’m not a particularly...

I believe it is time to take a few days off and take a trip. I can’t even tell you the last time I went to town, much less a trip of more than one day. I go downtown to Gonzales just about every...