Opinion

Have you been down to the local electric car dealership to compare the prices between gas and electric? If you haven’t, I might be able to save you a trip. The fancy looking Tesla runs in the neighborhood of $66,000. There are cheaper ones;...

There are those who believe that these fires started off with a little help from some miscreant or two. What are your thoughts? I won’t say whether I believe that is what happened, I hope not. But I also do hope that those responsible...

Did you have a good Father’s Day this weekend? I think this was just about the best Father’s Day I have had in awhile. Of course I say that every year. They always seem to find a gift that I didn’t even know I...

It is an uncommon occurrence in my own life to find myself in a situation where I become distinctly and acutely aware that I am—in that moment—a minority. This once occurred when I attended a young adult LGBTQ organization in Long Beach, where black...

Downtown Soledad on a Saturday can be a bustling little place. People’s comings and goings to the hardware store, the barber or the pharmacy. Getting an ice cream or some Mexican food for the family. Normal life is slowly returning. I had a mission...

In 1986 I worked for California’s Employment Development Department, where I processed amnesty seekers under President Ronald Reagan’s landmark immigration reform law called Immigration and Control Act (IRCA). The Watsonville office reviewed documents proving that applicants had worked in the local farming economy for...

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...

It was on one of the local online groups, ordinarily used for lost dogs or downtown incidents. The lady said that she had never asked for anything before and yet she really needed some help this year for her children. She had been laid...

OK, so I’m 21 years old and I’m driving this flatbed dooley along the horseshoe canal and two guys come running toward me frantically waving their arms, and because I know these young men, I stop the vehicle. Good opening sentence, huh? Let me...

This is a story I wrote 20 two years ago. I wrote it to honor my mother on Mother’s Day. She didn’t know I would do this and probably would have asked me not to write it, but it was a gift that came...