Opinion

Goodwill has celebrated the power of work since it formed in Boston back in 1919. The nonprofit’s founder Rev. Edgar J. Helms had a simple idea — fight poverty not with charity, but with trade skills — and provide a chance for the poor...

Our first meeting was an interesting one. I had been hired as her boss at the local paper. She took me to see one of her oldest friends and clients. I was told by the customer, in no uncertain terms, that if I took...

Some of you must be wondering how I got such a high-paying job with such little experience. Well, since I have been doing this for a few years, I thought I would fill you in. It has been a long time since I begged...

Honey, can you come here? I rolled over and took a look at the clock on my nightstand. “Yeah,” I replied, not knowing if the house was on fire or what. Lorraine almost never calls me after I have gone to bed. We discovered many...

The perfect day was on order for the chosen celebration of life of our very own valley girl. Blissful sunlight through the oaks on River Road was on the menu, as was some delightful company. I arrived on top of some very ripe vines...

The definition of kindness is the quality of being friendly, generous and considerate, according to the Oxford Languages, wherever they might hang their hat off the Google imprint. The true meaning of being kind is doing intentional, voluntary acts of kindness. Not only when...

Today is day 192 of the year, 10 days past the midway point on the Gregorian calendar; there are 173 days remaining in the year 2024. These days mark the season of the Sun, summer is upon us in all its scorching beauty and...

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...

“Facts you wish were true. The news.” That line was uttered by a comedian, don’t ask me the name because I rarely recall anything about comics other than their genders, but it smacks of graveyard humor. And that is true of much of the...

This is my last Funny Papers Again column for the Valley newspapers, so if you have been a fan over the past couple of years then, well, just read slowly, I guess. More on this at the end of this column. Last Wednesday was the...