Opinion

The waiting is the worst. I don’t think there is anyone who would challenge me on that. I get flashbacks to my own cancer diagnosis from 10 years ago. One test slowly crawled to another and you are in the waiting room of your...

What you don’t always appreciate is how much you love your home when you are away and, especially, your critters. On about the third week of our trip, we started to really think about heading home. We were missing it. But we had a...

One of the best things about writing for this periodical is the trip I often take as I try to find a subject that might peak your interest. Take last week, when I wrote the column, I was just trying to remember some of...

Every fine time is far more enjoyable if first one experiences some minor hardships along the way. As I write I am sitting on a second-floor balcony at the Hotel Lake Maggiori in Locarno, Ticino, Switzerland. It is 10 minutes after four in the...

We live in a valley formed by mountain ranges to the east and west with an ocean bay 50 miles to the north and a coastline 25 miles westward; a geographical formation that climatologists designate a semi-arid area. By comparison to many areas of...

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...

I knew she had been unwell for some time. When I say “sometime,” I mean years. It was quite shocking when I saw her the last time. The liver disease was really taking its toll on her, and she told me that she was...

Local column by Lucy Jensen

One late afternoon some years ago I stood among rows of uniformly sized brass markers placed with military precision in the grass at the Riverside National Cemetery. At my feet was my father’s marker, and this was my annual pilgrimage to his final resting...

To the Editor: Attention: South County animal lovers! Are you aware that when your city animal control officer picks up stray kittens and dogs, they have only temporary facilities to hold them? If the animal is not claimed by an owner, and, let’s face it, stray...