Opinion

By my reckoning 140 years, give or take, of my family’s timeline was spent in prisons; the years accumulated by my parents, a brother and his wife, a niece and myself. And it seems the family occupation within the California Department of Corrections (CDC;...

To the Editor: On November’s ballot there will be a measure to increase the King City sales tax from 8.75% to 9.25%. This increase would bring us more in line with other towns in the valley. Up to now, so many improvements have been made in...

Saturday afternoon around 4:30 I was 410 words into my column for this week when my cell phone rang. The choice to interrupt a train of thought while writing usually falls to the “let it ring and go to voicemail” protocol, but in this...

(This essay recounting an automobile excursion from the Midwest to the Florida archipelago in the Gulf of Mexico is offered by an amateur writer from central California. American Travelogue Magazine does not by habit publish articles other than submissions by professional travel writers, but...

This week’s issue of the Valley newspapers hits the stands three days from Sept. 11, 2021: the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, the Twin Towers, in lower Manhattan. Known colloquially as simply 9/11, it is a date etched...

April 18-24 is National Volunteer Week, an opportunity to recognize the impact of volunteer service and the power of kind, compassionate people to strengthen and transform communities. Our volunteers within Mee Memorial Healthcare System never cease to amaze me. They lend their time, their talent...

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...

Forget the panic. Everywhere you look, including this very newspaper, you see the fallout from coronavirus. There is a difference between logical response and panicked reaction. On one hand, you could be provident and prepared for any potential emergency, including an earthquake or fire, and...

I received a bit of a scare the other day while riding my bike on San Antonio Drive, not from any near incident with a vehicle but from a sight I beheld near the skateboard park. I assumed that unaware to me the city...

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...