Opinion

The masks are coming off people; and what is apparent is what is underneath isn’t always that pretty. No one has been to the dentist in forever, beards are growing on the women and, even sadder, people have been hiding behind their masks for...

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...

This week’s headline is bit light-hearted, I thought it would help ease you folks into helping out with a situation here in Salinas Valley that for many is not a light subject at all. I am talking about the long closure of San Lorenzo...

The body politic of a school campus is known as the student union, so it follows that when a class graduates from the institution, those students are no longer part of the union. There is a tradition within societies that members of a particular...

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...

Have you ever asked yourself, “What do I want to be when I grow up?” For those of you who know me, you might say I’m still trying to figure that out. I come from humble means and always wanted to make my mom...

“You’re too damn cynical!” That was the total critique of a speech I gave back in high school in 1970, the critic a friend we called Pepper. I took that criticism to heart and in the decades since have tried to temper my cynicism...

They were the best of friends from a very young age. Though quite different — my sister was very bossy and her friend very sweet and accommodating — they were the ying to each other’s yang. I’m sure sister frequently got a good telling...

There has been a bit of a ruckus over some recent comments made on social media, a lousy debate forum as it offers space for quick one-sentence responses; such responses often just a curse word or two and the suggestion the commenter go to...

As we speed along on Spaceship Earth toward that day that marks the completion of another free trip around the sun, we first observe days set aside for religious and secular purposes. The generic term for this time of year is the Holiday Season. While...