Columns

Last Monday was Duffy’s day for Read to a Dog. As a little boy was poring over a book about trains and other tykes were petting my pup, we could hear bursts of high-spirited laughter erupting from the Forum Room next door. Ah—“The noblest art is that of making others happy.” (P.T. Barnum) And the magician was doing just that, by enchanting kids and adults alike!

Looking for a lost pet or a new four-legged friend? See the list of incoming strays and the slideshow of cats and dogs available for adoption from the Sonoma Humane Society, Healdsburg Center.

I once had a colleague tell me this about public figures and their use of the Bible: “Gene, whenever you are in a public meeting and somebody stands up and says, ‘The Bible says…’ you can be sure that somebody else is about to be hurt.”

In November 2016, Sebastopol lawyer, Omar Figueroa, told me that Proposition 64, which had just been approved by California voters, was “a travesty of marijuana legalization.”

I recently received an email from a reputable reporter who works for a reputable newspaper. The reporter said she reads my Cannabis Country columns and wanted to know what I knew about organized crime in the marijuana industry. Her email to me was prompted by a conversation she had with an elected official who claimed that “Bulgarian organized crime runs cannabis in Humboldt County, Laotian organized crime runs cannabis in Trinity and Cal Fire wouldn't go into those areas without law enforcement accompanying them.”

100 years ago – June 27, 1918

It’s almost the Fourth of July and we look forward to celebrating another Independence Day. We should remember that at the center of all the fireworks displays, backyard picnics, red white and blue banners and patriotic songs is a piece of paper with 1,450 words and signatures on it. It is “The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America.”

Here’s what’s happening at the Senior Center in July:

My beloved van is on its last legs, so Matt and I have been looking at possible replacement vehicles. We’ve narrowed it down to two makes and models, so we went down to test drive one of the contenders at Car Max in Santa Rosa. The car was nice, with many of the features we’re looking for… but it was a really, really weird dark brown. Luckily we’re in a nice position of not NEEDING a car, and we can keep looking, because I am not at ALL partial to brown, and by that I mean I hated it.

Whatever the date, summer arrives for most of us when summer fruit appears in its true ripeness. This means that apricots are soft and coral, lip-smacking in flavor. Peaches wake up your mouth and dribble down your chin. Berries are perfectly soft, chubby, deeply colored and ready to dive into a piecrust.