Columns

Here's what's happening at the senior center: 

Earlier this week, with smoke finally dispersed by welcome rains, I was driving a carpool of teenagers through Santa Rosa at the break of dawn. The autumn golden light of the rising sun highlighted seasonal colors of surrounding vineyards. Even trees blackened by last year’s fires, moist from recent rains, were glistening.

The students of the Class of 2020 will be marked and followed through history (their future) in forever terms, like the previous American generations of The Great Depression, World War II and the counterculture of the 1960s. Today’s graduates were born when the world was...

It’s staggering how quickly the pages of the calendar require turning. I barely got familiar with the picture for September and now it’s gone. On to October. And, we all know what happens to the autumn months. They are confiscated by the fiends that force-feed us the frenzy of Christmas holiday giving and eating. But, we shall fight them. We shall concentrate on gardening, not shopping, for October is the best month of the year for planting.

There are two looming events on our calendars that may further confirm the difference between compulsory law and bendable customs.

Note: This week in H’burg is a new weekly column featuring photos and fun facts from local photographer Pierre Ratté. Each week we’ll feature a new photo from Ratté along with a fact about the subject matter of the photo.

“Successful,” “college/career ready,” “prepared” are all words that we use frequently when we talk about what we want for our students. But how do we define these words and what do they look like in our students and high school graduates? 

“Alan Turing: The Enigma,” by Andrew Hodges. Now subtitled “The Book that inspired the film The Imitation Game.” 736 pages, illustrated. Turing was credited with his invaluable help in solving codes to end World War II and creating the first computer. His biographer succeeds in giving us a detailed portrait of the enigmatic scientist, along with an account of his groundbreaking work. A good long read.