Columns

Some people keep talking about the death of newspapers, and it is true that hundreds of newspapers nearby and far away have ceased publication in recent years. So far this year in California alone, 14 newspapers have folded and gone out of business.

Tax-Aide Program – Thursdays, Feb. 8 through April 12; 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. This AARP program provides free tax return preparation and advice. Preparers are highly trained. Please bring last year’s return and all documentation for this year’s return. No appointment needed; first-come, first-served. There is frequently a line so coming early is recommended. All donations from this program benefit the Windsor Senior Center.

When I was a teenager, my dad would always wait up for me if I went out at night on the weekends. Without fail, he would be watching TV and the second he heard my key in the lock he would spring up from his chair and say goodnight.

Last time out I composed a rather open-minded and open-hearted look at the man in the White House. It was written as an attempt to reveal a silver lining in his behavior, offering possible reasons why he sees fit to relish in spewing venom. In short, I was trying to find the human in the human being.

Our contemporary times come with many anniversaries we’d just as soon not celebrate. We just passed the 17th remembrance of the terrorist attacks of 9/11 from 2001 and soon all of Sonoma County and beyond will mark the first anniversary of the North Bay wildfires that destroyed almost 6,000 houses and killed 44 people.

On Saturday, Jan. 27, the Windsor Town Council held its annual goal-setting workshop. My personal takeaways were that, at a minimum, three priorities were identified and discussed.

As with most parts of life in Sonoma County, now removed by one month from the Oct. 8 wildfires, our 2017 Thanksgiving gatherings will be unlike any previous ones, with extra thoughts and prayers reserved for the victims and volunteers of our region’s greatest natural disaster in history. The timing to pause and give thanks could not be better.

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.

Right around the time on Thanksgiving morning when you pop your turkey into that fancy oven, just after you tune the television in your cozy living room to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade from New York, volunteers affiliated with a Healdsburg-based nonprofit will fan out into the community and inspire gratitude of an entirely different kind.