Columns

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Recent news that Sonoma County’s overall health ranking has fallen to No. 7 in the state, down two places from last year in a statewide health survey, should concern us all. More alarming was the Sonoma County Department of Health Services’ January 2018 report noting that our childhood cancer rate is the fourth highest in California and that cancer is the leading cause of death in all age groups.

A friend posted a challenge on Facebook to share how old you are, without using any numbers. I love taking trips down memory lane and letting the images, smells, feelings and sounds wash over me. It’s like pulling out old family albums or yearbooks and falling back through time to a time that feels as recent as yesterday. I let my mind wander back, and here’s a few of the things I could come up with.

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.

This Week in H’burg is a 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.

A few weeks ago I was sitting in my dining room, checking in with Matt (who was at work), when a movement outside the window caught my eye. I glanced up and saw a cat-like figure moving leisurely across the lawn and quickly realized it was not our cat, nor was it a cat at all. The creature was a fox!

The following snippets of history are drawn from the pages of the Healdsburg Tribune, the Healdsburg Enterprise and the Sotoyome Scimitar, and are prepared by the volunteers at the Healdsburg Museum & Historical Society. Admission is always free at the museum, open Wednesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.