Snapshot: The One-Room Schoolhouse
One-room schoolhouses were standard around the turn of the century. The Felta School was built in 1906. There were reportedly 132 other one-room schoolhouses in Sonoma County at that time.
Snapshot: Showy Shohei in playoff game
Like many other baseball fans, Pierre Ratte was impressed by Shohei Otani's performance in the final game of the National League championship game.
Snapshot: Cool relic of a cool era
Maybe you’ve seen it? The flamingo? The bird statue advertising the Flamingo Resort & Spaat Fourth and Farmer’s Lane? The City of Santa Rosa designated the sign a historic landmark in 1997. It’s a cool relic of a 1950s California aesthetic. Lots of locals...
Grateful for the Grateful Dead
Bob Weir took to the road and toured for 60 years. On Jan. 10, 2026, he passed into the land of the bands he founded: the Grateful Dead, the Dead and Dead & Company. He left a legacy of heartful music going beyond hit songs measured in gold records...
Snapshot: Singing the praises of prunes
Prunes are generally an unsung fruit, but Healdsburg is singing the praises of its Prune Packers’ tie-breaking series game over the Humboldt Crabs Friday night to win the Pacific Empire League. It marks the fifth consecutive championship for the Packers in a collegiate wooden bat summer league.
Snapshot: ‘No-rehearsal’ Christmas pageant
“In Hoc Anno Domini” is the title a Vermont Royster 1949 editorial in the Wall Street Journal. The WSJ reprints his editorial every year, such is the clarity of its prose and power of its message.
Snapshot: So Much Hot Air at Balloon Fest
Hot air. Sonoma summer. So much going on, including Sonoma County’s Hot Air Balloon Classic. Early morning reveille and revelry at the County Fairgrounds with gates opening at 4am. Although it was dark, once the hot air balloons “stood up,” propane flames and glowing balloons became a sound-and-light spectacle...
Cuban cigars from the Connecticut Valley?
Havana nights, yes! But Cuban cigars are illegal in the US. Have been since 1962. For a while, 2016-2020, there was an exemption for personal use, but that was revoked. With Cuban cigars outlawed, the next best thing is Antonio Cortada hand-rolling your cigar.
Postcard from the Olympics
Quadriennial Olympics competition started nearly 3,000 years ago in this, the first 'stadium' in Greece
Snapshot: Behind Peter Pan legend
Fairies are a part of folklore in many cultures. Typically, they are spritely, small creatures with magical qualities and a penchant for frivolity and trickery. Peter Pan is not a fairy, though Tinker Bell is...
Arts & Entertainment
Multicultural Center takes shape at Abel de Luna
Bursts of color explode from every corner and every angle of the newly repainted Abel de Luna Community Center on the north side of town. Fuchsia, sunflower, marigold, plum and chrysanthemum abut and juxtapose with one another on the many outside walls and columns, as two muralists work on their own visions of Healdsburg.
