Columns

Holly Hoods was taken aback when three men walked into the downstairs office space of the Healdsburg Museum and Historical Society one morning last week. One of them was unknown to the museum director, but he seemed to know a lot about Healdsburg history,...

"Every year on the Thursday before Memorial Day, the streets of Healdsburg fill with music and marching bands, vintage tractors and streamers, and the laughter of the Twilight Parade," writes Liza Gershman in her bi-weekly "Harvest" column. "This is the rhythm of small-town summer: unhurried, joyful, deeply familiar..."

News from 1975: The event was marred by several fights late in the afternoon. As the afternoon wore on a number of young children were permitted by their parents to splash and play in the Plaza fountain. The children frequently squirted water on Fest guests and were difficult to control. Healdsburg Police arrested two men on charges of resisting arrest and disturbing the peace, after officer Don McNair was reportedly jumped by them.

"There’s a rhythm to it all: the harvest, the heat, the soft plunk of fruit into baskets and the bubbling whisper of molten strawberries on the stove, " writes columnist Liza Gershman. She goes on explain that the gift of the 'Farm + Market: Healdsburg' book she's working on is in the people she's meeting, the friends reconnected with, and the beauty of walking through gardens, farms, ranches..."

When a girl wants to be a cheerleader at Healdsburg High School, all she has to do is go to the practices, find a sponsor, perform a cheer in front of the student body and get enough votes to be elected. Simple enough. But what happens when the cheerleading candidate is a boy? Flashback to 1975, when they figured out how to make it happen.

At the Healdsburg Certified Farmers’ Market, strawberries are reaching their peak sweetness, their scent lingering in the air before they are even visible in the stalls. Spring onions and green garlic are tender, fava beans are shelled by the pound and sugar snap peas—the kind of bright green that seems to be omnipresent in my life lately—offer that crisp, wet-mouth crunch that makes them an irresistible snack...

Wisteria is associated with romance and spring, and it turns out spring love is more than a romantic idea. Longer days and increased warmth boosts phytochemicals in plants and hormones in animals. Plants transition from vegetative to reproductive growth (blooms and flowers) when Flowering Locus T (FT) is released.

'There’s a magic hour on Saturday mornings when the sun hasn’t quite burned through the morning mist and the scent of basil floats on the breeze. It’s in that moment—coffee in one hand, tote bag in the other—that Healdsburg wakes up..." Meet our new columnist, Liza Gershman.

100 Years Ago: Arrangements have been made by the amusement committee, Frank Corrick, chairman, with W. F. Warner, a parachute dropper, who will come to Healdsburg for the Fourth of July celebration, and will jump from an airplane with a parachute, beneath which he will float to the earth. 

As the months roll by, the Healdsburg Library Modernization Project continues along its steady path. Week by week, the contractors complete one task after another, bringing us closer to the reopening of the 139 Piper St. library we all know and love.