Columns

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.

Born in Kansas, Feb. 5, 1916, former Windsor resident Marietta Showalter recently celebrated 102 years of life at her home in Healdsburg. Marietta is a dynamic centenarian who remains active today: painting, reading, nurturing her plants and attending church each Sunday.

Happy February from the staff at the Healdsburg Library. We are enjoying high foot traffic inside the library so far in 2024. More people came to the library in January than any month since the start of the pandemic. In addition to the various events...

The shooter has mental health issues. Duh, I think anyone who perpetrates a mass shooting has mental health issues.  I also believe most of us have mental health issues. The rest of us work at keeping ours under control. The problem is that it is getting harder and harder to do that.

My beloved van is on its last legs, so Matt and I have been looking at possible replacement vehicles. We’ve narrowed it down to two makes and models, so we went down to test drive one of the contenders at Car Max in Santa Rosa. The car was nice, with many of the features we’re looking for… but it was a really, really weird dark brown. Luckily we’re in a nice position of not NEEDING a car, and we can keep looking, because I am not at ALL partial to brown, and by that I mean I hated it.

News from 100, 75 and 50 years ago in Healdsburg, including the fact that two television sets will be in operation as part of the extensive program of entertainment planned for St. John’s County Fair to be held over the July Fourth weekend...

Latino music playing in the vineyards as the sun rises, men shouting to be heard over roaring engines as their hands move with the precision of a surgeon with scalpel cutting one cluster then quickly another. Trucks barreling along narrow country roads delivering grapes prior to the heat of day. The entire county smelling of grape aromas — earthy, fruity, sweet and floral smells permeate the air. 

Happy New Year. I love the New Year. I love it because I like new beginnings. There is, for me, great hope and optimism when I start anything new, so the New Year excites me greatly.