Monday night, a vaguely familiar man behind the restaurant bar fessed up to being a new employee and deferred our orders to a nearby server. His task at hand involved drying dozens of glassware. Within the man’s earshot, Jack mentioned it would not be a good time to fly on an airplane. I commented that…
Annually, around the first of the year, we review the top 10 stories affecting Idyllwild of the prior year and also list all those we know we lost in the prior year in “Flowers of the Forest.” 2018 proved to be a horrific year for many of us because of the Cranston Fire. But most…
Joining or starting a grassroots organization in town to try to improve the lives of its residents and visitors is a noble cause. So many of us care, but are constrained by time, health or other factors so we can’t attend meetings or events surrounding these causes. I’ve noticed with more new people moving into…
Sitting at this computer, thinking about the past few weeks of holiday events involving parties, parade, festivals, and lots and lots of people, puts my head in a spin. It feels like, “Well, that all happened,” but then more is coming. We still have a few holidays to go with the Hanukkah, Christmas and New…
A rough year hit the mountain and two months remain. The Cranston Fire destroyed homes and property, but no lives were lost because of it, as happened with California communities elsewhere. Yet in the past months, this community has lost people — Charlie Clayton, Paul Kirk and Lilah Whitney, to name but a few. I’m…
It has been some time since I wrote this column, primarily because of space limitations over the past few months due to Cranston Fire aftermath coverage and the elections. We managed to cover 11 propositions, one measure and 12 candidates, the last two candidates in this week’s paper, thanks to JP and Marshall. I found…
Last week Jack and I took a long-needed mini-vacation, pulling along our 12-foot-something vintage travel trailer behind our Subaru. We left late Wednesday after finishing some chores at work. Our friends asked where we were headed? To the river? To the beach? To a lake or campground in the mountains? You know, they assumed our…
Time passed me by since I coined an opinion in this column, and I’m surprised I’ve evaded some readers’ pointed observations of that. Several “other” newspaper business deadlines involving press association, management and other print products overfilled my plate like a Paul Bunyan burger at the Lumber Mill. But those deadlines are memories for another…
Editor’s note: I’m giving Jack a turn again this week. “Fake news” is taken to mean one thing at the national level, but something quite different at the local level. When any newspaper values its reputation, it does not report rumor as news. It uses reliable sources and it verifies them. A reliable news source…
Getting your “news” from social media differs greatly from getting it from established news media. News media, if they at all value their reputations, must verify the information they’re getting. Rumor doesn’t make it. A person saying, “What I heard is …” isn’t close. A reliable source is someone who not only claims to know,…
