THIS TIME, THE TRIP TO NEW YORK CITY was about helping Gwenna, now 22, move there to start a new life. She and I were flying there, so I suppose my greatest contribution was to let her use my two suitcases for more of her stuff, while I lived from a carry-on bag for my […]
It’s Better Than You Think: How to stay young and happy forever: Advice from a 96-year-old grandma
MY GRANDMOTHER WAS ALWAYS THE HOTTEST COMMODITY IN HER TOWN, and in any town for that matter. Perhaps it is the way she flirted for the camera, even winking as she adorably crossed her legs slowly and deliberately for each photo from age 6 to 96, as if she were the most beautiful and important […]
ELECTION 2014: U.S. Rep.: District needs good jobs, strong economy
U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson, running for re-election to the state’s fifth Congressional District, said he’s been working on issues important to South Solano County and his other constituents, and he’s ready to address the challenges of growing a strong economy and bringing good jobs here. Thompson, D-Napa, has been in the House since 1998. He […]
ELECTION 2014: ‘Next New Deal’ key to challenger’s House campaign
James Hinton, a former Vallejo resident who is hoping to unseat U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson in Tuesday’s election, said he has an answer to the current economic crisis. He’s calling his plan the “Next New Deal.” “I’m running for Congress because our country is threatened by an economic crisis that was caused by Wall Street,” […]
ArchiTalk: What the Napa earthquake taught me
Editor’s note: Last of two parts. Read the first part by CLICKING HERE. A FEW WEEKS AFTER THE RECENT NAPA EARTHQUAKE, builder John Laverty told me he had seen several of the Napa projects we had done together and that they held up great in the shaking. That was good to hear. Year after year, we […]
Grant Cooke: Big Oil’s endgame: While fossil fuel costs keep rising, renewable costs fall
Editor’s note: Second of three parts to run on consecutive Sundays. Read part one by CLICKING HERE. “The Stone Age came to an end, not because we had a lack of stones, and the oil age will come to an end not because we have a lack of oil.” — Sheikh Ahmed-Zaki Yamani THREE KEY […]
ArchiTalk: Napa: Aftermath of the earthquake
ABOUT A WEEK AFTER THE NAPA EARTHQUAKE, I started receiving texts from my buddy Phil Joy, the house-lifter, that included photos of damaged houses and buildings. There were images of walls slanting and front porches with their posts all leaning at the same wrong angle. Phil was getting called by the owners of the worst-hit […]
When the Arsenal was ‘like the back-drop of a romantic play’
Stephen Vincent Benet, the Commanding Officer’s Quarters and Benicia’s literary legacy BACK IN SEPTEMBER 2001, just a few days before the eleventh day of that month became “9/11,” The Benicia Herald published my column called “Commandant’s Residence Must Be Restored.” Thirteen years later, the Commanding Officer’s Quarters in the Benicia Arsenal has been restored, thanks […]
From military to industrial: Benicia’s ‘overnight’ transition
How a refinery and the Industrial Park shaped the city In Benicia’s not-too-distant past, its financial situation was so dire that employees who were handed checks on Friday were told not to cash them until Tuesday. That was before the U.S. Army announced in the early 1960s that the Benicia Arsenal would be the first […]