Bear with me and I’ll share my tour of rare bare slab outlets in the Bay Area, and there abouts. Using a list I compiled from the internet and woodworking sites, I visited a few and on three occasions drove home with a slab or two in my truck. The Berkeley East Bay area is […]
Jeff Burkhart’s “Rhyme and Reason”: My Cure
Imagine if you will this life, I live from day to day I write for me, I write for you, I write for love not pay No worries, it’s no cross to bear, it’s just the way I act Believe me when I tell you; I can’t stop and that’s a fact I guess when […]
The A Cappella Handyman: Mabel and Babe
Mabel and Babe In the late 1940s my maternal grandparents, Adolf and Karen Larsen bought a small dairy farm in Orland, Calif. Farr, Danish for Father, first worked his farmland chores with two plow horses, Mabel and Babe. My Dad later helped him acquire a John Deere system of farm equipment. Mabel was a friendly, […]
Voice of the Village: A day that changed my life
By Judie Donaldson I was deeply touched by Lois’s last column about losing a friend to Alzheimer’s disease. She shared her experiences and feelings with such tenderness. As I read, my eyes darted from one sentence to the next as I projected how I would feel if I had a similar experience with a good […]
Mrs. B’s Blather: Are you slowing down?
I can finally admit I am “slowing down.” After having a conversation with my much younger sister, Nina (four years younger), I realized that we are both “slowing down.” I had been dubbed the “Energizer Bunny” by Dena Westerman when she observed me at Mills Elementary School. Then there were the years in the yarn […]
Write Away: I wanna hold your hand
Ever since Annabelle was a baby, Colin has wanted to hold her hand, saying her hands are so soft that he can’t resist them. This sounds sweet, but when Annabelle was an infant, she was very particular about what was okay and what wasn’t. In the “Okay Box” was Mommy holding and feeding and taking […]
A Different Drummer: That was Zen, this is now
Bear with me. It’s been like a steamroller. What started as a mild curiosity has become my current life’s passion. Wood. I’m up to my ears in exploration. Backstory: The year I retired all my friends had the same question, “What are your plans?” My response was always the same, “I dunno.” Intentionally my plan […]
Jeff Burkhart’s “Rhyme and Reason”: When Nothing Else Will Do
Not pizza pies or popcorn, pasta, grapes or ham and cheese Not shrimp or fish in chafing dish, or Yorkshire pudding please I’ll pass on ice-cream sundaes, I don’t need those sprouts and such Don’t make a hero sandwich, for my open hand to clutch Keep your warm plum pudding, Coney Dogs; leave me alone […]
Poetry Corner: James Garrett “How?”
How, in God’s infinite wisdom, Did One get to be 75 years old? To sit and reflect, Hear stories his voice told. Once only the fall, Saved his life. Made him come back, Blessed him with a wife. That was all it took, That instant in time. Earth pulled him down, In a far distant […]
Counseling Matters: Attend college OR learn a trade?? A false choice!
Love it or leave it! You’re either with me or a’gin me. Either we walk or take a taxi! Each of these examples is a blatant fallacy: what critical skills people and rhetoricians label “a classic false-choice” proposition. (Want more? Listen to politicians of all stripes talking in front of crowds….). Another instance of a […]