Two Gents' Worth
October 4, 2026
Sharon and I were having lunch in our backyard this Easter Sunday afternoon when a squirrel urinated on me. No, I am not making this up. There we were, sitting in the shade underneath our Japanese maple tree when I suddenly felt water hitting me on my right arm and head. For a brief moment,…
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I have plenty of history under my belt. Which means, simply, that I’m old. And the older I get, the more I enjoy seeing and learning about things that are even older than I am. Maybe it makes me feel younger — I don’t know. But whatever the reason — this past Saturday saw me…
Read More about Saturday in the Sierra
I’m an old guy, and I’m incredibly fortunate to have experienced more than seven decades of Christmases. Some of them have been in distant locales like Ames, Iowa; Buffalo; Atlanta and Washington, D.C. Some have been in not-so-distant places like Los Angeles, San Francisco and Phoenix. And one of them was overseas — that…
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We haven’t seen the sun for about a month here in the heart of the San Joaquin Valley of California. Seems all that rain we had back in November turned into fog that’s been hovering over the entire central part of our state. And not just hovering — blanketing the area, blotting out the sun…
Read More about Seeking Sun in the Sierra
My buddy Kopi and I — we’ve known each other a mere 70 years or so — had an early Thanksgiving of sorts this past Saturday in Fresno. And we had no idea it was coming. We met — as we had months earlier in another jaunt — in front of the 1923 adobe house…
Read More about Back Home, Kopi & I
Bud Elliott — one of the San Joaquin Valley’s longest-tenured television news anchors — passed away in the early morning hours of Tuesday, Nov. 18. He was 76. Mr. Elliott — whose name adorns this blogsite — had courageously battled Parkinson’s disease for more than a decade. That disease had forced him to retire from…
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It was another gorgeous October day here in the Valley this past Monday. You know the type — clear days and nights, highs in the 70’s and lows in the 50’s. Just the type of day that prompts you to get up and go out. So I did — got up and went out, that…
Read More about History in the Foothills
They threw another big community party in Madera this past Saturday, and as usual, thousands of people showed up. And why not? There was an impressive parade — with bands and marchers and horses and stagecoaches — all making their way down historic Yosemite Avenue. There were food trucks galore in Courthouse Park, where the…
Read More about Old Timers, AgainI’m only guessing, of course, but I bet if my dad had been alive, he would have enjoyed coming with me this past Thursday when I drove out of Fresno and up into the Sierra mountains in eastern Madera County. After all, my first stop was in North Fork, where Dad and Mom (right) had…
Read More about A Trip for DadAs I was out walking Jessie the Dog this past Sunday evening in our neighborhood, I saw something I had not seen in many years — kids playing wiffle ball in the street. There were four of them, and they looked as if they were in late junior high or early high school. School was…
Read More about Summer’s Last Hurrah