There are many challenges in life, but one of the biggest I’ve encountered is learning to be the bigger man. This is a challenge that is ongoing, and constantly evolving with every relationship I’ve chosen to keep. It’s a difficult endeavor because in the simplest of terms, it means accepting humility. What I’ve realized is [...]

The El Dorado Irrigation District has been raising rates so fast our heads are still spinning like some horror movie. Water rate hikes add up to a 37 percent increase between 2012 and 2015. Now, EID is talking about raising hook-up fees to as high as nearly $41,000 for new water service. That’s a figure [...]

Everybody  knows an old dilapidated house. You know the kind, where you can’t flush the toilet if someone’s in the shower. Where the fuse box is so old that using the garage door opener while the dishwasher is running blows the fuse and kills half the lights in the whole place. Yes, it  keeps the [...]

Never having been to Chicago we decided to include it in our vacation plans this spring. It was actually a two-part excursion. First we rented a car to drive to Rockford, Ill., an excursion that will be discussed in a later column. But before we took off for Rockford we were due to go on [...]

After three years, the Wakamatsu Farm Festival has become bigger and better, expanding its program. This year it attracted 700 people. Wakamatsu Farm Festival is located on the 272-acre Gold Hill ranch, where the Veerkamp family operated a dairy operation and before that grew fruit trees. It had been in the Veerkamp family 125 years until [...]

Of course it’s not new, but it was news the other day when it was reported that 15 people had been arrested in and around Moore, Okla. for looting the neighborhoods that were demolished by several recent tornadoes. Sure there are always those who take advantage of other people’s misery. Scammy contractors prey on folks [...]

Each year, there are signs of summer — portents that the warmer weather has brought something new and different into our lives as well as the familiar events like the 12-year war I’ve been waging every summer against the ubiquitous garden trio, Woodruff, Oregano and Common Yarrow. It’s my own fault. Like herbal vampires, I [...]

If there was ever an easy opportunity to make a difference in your local community, this has to be it. With just a few minutes of your time each day, you can help revamp Main Street in Placerville with nothing but the click of a mouse. “Main Street Matters,” a campaign by paint manufacturer Benjamin [...]

If anyone needs proof that things change in Placerville, they should take a look at the new digs for Precision Eyecare at 118 Main St. What was previously an abandoned gas station is now a two-story upscale building with beautiful landscaping out front. And in the finest tradition of Placerville the optometrist is living above [...]

Congratulations to the Food Bank of El Dorado County for coming up with a clever idea — a food truck. It’s not a taco truck, but a grocery delivery van bringing Food Bank groceries, especially to seniors in need. The Food Bank truck has some regular stops, such as the parking lot of the Veterans [...]

“Normal is an illusion. What is normal to the spider is chaos to the fly.” — Morticia Addams Many things in life are open for interpretation. What one person sees as a downfall in life, another sees as a challenge. What one group considers normal behavior, another considers extreme. What society dictates as normal may [...]

What happens when most Legislators are either lawyers or part of the permanent political class? What happens is we get officious acts like Assembly Bill 391, passed by our esteemed Democratic majority and signed by Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown about a year ago and updated at the beginning of this year? That law requires pawn [...]

The Firefighters’ Union feathers its nest by recruiting, campaigning for and getting elected to the Fire Board other firefighters who will give salary increases to the union members. Here is a real example of how it works: The El Dorado County Fire Protection District firefighters were given raises during the last five years by a [...]

Not only are some in Placerville opposed to a roundabout, they don’t even want the Clay Street Bridge replaced. What’s so sacred about a one-lane bridge where water pools up on it in the winter and it can barely accommodate a pedestrian and a vehicle at the same time? What’s so sacred about a bridge [...]

At the Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championships (IRAs) on Lake Natoma last week, while 4,000 spectators stood craning their necks to watch the Washington Huskies row to the national championship, one man looked the other way. John McCasey has been to innumerable major sporting events in the past 41-years, but rarely as a spectator.  As a [...]

Whew! Missed it by three votes. The nanny-state-ocracy nearly bagged us again. Yes, The state Senate voted 18-17, which was three votes short of what was required, to ban plastic grocery bags. Four senators did not vote, so look for this to come back to the Legislature again next year. This year the same senator [...]

The political arena in California and elsewhere is packed with who can shout the loudest and spend the most from the far sides of the political ideology spectrum. The rest of us, the majority, sit quietly on the sidelines. Call us moderates, centralists, even independents. We are the largest voting bloc, political or otherwise. It [...]

Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Elk Grove, did all national park-goers a favor when he wrote a letter objecting to the National Park Service’s Merced River Comprehensive Plan. All for the sake of designating the Merced a “Wild and Scenic River,” the Park Service is closing and limiting facilities in Yosemite Park. Campsites shrank from 830 to [...]

Saturday was the opening for the Legion of Honor’s Impressionists on Water exhibit timed to key off the 34th America’s Cup races. The races conclude the weekend of Sept. 21-22. The Legion show continues through Oct. 13. Having just returned from vacationing in New York, Chicago and Rockford, Ill., I am writing this before seeing [...]