When we were little, Mom read stories to us kids at bedtime and told stories of various events from her childhood. She was a keen observer of the human condition and told us about local happenings in our neighborhood and the little village of McFarland, Wisconsin, where we grew up.

Independence Day is always a hot time in the throes of summer, especially here in Arkansas. But I remember an especially “hot” celebration at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock on July 6, 1991, as a huge shower of glowing orange embers brought a spectacular ending to a patriotic celebration.

The 56th annual Wildwood Days takes over Rio Dell July 30-Aug. 2, with parades, cookoffs, softball, bocce, firefighter competitions, a soapbox derby and much more. Started in 1970, the festival is a celebration of small-town summer in Humboldt County. Thursday, July 30, features the BBQ competition on the Rio...

Every Sunday afternoon through August, come enjoy live music in the great outdoors at the Humboldt Botanical Garden 2026 Summer Music Series.

Edith Sachs and Alfred “Henk” Pennekamp were German refugees when they met in exile in Belgium in 1935 or 1936. They were married in 1940 in Lewisburg, New Jersey, just weeks after Henk’s — my father — surprise release from a French concentration camp for German and Austrian anti-fascists, intellectuals and J...

I was born at 7 p.m. on July 4, 1949 — 77 years ago. In the U.S., about 900,000 others have July 4th birthdays, so I’m not unusual. After all, there also are about 900,000 people in the U.S. who were born in Colombia. About 900,000 people live in Austin, Jacksonville or San Jose. About 900,000 Toyota Corollas...

As a self-described writer, the First Amendment — Free Speech, etc. — guarantees my favorite freedoms. For one thing, it allows me to be a highly respected commentator for the prestigious Senior News. What? Senior News? Yes. It’s a newspaper with thoughtful, insightful and at times humorous articles of specia...

My poor parents. Devout Southern Baptists, they permitted minimal TV in our house. Music? Cue the hymnal. Two church services on Sunday and one on Wednesday evenings were the week’s outings. The only movies we were allowed were religious (e.g., “The Ten Commandments” and “Ben Hur”) or Disney (“Cinderella” and...

They don’t wake to breakfast in bed or hand-drawn cards slipped under the door. There is no chorus of “Happy Mother’s Day” or “Happy Father’s Day” rising from the hallway. Instead, a cry comes at 2:14 a.m., thin as a wire, insistent as weather. The quiet arithmetic of survival — diapers, deadlines, rent, slee...

This month, Senior News is all about those revered paragons, mothers and fathers. Because, as John Steinbeck said, “It takes courage to raise children.” For context, I reread tributes I wrote for both parents’ memorials, which made me a little weepy. Mom was 84 in 2014 when she went on to “The Next Big Thing....

Throughout my childhood, there were long trips down from Santa Monica to Corona Del Mar with Mom, Dad and my two sisters, Janet and Debbie. All us kids sat in the back of my dad’s white flatbed truck, clinging to the wooden guardrails while we whipped down the highway at 70 mph. Can’t do anything fun like tha...

Lavina Bowers, the matriarch of her large Yurok family, sits with her daughter, Susan Masten, in the living room of her home, perched above the mouth of the Klamath River on a shoulder of Req-woi Hill. Below is the stretch of the river where Lavina, when she was 43, and her mother, Geneva Mattz, then 74, rowe...

If you ever thought you saw the ground rolling in an earthquake, it was not your imagination. Memories are life-sustaining. In my line of work, they can also be data, I so appreciate the memories many of you sent about the 1954 earthquake (see “What Your 1954 Earthquake Memories Told Us,” Senior News, Novembe...

Back in the early ‘60s, our family (well, actually my dad) had a water-skiing boat on Lake Almanor, over in Plumas County. We would make an all-day affair of it. Mom made a picnic lunch and my brother and I and our friends took turns falling off the water skis and almost drowning while Dad drove the boat and ...

One day when I was about 10, I was shooting baskets in our driveway with my best buddy. My brother, John, 16 and the proud bearer of a new driver’s license, drove in and stopped short of the garage.

My brother, John, was four years older than I. In his teenage years, he could be an absolute jerk. Our bedrooms were next to each other — the former master bedroom had been split in two by a 10-foothigh divider. John had to go through my room to enter or leave his. He thought nothing of coming home late, bang...

With the close of the school year, I want to highlight a wonderful program at one of our Eel River Valley Schools. Redwood Prep Charter School in Fortuna has a Grandparents Group that is a helpful success story for the students, staff and seniors who participate. The group started small a few years back, with...

It is a nice Humboldt summer evening. The fog is staying off shore and you’ve got an hour or two before twilight. You’ve already walked at the Arcata Marsh twice this week and another time across the Eureka Slough bridge and along the Bay Trail.

Humboldt County’s older adults face behavioral health challenges shaped by rural geography, limited resources and a strong but sometimes isolating sense of personal independence. From Eureka and Arcata to more remote areas like Willow Creek, Garberville, and Hoopa, seniors often experience barriers to care th...

Harvest Boxes are filled with fresh Humboldt-grown produce, delivered to your door weekly or bi-weekly from Fortuna to Trinidad, or available for pickup. The locally grown produce comes from multi-farm-style CSAs (community- supported agriculture), bringing you the best seasonal offerings from multiple grower...