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• School Spirit at El Capitan High School

  A student car wash fund raiser is a common site on just about any Saturday in our community.…

• Memories and Photographs

  Remember when taking a picture was a special thing in your family.  My parents’ photograph albums are filled with snapshots from birthdays, graduations, first communions, and other special events.…

• Merced’s Musical Memories

  I recommend that before the summer comes to an end, spend about an hour at the Merced County Courthouse Museum and see the exhibit on our community’s musical heritage.…

• Golf Hazards

  photo by steve newvine Having spent a lot of time on golf courses over the past few years, one can discover certain types of hazards.  Some are a direct result of nature.…

• Ping Pong and Family Time

  Recently, my brother told me he was putting the old family ping pong table out for his upcoming garage sale.…

• Having a Good Time, Wish You Were Here

  Consider the photograph of this Adirondack region lake a postcard from my recent vacation in upstate New York.…

• Backstage Pass ~ Merced Theatre

  Merced Theatre Two entertaining venues on Main Street in Merced caught my attention on a spring-time Sunday afternoon. The first was Playhouse Merced’s production of Urinetown, The Musical.…

• Marking a Tragic Anniversary

  photo by steve newvine Thursday, April 4 almost passed without my noticing it was the forty-fifth anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Junior.…

• Grateful for my Gateway

  photo by steve newvine This column is the last one to be typed on my trusty old pre-millennium computer. Our Gateway brand system was purchased in the mid-1990s. It’s time for a change. We put it off for a long time.…

• A Report Card from the School

  As it happens many times in life, we learn so much more from our children who speak about their challenges, their survival skills, and their life lessons.…

• Working Cars

  It caught my eye in the parking lot of a local strip mall.  There, in what I can say with the use of a cliché’, in all its ‘gleaming beauty’ it sat in the morning Merced County sun. It was a 1972 Mercury Montego.…

• Along California’s Beaten Paths with Huell Howser

  When I first arrived in California from upstate New York nine years ago, I had many first impressions.…

• Business Cards

  I managed to save at least one business card from every job I had where a business card was required.  Looking back on them now, I see these cards as symbols of my professional life.…

• Meeting Bush 41

  I’ve been doing a lot of thinking in the past several days about former President George H. W. Bush.  Some may know him better by the label “41” or “Bush 41” denoting that he was our nation’s forty-first President.…

• MOPS

  MOPS stands for Mothers of Preschoolers Mothers of Preschoolers, a program designed to nurture mothers with children from birth through kindergarten.…

• Favorite Holiday Movies

  Why should anyone care to read about what are my favorite holiday movies?  My list can be a conversation starter when the office Christmas party gets boring.…

• The Atwater Historical Society was formed in 1972 in response to the challenge of keeping the Bloss Home for the community.

  Bloss Home The Atwater Historical Society was formed in 1972 in response to the challenge of keeping the Bloss Home for the community. The house was willed to the City of Atwater by George Bloss, Jr.…

• My Uncle Ken and Drop In Visits

  We had a not-so-unusual social tradition growing up the sixties and seventies in upstate New York:  the drop in visit. Often, my parents would decide that we should “drop in” on different relatives or friends.…

• Missing the National News Magazines

  Newsweek announced recently it would be on-line only at the end of the year. The printed version will cease publication after nearly 80 years.…

• Grow Merced by Shopping Merced

  This is the latest bumper sticker to soon reach the streets of Merced.  Two large words with a simple message following by six words that drive home the point.…

• Golf Partners

  I like this picture of a golf foursome I played with several years ago at a fund raising event.…

• Crime Victim

  I became a crime victim this week. While in the Bay Area for a business meeting, my car was broken into while in the parking lot of a well-established business in a low crime community.…

• Why it Seems Every Road in Merced is Under Construction

  Why it Seems Every Road in Merced is Under Construction There are days when I think Merced is the road construction capitol of California.…

• The Week Merced County Made the Cover of Life Magazine

  The Week Merced County Made the Cover of Life Magazine For those of you under the age of twenty-five, there once was a time when Life magazine was a big deal.…