A New Californian Making an Impact-

Thirteen mountain hikes including Yosemite’s Half Dome for charity

Brennen Thompson is one quarter of his way through climbing twelve peaks in California. He’s shown here on top of Sandstone Peak in Malibu. Photo: ValleyTough.com

Brennen Thompson moved to California from upstate New York in 2019.

He decided early on that his time in the Golden State should have impact.

“It’s kind of a weird story,” he told me. “When I moved here in December, my roommate suggested we train for the LA marathon. After that, he said ‘Let’s do something bigger.’”

That “something bigger” is a series of twelve mountain hikes all over California, including one at Half Dome in Yosemite National Park.

The yearlong pursuit will end with a climb up Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania set for June, 2021.

The pair is hoping to bring some hope and inspiration during what Brennen has called “difficult times” for many Americans.

“With the pandemic and the racial protests, we felt what better time to give back.”

They are raising money through website donations, Go-Fund-Me solicitations, and business partnerships.

So far, they have raised half of their six-thousand dollar goal, including a recent donation of seven-hundred dollars from Brennen’s high school graduating class.

Charities in Brennen’s hometown of Herkimer, New York will benefit from dollars raised through the effort.

The website ValleyTough.com has photos, videos, and a section on how to support the California mountain hikes of Brennen Thompson and Garrett Wright. Photo: Valley Tough.

Brennen, who along with his running partner Garrett Wright, are calling this initiative “Valley Tough.”

The website ValleyTough.com has information about all the hikes, the purpose behind the fund raising effort, and how people can support them.

Their second hike was up Mount Wilson in Pasadena.

As each hike is completed, a short video is uploaded to the website. These videos feature Brennan sharing reflections on the climb and offering thanks to supporters.

As a new Californian, Brennan is taken back by the weather that is in stark contrast to upstate New York, especially during winter.

“I can’t say enough about it,” he told me. “I live in South Bay (El Segundo in southern California), one or two blocks from the beach.”

He had to adjust to the climate as well as to the training discipline for mountain hiking.

“We’re constantly learning something new, and we’ve encountered unexpected challenges such as spiders and rattlesnakes.”

He’s also recognizing the training differences as he transitioned from marathon running to mountain hiking.

“How we train for this is different from preparing for a marathon. Even how I eat is different.”

Brennen and his climbing partner at the top of Mount Baden Powell in the San Gabriel Mountains. Photo: ValleyTough.com

The third hike in the series was at Mount Baden Powell in the San Gabriel Mountains. With each step, each mountain, the pair is strengthening their endurance and their commitment to the cause.

Brennen and I share some territory.

I grew up in upstate New York and went to college for two years in his hometown of Herkimer.

We both ended up in the media upon graduation from college: he works at an advertising agency while my first job was in television.

While I’m considerably older, we both have a sense of pride for the community of Herkimer in the Mohawk Valley of upstate New York while embracing California as our new home state.

We both have family back east. I remain connected through phone calls and social media.

Brennen does the same with his family.

“My Mom was freaked out at first when I told her about the hikes, he says. “But she has been supportive.”

Brennen with his mom and brother. He was quarterback and team captain at St. John Fisher College in Rochester, NY, graduating in 2019. Photo: Brennen Thompson Facebook page.

The hikes will be held once a month on different trails in California.

The September outing was up San Gabriel Peak.

This will lead up to the final challenge in June 2021 when they travel halfway around the world to Africa for Mount Kilimanjaro, in Tanzania.

But in California, Brennen is really looking forward to the hike at Yosemite. They will travel to Half Dome in February.

“I’ve never been to Yosemite, but my roommate says it is jaw-dropping.”

Those of us fortunate enough to visit Yosemite know exactly what it means to say the iconic Half Dome is indeed jaw-dropping.

They will hike the seventeen mile round trip from the valley floor to the summit; not to be confused with scaling the vertical face of Half Dome.

Brennen knows the real thing will inspire.

While each California hike will be special, he can’t wait for Half Dome.

“It’s the one I’m most excited about,” he says.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

His book Course Corrections is available at Lulu.com. He is writing a new book to be released in December.

Website of Brennen Thompson - https://valleytough.com/donate/

A Courthouse Cupola View of Merced-

On Top of the Iconic Courthouse Museum

On the left - The view looking down N Street from on top of the Courthouse Museum. Right: The exterior of the iconic Merced building. Photos: Steve Newvine

Visually, this is one of the most interesting stories I have had the opportunity to write over the past several years.

Come along with me for an inside view looking outside.

Thanks to County Historian Sarah Lim who secured permission from the folks responsible for making the arrangements, I got an insider look from the top of the iconic Merced County Courthouse Museum building.

“The cupola is a restricted area and is full of cobwebs and dead bees,” she warned when I made the request.

When the day finally arrived, she told me she would unlock the door and let me go up alone.

Once I started up the narrow stairway, I understood why. I wiped cobwebs off my clothes, and started taking pictures.

Access to the upper, non-public floors of the Courthouse museum begin with this locked staircase off the third floor. That is followed by a winding set of stairs that eventually lead to the top. Photos: Steve Newvine

As I made my way to the first level of the cupola, I took in the view from all four sides. From here looking down N Street, I could see downtown Merced.

Going clockwise, I saw the roof of the County Library, the top of the Sheriff’s Department, and completed the circle with a view of Merced Police Headquarters leading to the traffic signal on M Street.

Three sides of the cupola overlook statues of the Roman Goddess Justica.

According to information provided to me from County Historian Lim, the statues were to represent justice.

But as the architect did not believe justice is blind, he chose not to depict the Goddess as blind.

The view looking toward the Merced County Library, and a look at the top of the Merced County Sheriff’s Department building from the cupola of the Courthouse Museum. In the second photograph, the Superior Court building is visible to the right. Photo: Steve Newvine

According to the architectural history, the statues were made out of redwood, are hand-carved, and are approximately twice life-size.

The statue at the very top of the cupola is Minerva, the Roman Goddess of Wisdom.

There were deliberate architectural and stylistic choices, along with a good deal of symbolism behind the look of the Courthouse building.
From the relatively plain look on the ground level, to the more ornate styles heading up to the higher floors, the architect designed the building to communicate a sense of enlightenment as the visitor moved up through the structure.

From the upper level of the structure, lots of daylight fills the cupola. Photo: Steve Newvine

While the view was great, the highest level was worth risking my fear of heights. Up one final spiral set of stairs and I was now standing in the top level of the cupola.

Only the Goddess Minerva stood higher: outside on the dome. The height from the ground to the very top of the dome is just under one-hundred, six feet.

My view of N Street leading to downtown Merced took on a richer meaning as the street parking alongside the Courthouse Park was now visible.

I could see my parked car from this vantage point.

Downtown Merced on a not-so clear day. This is the view from the cupola on top of the Merced County Courthouse Museum looking down N Street toward downtown. The statue is of the Roman Goddess Justica, but without the blindfold; a creative choice by the building architect who, according to the architectural history of the building, did not believe justice is blind. Photo: Steve Newvine

On a clear day, we’re told you can see the entire County.

My visit took place in late August in the midst of the heatwave and in skies filled with pollutants from the California wildfires in the region.

This indoor adventure was all worth the trouble: getting special permission, enduring the cobwebs, and navigating dead bees as well as live spiders.

The photographs document our town as it looks in this particular point in time.

While our community will continue to evolve and change in the coming decades, it will likely look pretty much the same from five stories up in the Merced County Courthouse Museum building.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

His book California Back Roads is available in soft and hardcover versions at Lulu.com

Steve is grateful to Merced County Historian Sarah Lim for securing special permission to allow him to go into the cupola which is not open to the general public.

Sarah also provided the architectural history of the building that was helpful in telling this story.

Politics and Sleep Deprivation

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Memories from 1988

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The political parties are staging their conventions in August 2020.

2020 and COVID-19

We’ll be hearing a lot about the political conventions taking place in the final two weeks of August 2020.

Most of the coverage will contrast these COVID era conventions to those of years past.

One of the thrills from my fifteen years covering local news on television was the Republican National Convention in 1988.

The station I worked at in Rochester, NY was part of a group of stations that chipped in resources to fund a Washington, DC bureau.

We were able to get interviews from our local legislative delegation on issues of interest in our communities.

An extension of that model was tested in 1988 when the company decided to take the bureau to both Democrat and Republican conventions.

Each station sent extra personnel to provide more coverage for our local audiences. My colleague Rob was assigned to produce coverage for the Democratic Convention.

I was assigned to produce the coverage for the GOP Convention in New Orleans.

My press credential from the 1988 GOP Convention. Photo: Newvine Personal Collection

Our local team flew into New Orleans on the Saturday before the convention.

We began taping reports on Sunday

It felt like one big story that took almost a week to report. Most of our days began with meetings of the state and local delegations. Those were breakfast events with a guest speaker.

Actor Charlton Heston was the guest speaker one morning. While he did not part the Red Sea as his Moses character did in the movie, he did create some excitement among the party faithful.

Most of our daytime hours were devoted to working in and around the Superdome to interview Republicans from the Rochester area.

I recall the afternoon when Presidential nominee George H. W. Bush announced his choice for his running mate. Once it was clear Dan Quayle was the choice, everyone scrambled for telephone lines.

I recall a good forty-five minutes of busy signals as we tried to call out.

This was long before cell phones became part of the journalist tool kit.

The closest I got to a souvenir from the week I worked the 1988 Republican Convention was this instant photo taken with cardboard cutouts of Ronald Reagan and George Bush. Photo: Newvine Personal Collection

President Ronald Reagan was the keynote speaker on the opening night of the convention.

We were in our workspace at the Superdome, and you could hear the roars from the crowd as the President and Mrs. Reagan were brought into the convention.

Many of us worked our way to the upper level of the arena to get a glimpse of the President.

Two nights later, I was in the room when George Bush made his acceptance speech. That means I was there when the words “Read my lips, no new taxes,” were uttered.

Throughout the week, there were plenty of moments that still take up a little space in my memory. Those moments include sitting in the audience of the Larry King overnight radio program.

We were just looking for a place to sit after a long day covering the events. Larry made reference to us on the air during the program.
My lasting impression was how little sleep I got during the week, and how easy it was for me to fall asleep once I got back home from New Orleans.

It was the busiest week in my career up to that point, and I enjoyed practically every minute.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

He worked as a television journalist in the 1980s and 1990s.

You can reach him at SteveNewvine@SBCGlobal.net .

He latest book is Course Corrections, and is available at Lulu.com

Swinging through Summer with Youth Golf-

First Tee Programs Help Kids Learn the Game & Build Character

Area youth are learning the basics of golf through the First Tee of the Central Valley Program at St. Stanislaus Golf Course in Modesto. Photo: Steve Newvine

You will not see smiles on the faces of these young folks as they learn the basics of the game of golf.

That’s because those upturned lips are covered with the symbol of the COVID restrictions of this year: face masks.

They are part of First Tee of Central Valley and the annual summer program held at area golf courses.

First Tee started nationally in 1997 in an effort to bring more young people into the game.

There is no First Tee program going on in Merced County this summer. But that did not stop several parents from taking their youngsters from Merced County north to the program sites in Modesto, Stanislaus County.

“The Merced County programs were ready to go, but the two courses we worked with there (Rancho Del Rey and Merced Country Club) were not able to open up for First Tee due to the County Health Department COVID restrictions,” said First Tee of Central Valley Executive Director John M. Griston. “But our program is open to all, and at least five to ten families Merced County families are driving forty miles away to take part.”

First Tee of Central Valley manages the nine week summer enrichment program from an office in Modesto. Two Merced County courses, Rancho Del Rey and Merced Country Club also host golfers, but not in 2020 due to concerns regarding the COVID restrictions. Photo: Steve Newvine

Youth aged five to seventeen are eligible to participate. “It’s open to kids from all backgrounds,” John says. ”Diversity is huge element of the program.”

For nine weeks, the participants are introduced to elements of the game with instruction based on their age.

The youngest golfers learn the basics. The middle level builds on that skills base as coaches add exposure to character values to the program.

According to the First Tee website (firstteecentralvalley.org), those nine character values are:

• honesty,
• integrity
• sportsmanship
• respect
• confidence
• responsibility
• perseverance
• courtesy
• judgement

As the players age into the appropriate level of the instruction, golf learning continues while the core character values piece is enhanced with other skills such as building interpersonal skills, communicating, and asking for help.

The nine core values of First Tee are shown on this sign at one of the program sites.

First Tee of the Central Valley is one of a few enrichment programs for youth going on this summer.

Many programs that generally take place at schools, churches, and community centers did not operate this year.

“Safety is our number one concern,” John says. “But through our headquarters in Florida, there was a plan for coming back. We were ready to go.”

That plan includes masks, temperature checks, and the cleaning of golf equipment after each session.

This year, First Tee of Central Valley had three-hundred applications.

Through its fund-raising efforts, the non-profit organization was able to fund forty scholarships for families requesting help.

No one was turned down.

They also offer sibling and military discounts to families.

First Tee has three levels for golf instruction and character building based on the participant’s age. Photo: Steve Newvine.

The program is focused on golf and character development.

But it also has a leadership element.

Former participants who have aged out of the training frequently come back as coaches.

“People are drawn back to the program because they feel it’s a way of giving back to the community,” John says.

He should know. Growing up in East Los Angeles in the 1970s, John was in a neighborhood where he had no access to golf courses.

But he had coaches in baseball who were inspirational.

After serving in the Armed Services, he decided to volunteer for First Tee upon his retirement.

It was during that time as a volunteer that he was moved by something he saw in his First Tee coach training.

“I saw kids who didn’t have shoelaces in their shoes,” he said. “When I saw those kids gravitate to the game, that’s what got me.”

First Tee of Central Valley Executive Director John Griston. Photo courtesy: First Tee of Central Valley

Once the summer program ends, the organization will look to a fall program as well as other special events scheduled across the calendar.

First Tee will provide outreach to schools and other organizations. The need for volunteers is always there, and like most non-profits, fund raising is a key to success.

As for the face masks, everyone taking part in the program at St. Stanislaus Golf Course understands the new reality.

The coaches as well as the kids take it all in stride.

“It’s hard to see their smiles under those masks,” John says. “But we know the smiles are there.”

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

He has written Course Corrections, My Golf Truth, Fiction, and Philosophy. The book is available at Lulu.com

Watching the Watermelon Harvest-

Harvesters toss watermelons along a human chain until it reaches large cardboard storage bins on a flatbed truck. Photo: Steve Newvine

Another Big Year for a Favorite Crop

It’s an impressive sight. Farm workers tossing watermelons along a human chain that ends with a worker on a flatbed trailer placing the fruit into cardboard containers.

It is harvest time for one of Merced County’s great variety of crops.

The preferred harvest method in this particular field is known as cut and pitch. “Yes, it’s pretty much pitch, pitch, and dropping it on the truck,” said Tashi Zouras, President of the Western Watermelon Association.

Watermelon is ready for harvest at the Dan Avilla and Sons field in Atwater, Merced County. Photo: Steve Newvine

On the surface, this harvesting process seems labor intensive. But Tashi says the cutting and pitching crews understand the routine well and work efficiently.

“The cutter cuts the fruit loose from the vine,” he said. “The cutter is trained to tell by color whether the watermelon is ready to be taken from the field. The cutter cuts, and then places it in the row for the pitcher to pick up.”

That’s when the fun begins.

I spotted the operation of Dan Avilla and Sons field in Atwater. Like clockwork, the pitchers toss the fruit about six feet to the next person.

Eventually, the pitching ends on the flatbed trailer where cartons are sitting on pallets.

While the pitching part of the watermelon harvest seems labor intensive, not all watermelon ripens at the same pace. Photo: Steve Newvine

Because the watermelon crop does not ripen all at the same time, Tashi says the cutting and pitching really cannot be mechanized efficiently.

The work crew will return to the field later on as the rest of the crop is ready to be harvested.

“North of Merced County we have growers who use a conveyor belt system,” Tashi says, “But the pitching system used by Dan Avilla here in Merced County is efficient.”

According to the 2018 Merced County Agriculture Report, almonds are the biggest crop. Watermelons are not even listed in the top fifteen crops.
Still, the fruit carves out a sizable slice of local farm production.

“There were approximately three-hundred, seventy acres grown in Merced County in 2018,” according Merced County Deputy Agricultural Commissioner Carrie Mitchell.

“Most of the acreage was grown on the west side of Merced County.”

Deputy Commissioner Mitchell says the County performs yearly in-field standardization inspections to check for maturity, and determine whether the crop is free from defects and serious damage.

“This is to ensure that the consumer is buying the best product possible,” she said.

While there are some farms north of Merced County that use a conveyor belt system, this time honored cut and pitch process continues to work well in the watermelon fields operated by Dan Avilla and Sons. Photo: Steve Newvine

Industry wide, the Western Watermelon Association says more than five billion pounds are shipped nationwide every year.

That represents a billion dollars in revenue according to the Association.

The website SeeCalifornia.com, states that growers in the state produce approximately 330,000 tons of watermelon annually.

While most people will agree it is a fruit, in Oklahoma, the watermelon is the official state vegetable.

Back in Merced County, the watermelon crop is heading to the retail markets. The Western Watermelon Association says about ninety-percent of the watermelon grown here stays in the state.

This field in Atwater will continue to be harvested as the remainder of the fruit matures. The fields will be likely be regrown for a fall harvest.

Then once again, the cutting and pitching ritual will resume in the watermelon fields.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced. His latest book Course Corrections, is available on Lulu.com

A Special July-

A month marking a milestone anniversary

My friend Andy, who taught me the game of chess, was among the first to congratulate my fiancéeVaune. Photo: Newvine Personal Collection.

July will always hold a special place in my memory. This month, my wife and I will celebrate our fortieth wedding anniversary.

The pathway to my wedding day actually started several months prior to July.

Almost from the moment when my wife-to-be answered yes to my marriage proposal, the plans for that special day were underway. We started telling friends and family about the engagement.

Among the first people I spoke to outside of my family was my chess partner and good friend Andy.

Andy was an older man who lived with his daughter near the apartment I rented at the time.

His story about coming into my life and teaching me the game of chess was told in this space about four years ago

(https://www.mercedcountyevents.com/steve-newvine-1/the-next-move-and-the-one-after-that-and-the-one-after-that)

For several months, Andy and I played chess weekly at his daughter’s home. We enjoyed a great friendship during the time I got to know him as my career was getting started.

He would always ask me how my girlfriend was. When she became my fiancée, he was very happy for both of us.

With about one-hundred, fifty miles separating our parents from us, wedding planning was challenging in 1980. Here we are opening a gift from a family member. Photo: Newvine Personal Collection.

As Andy and others were told about our engagement, there was a growing list of things to do in preparation for the big day.

Plans started taking place in Ilion, New York where my bride-to-be had lived right up until she left for year three of her college education.

Details that needed to be worked out included scheduling the ceremony with the local Catholic church, reserving a reception venue, hiring a professional photographer, and a whole array of things that had to be done in preparation for the most important day in our lives.

Complicating matters was being about one-hundred, fifty miles away from my bride-to-be parents’ home.

By July, all of that planning was out of the way.

My niece Tina, brother Terry, and good friend Tim in a grainy photo from the rehearsal dinner the night before I was married. Photo: Newvine Personal Collection.

I can remember the month of July 1980 like it happened forty weeks ago rather than forty years.

I started the month in a new apartment that would become our first home as a married couple. We each gave up our individual apartments and rented an upstairs living space from a nice widow. I lived there for the three weeks leading up to our wedding.

My bride-to-be had moved back with her parents once the lease on her apartment had ended.

The wedding week was amazing. It was described in my 2018 book Stand By, Camera One:

There are a lot of things a married person remembers about his or her wedding day. I remember many details. There was the ceremony, the reception, and the honeymoon that come to mind immediately. But a special memory for me from that weekend was the rehearsal party held the Friday night before the wedding.

My dad used his membership in the Boonville Elks Club to secure the Ilion Elks lodge for the party. The local club catered a buffet held right after the rehearsal at the church. The Ilion lodge was in the same block as the church.

What made it stand out for me was the unifying of two families. Most of the bride’s relatives had never met the relatives from the groom’s side. The dinner, preceded by appetizers at my soon-to-be in-laws house, was a great start to what has now become a four-decade marriage.

The rehearsal party gave me a chance to greet my college buddies who made the trip. Ray was my first roommate from my first semester at Herkimer College.

At the time, he was working in his hometown of Albany. While we spoke on occasion over the previous four or five years, this was the first time I saw him in person since my sophomore year in college.

Tim is a friend I met at Syracuse. He was one of my ushers for the ceremony. Over the wedding weekend, my college friends Matt, Guf, and Rick were welcomed guests.

The rehearsal party got us all in the right mood for what was to come the next day. But for me, it really signified that two families were coming together thanks to the blessing of matrimony.

After Vaune and I said goodnight, I headed to a local motel where my family had booked some rooms for the out-of-town family members.

The motel had a small bar, so after saying goodnight to everyone, my brother Terry and my friend Tim went to the bar to have a “farewell to bachelorhood” bottle of Genesee Beer. When we finished the beer, we all headed back to our rooms to go to sleep.

That was the closest thing I had to a bachelor’s party. But I never felt as though I missed out on anything.

I was surrounded by family and good friends. I was about to get married.

It was a very happy time leading up to the most important day in my life.

All of this happened in July, forty years ago.

I’ll never forget that incredible month.

The month of July will always hold a special place in my memory.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

Stand By, Camera One is now available in a hard-cover edition at

A Museum with a Sense of Humor-

My return visit to the Merced County Courthouse Museum

One of the displays at the Merced County Courthouse Museum “Beyond Appearance: Portraits of Merced County Women” exhibit shows two mannequins dressed in period costume, and wearing face masks. Photo: Steve Newvine

There’s a lot we can say about the mid-June reopening of the Merced County Courthouse Museum.

Closed for three months due to the COVID crisis, the doors swung open June seventeenth to pick up where the Merced County Historical Society left off.

By the looks of a display of two mannequins dressed in period costume, with the inclusion of modern-day face masks, it’s clear the Museum and the volunteers have a good sense of humor.

County Historian Sarah Lim was permitted to reopen the Museum as part of the public health structure for ushering business and non-profits back into operation.

The Museum was in the middle of the first exhibit of 2020, “Beyond Appearance: Portraits of Merced County Women” when it closed down due to the COVID outbreak. Photo: Steve Newvine

With most of the restrictions lifted, and new health and safety protocols in place, the Museum is getting back to business in pursuing the mission to preserve local history and educate the community on the past.

The women’s exhibit had just launched in the first quarter of 2020 and never really got a chance to be seen by many in the community. That’s all changed now.

This photograph is among dozens from the Museum archive that are on display in the exhibit “Beyond Appearance: Portraits of Merced County Women” underway until September 20. Photo: Steve Newvine.

The Museum is one of those attractions that could be taken for granted. With limited hours of operation, a reliable core of volunteers, and a presence in an iconic building, it might be easy to just pass by without thinking of the on-going work of the Historical Society.

But when access to this community asset was taken away due to the health restrictions brought on by the coronavirus, many may have lost a connection to this repository of local history.

My wife and I took in a tour shortly after reading about the reopening on MercedCountyEvents.com.

The Merced County Women exhibit is thought provoking.

With sections on agriculture, equal rights, and the role of women as consumers, there is a lot to see and read.

I spoke to the membership of the Merced County Historical Society in February. To give that talk today, I would be governed by the rules of social distancing. Photo: Sarah Lim, Merced County Historian

I was the Museum’s keynote speaker for the annual meeting held in early February.

I remember a nearly filled County Board of Supervisors meeting room followed by a potluck style reception.

It’s amazing how a few months living in the COVID era has changed things.

The courtroom exhibit, part of the permanent collection at the Merced County Courthouse Museum. Photo: Steve Newvine

The permanent exhibit continues to impress me.

On the third floor, the courtroom exhibit remains as a long-standing reminder of the importance of our judicial system. The visitor can take a seat and take in the ambience of a real courtroom.

The school exhibit harkens back to the days of one-room schoolhouses. The visitor is taken back to a time when school was in session.

The old time kitchen and housekeeping exhibit brings back memories, or at least recollections my grandparents shared with me when I was a child.

The kitchen display at the Merced County Courthouse Museum. Photo: Steve Newvine

On the main floor, there are many exhibits in the different rooms worth viewing a second time.

My favorite this time around was an old fashioned phone booth in the main hall.
There’s a Superman costume hanging up inside the booth.

Once again, here’s a museum with a sense of humor.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

You can reach him at SteveNewvine@sbcglobal.net.

His book Course Corrections is available on Lulu.com

The Merced County Courthouse Museum is open Wednesday through Sunday from 1 pm to 4 pm. COVID restrictions apply. (209) 723-2401, www.mercedmuseum.org

Benny, Cole, and Jim Bradley, Junior

Young drummer wowed Jack Benny and Nat King Cole in a 1964 television appearance

Young Jim-w/Nat and Jack Caption: Jim Bradley Junior was a five-year old drummer prodigy in 1964 on the Jack Benny Program.

Ever since I was a child, I have been a fan of comedian Jack Benny.

I watched him in the sixties early seventies. He died in 1974.
The radio and television icon developed a character that was cheap, only thirty-nine years old, and who viewed himself as a great violinist while his playing would have you believing otherwise.

It was that connection to music that resulted in Benny booking some leading talent in the industry for his TV show.

There was a lot going on in music in the early 1960s, and Benny booked such acts as Peter, Paul, and Mary, Andy Williams, and Julie London on his program.

In February 1964, the Beatles would make their first of three appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show.

Just one month prior, crooner Nat King Cole would make what became one of his final television appearances with a guest shot on the Jack Benny program.

In that appearance, we see Nat introduce a five-year old drummer who dazzled the audience with his talent, and gets a fair share of the laughs targeted toward the comic legend.

Jim Bradley was already a television veteran at the time he appeared on the Jack Benny Program.  He had performed on the Gary Moore, Art Linkletter, and Lawrence Welk shows.  Photo:  Jim Bradley Facebook Page

That five year old is introduced as Jim Bradley Junior, and he would go on to have a remarkable career as a drummer with such musical greats as Chuck Magione, Lionel Richie, Anita Baker, and the Beastie Boys..

“He was so smooth,” Jim told me as he recalled that appearance alongside Nat King Cole. “He was so cool.”

The premise for the Jack Benny guest appearance was to showcase Nat, already a best-selling singer with such classics as Unforgettable, Mona Lisa, Route 66, and many others.

His interpretation of the Mel Torme/Bob Well classic The Christmas Song is considered by many to be the quintessential version of the holiday favorite.

The show’s writers maximized the comedian’s violin-playing in a sketch featuring Nat leading a five-piece combo that would include a solo from the perpetual thirty-nine-year old Benny (he was actually near seventy in 1964).

When the drummer injures his arm during rehearsal, Nat offers Jack a substitute in the person of his cousin who just happens to be in the studio.

In the next scene, little Jim Bradley Junior comes out on stage.

Five year old Jim Bradley Junior wowed the Jack Benny Show audience in this January 1964 appearance.

“My agent got me the gig,” Jim says. “My mother and father were musicians and both knew Nat’s brother Freddie. In 1962, I was the youngest professional drummer in the United States.”

While the show was originally shown in black and white, there is now a YouTube version in color.

With the passage of time, Jim still remembers most of that experience as a five-year old on national television.

“Jack Benny was very nice,” Jim says. “And Nat was so smooth. He came into my dressing room to meet my parents and me before the show.”

“He was so cool, no stress,” Jim recalled of his lasting impression of Nat King Cole. “He brought out my natural talent.”

Nat had worked on a cue for little Jim to go over to the drums in the sketch.

The video shows Nat patting Jim on the head as he directs the young performer to take his place at the drums.

“Three taps was my cue to go to the drums and begin playing,” Jim says. “I don’t remember the actual performance as it actually happened, I just started on the cue from Nat.”

That performance with Nat and Jack created a memorable moment. It would also mark one of the last television performances by Nat King Cole.

Lung cancer would claim his life just one year later. The Benny broadcast happened in January 1964.

Nat King Cole died in February 1965.

Jim says he has memories of the passing of Nat, adding, “I am now the only living music artist to have performed with Nat King Cole on television.”

Jim as an older man. Jim Bradley Junior now lives in Stockholm with his wife of eighteen years and a lot of fond memories from his music career. Photo: Jim Bradley Facebook Page.

Jim would continue performing as a drummer through his school years. He did about a dozen television shows in the early 1960s, and then moved on to playing with several well-known musical artists.

He spent nearly five years with flugelhorn musician Chuck Mangione playing on such recordings as Feels So Good in 1977 and Give it All You Got, the theme for the 1980 Olympic Games.

He recalls coming to the Central Valley for a couple of gigs in Bakersfield years ago when he was based in Los Angeles. He spent the latter part of his adult musical career touring overseas.

While signing autographs after a tour with the Beastie Boys in Europe, Jim met the woman who would become his wife. The pair recently celebrated their eighteenth anniversary.

Jim has two children. He’s proud of them and he is proud of reaching the milestone of twenty-five years of sobriety.

During our conversation, we kept coming back to that little five year old, standing between funnyman Jack Benny and iconic singer Nat King Cole.

When Jack asked Jim his age, he answered “Thirty-nine.”

Seeing the video of the performance on YouTube has been a real gift for Jim. “I caught it first about ten years ago and my jaw dropped.”

When the colorized version came out in 2019, more fans reached out to Jim to compliment the performance.

“Now I get emails from folks and messages on Facebook telling me about it,” he said.

“It’s really nice.”

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

His latest book Course Corrections is available on Lulu.com.

WW II ARMY PHOTOGRAPH RECALLS MY GREAT UNCLE ON MEMORIAL DAY

WW II ARMY PHOTOGRAPH RECALLS MY GREAT UNCLE ON MEMORIAL DAY -Corporal Chester T. Dean, died two days after D-Day

Corporal Chester T. Dean was killed in a training accident in Wales. This is one of two known photographs of Chet. Photo courtesy Deb Covey Morley

In just twenty-two years, he grew up, married, served in the Army, and died in World War II.

No one now under the age of seventy-six knew him. But we haven’t forgotten him or his sacrifice.

I recently received what I believe to be the only two remaining photographs of my great uncle, Corporal Chester T. Dean. Known as Chet by his family and friends, he was one of many who served in our military and paid the ultimate price in defending our nation during World War II.

Chet’s story was reported in the Our Community Story column a few years ago. At the time, I asked a couple of family members whether they had a photo of him. Neither did.

I moved forward with the story using just a picture of my home town’s Honor Roll where Chet’s name is printed along with other local soldiers who served in all our nation’s wars.

Like many from that “Greatest Generation”, the story ended with the publication of my five-hundred word column. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much more I could add to his story as his two brothers and five sisters have all passed.

He died at the age of twenty-two, so even his nieces and nephews had but fleeting memories of their uncle.

As I wrote at the time, Chet’s story, like that of most of our brave men and women who died while wearing the uniform of our armed forces, remained frozen in time.

My family would visit his grave on Memorial Day. The inscription on his gravestone reads: CORP. CHESTER T. DEAN CO. C. 748th MED. TK. BN KILLED IN WALES AUG 23, 1922 - JUNE 8, 1944

Chet Dean (right) with his brother Charlie in a somewhat blurred photo. Charlie also served in WW II and lived to enjoy a few years of retirement. Photo: Deb Covey Morley

Based on this photo provided to me by my second cousin, I surmise that Chet was close to his brother Charlie.

Charlie was a frequent visitor to my parents’ home during the years I grew up back in the 1960s and 1970s.

A widower in the early 1970s following the passing of his wife Rose, Charlie was close to his nephew’s Stub (my dad) and Jim (my uncle).

As I recalled in my book Growing Up, Upstate, Charlie’s sense of humor was manifested in many ways. For example, he was known for stirring his cup of coffee and then touching the rounded end of the now hot spoon to the wrist of the nearest person sitting at the kitchen table.

That person, usually my great aunt Myrtle, would recoil her wrist, and then utter an expletive. Charlie would then smile and wink at either my father or me.

This early photo illustration combines Chet Dean’s military picture with the image of his wife Shirley. Photo: Deb Covey Morley.

Here’s what I know about my great uncle Chester Dean.

Born in 1922, he was the brother of my grandmother, Vera. In addition to Vera, he had four other sisters: Mary, Vaughn, Myrtle, and Viola (known in the family as Peachy).

Chester had two brothers: Charlie, who was serving in the Army Air Corps in Italy at the time of Chet’s death, and Harry who was living in upstate New York.

The Dean children were a big part of my growing up experience.
The Dean adult children were truly part of our family. My family was always spending time with them playing cards, dropping in for coffee, or helping out on a house project.

Unfortunately, no one in my generation would know Chet. He went into the U.S. Army in 1942, did his basic training at Camp Rucker, Alabama and was then transferred to Fort Knox, Kentucky before being sent on for desert training in Arizona.

He was sent to Wales in April 1944.

While soldiers were dying every hour during World War II, Chet was doing his duty and looking forward to life with his wife once the war was over.

Two months later, the landing at Normandy would take place off the coast of France. Chet, now Corporal Dean, remained in Wales for training that would likely lead to action on the field of battle.

On June 8, 1944, just two days after D-Day, he was training in Wales when an explosion occurred.

Chet suffered concussion and shrapnel injuries. His hospital report cited injuries caused by an artillery shell, a blast, fragments, and debris.

The report states he died in the “line of duty”. His death is listed in military records as KNB; that stands for killed, non-combat.

His wife Shirley got the news in the form of a telegram. According to an account of Chet’s death in the Lowville (NY) Journal and Republican newspaper, the telegram was very brief.

The message was from Adjutant General A.J. Ulio. The Adjutant General’s Office is the administrative unit responsible for correspondence, records, and awards.

It stated that Chet died on June 8, 1944. The telegram ended with two words: Letter follows.

Shirley wanted more information about how her husband died. On July 10, a little over one month after Chet’s death, she wrote to the war department asking for more information and an official confirmation.

The newspaper article in the Lowville (NY) Journal and Republican reporting the death of Corporal Chester T. Dean and quoting from the message Shirley Dean received from the military.

On July 27, 1944, just seven weeks after the training accident and three weeks after her letter asking for confirmation, a letter arrived for Shirley.

The letter provided additional details surrounding Chet’s life, the kind of soldier he was, and the kind of man he was:

 Dear Mrs. Dean:

I have your letter of July 10 and want to thank you for writing to me concerning your husband, Cpl Chester T. Dean. It is true, Mrs. Dean, that your husband is dead. The war department did not make a mistake.

I buried him with the ceremony appropriate to military funerals and then in addition to that, we had a memorial service in the company for him. The entire company was present, together with others from the battalion. The battalion commander was present. There were some beautiful tributes paid to your husband.

I only wish I had them recorded so you could hear what they said. But, knowing him to be the man that he was, you do not need them, do you? We held you and other loved ones before the Throne of God in prayer. And Chester's good life and devotion to God has been an inspiration to many others since that service to a closer walk with God. He was always in my services as often as duty would permit.

It was an unfortunate accident that caused his death. More than that I cannot say.  But it was very encouraging to hear the company commander say that he was one of his very best men and that he wished he had a whole company of men like him. We all felt the same way.

His last hours were not spent in suffering. He died an easy death. We did all we could for him.

Chet Dean was born in northern New York, endured the Great Depression, married young, served his country in the military, and died in World War II. I never got a chance to know this man. But I appreciate the words attributed to the company commander that were included in the letter Chet’s widow Shirley received: “he wished he had a whole company of men like him.”

A family photo of my great aunts and uncles, along with my great grandfather. Chet Dean is not in the photo, and as Charlie who also served in World War II is in the photo, we presume it was taken after the war. Photo: Deb Covey Morley

By knowing Chet’s surviving siblings, my family did have a group of people just like him. Vera, Mary, Vaughn, Myrtle, Peachy, and Charlie (Harry would pass before I was born) were caring people who loved their families, and who enjoyed a good hearty sense of humor.

I can imagine Chet sitting at my parents’ kitchen table with a cup of coffee, playing a game of cards, and telling stories about his life before and after his service.

He would likely have been quiet about his World War II experiences.

Like so many of the Greatest Generation, he would remember his buddies and try to put the tragedies from that war behind him.

We honor him for the hero he was.

And we will never forget.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced, CA.

His new book is Course Corrections and is available on Lulu.com .

He is indebted to his second cousin Deb Covey Morley. She has gathered photographs, documents, letters, and other items about many members of his dad’s side of the family.

Welcome Back Customers-

Some Stores Try Soft Opening Post COVID

The entryway to the Helen & Louise clothing store at 1804 Canal Street in Merced is decorated in a big way as the shop welcomes visitors back inside following the COVID restrictions. Photo-Steve Newvine

If celebrating is worth doing, often times it’s worth overdoing.

Take for example the big display of balloons that cover the upper façade to the Helen and Louise clothing store in downtown Merced.

“It’s been a great day for us,” said Bree Migliazzo about the return of customer traffic inside the store at the corner of 18th Street and Canal Street.

Since the start of the COVID restrictions in March, Helen & Louise kept their business going with hope that the day would come when customers could come back inside and shop.

When that day finally arrived May 8th, they reopened with a big celebration.

“The outdoor design came from Collective Creations, a local company", Bree said. “ Another local business, Jen’s Cakes, prepared special treats to celebrate the occasion.”

Merced Antique Mall is one of several downtown Merced stores that reopened to indoor customer traffic as part of the relaxing of some of the COVID restrictions impacting retailers. Photo- Steve Newvine

There was optimism among the vendors at the Merced Antique Mall along Main Street as well.

“We’re going to try it, and we hope it pays off,” one of the vendors told me as we were greeted at the entrance.

What the Antique Mall and several other Main Street businesses are trying is part of a broader effort to get commercial activity restarted in the community.

The COVID restrictions closed businesses deemed non-essential by the State Health Department.

In accordance with Governor Newsom’s shelter in place executive order issued in March, Merced’s downtown was effectively closed for business.

“We used the time to deep clean the entire store footprint,” the manager at the Merced Antique Mall told me. “Most of the vendors are offering specials to help get merchandise moving.”

As of May 8, restaurants such as the Bella Luna on Main Street in Merced continue their take-out sales in hopes that they will soon be able to serve customers in their dining area. Photo- Steve Newvine

The sign in front of the Bella Luna restaurant has the same message seen since the start of the COVID restrictions. A customer can come inside to pick up an order.

The dining establishment, along with many other restaurants, is open but only for take-out.

It’s hoped the easing of restrictions on dining rooms will be the next step toward fully restoring area restaurants as comfortable gathering points for customers who work or shop downtown.

Customers wait until Wells Fargo personnel determine there is sufficient social distancing space inside the branch in downtown Merced. Photo- Steve Newvine

Institutions like the Wells Fargo branch on 18th street allowed customers inside with a staff person at the door to make sure social distancing rules were followed.

Banks have been opened throughout the restrictions, but with shoppers and others returning to downtown, the line at the local bank branch appeared to be much longer than in recent days.

A staff person at the bank noted that the longer line may have been more about the traditionally heavier traffic on Friday.

She says the bank is using the same protocols employed at the start of the crisis.

Customers can come inside, but social distancing is the norm with someone stationed at the entrance to allow just the right number of people inside at any time.

“Most of the traffic is done at the teller window,” the staff person told me. “But if a customer needs to meet with a banker, they must make an appointment.”

All around the community, we’re observing the first stages of the return to normalcy in retailing, the restaurant industry, and banking.

It’s been a rough two-month period for local companies.

Many are hoping customers haven’t forgotten them. Bree Migliazzo from Helen & Louise said it best when she described how it feels to have customers coming into the store once again.

“We’re welcoming them with open arms,” she said. “It’s great to have them back.”

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

His book Course Corrections- My Golf Truth, Fiction, and Philosophy, is available at Lulu.com

Passing Time in the COVID Era-

What I will not take for granted post “shelter-in-place”

A handwritten message at an area golf course offers a blunt take on social distancing. Photo: Steve Newvine

I don’t know about you, but this shelter in place stuff is growing weary.

I’ve had my fill of television ads telling us “we’re in this together”.

Grocery shopping is not just about getting what we need right away, but also about picking up things now that we might need in a few weeks because we can’t be certain of availability.

And, I need a haircut.

I’m taking advantage of the slow return to normalcy in the Central Valley. Some golf courses and public recreation sites are reopening with COVID distancing rules in place.

As I entered a store this week, I saw a sign on the door saying “no entry without a facemask”.

Gas prices continue to fall with some area stations selling regular for under $2 a gallon. But we’re not putting many miles on our cars with almost everything shutdown.

This time of shelter in place has been the right thing to do for public health. As we resume our regular activities in the coming weeks, I’m going to renew many of the activities I’ve taken for granted.

This includes:

• Going to the coffee shop with a friend for an hour of catching up and caffeine
• Returning to brick and mortar church services
• Making a haircut appointment.

A casual round of golf is one of many life experiences I will not take for granted when normalcy is restored in the post COVID era.

Here are some other activities that I will not take for granted once COVID is over:

Newspapers

I’m fortunate to have home delivery for a daily paper, mail delivery for another paper, and easy access to the weekly paper. It’s great to go to the driveway or go to the mailbox and pick up the news. While on-line access to local news is fine, the presence of a real paper newspaper is my preferred method of getting the news.

Golf and outdoor recreation

I’m glad some area courses are back in business. But it will all seem real when we can go to any of our local parks and see them full of activity.

Here’s a stack of books the folks living at my house have read over the past several weeks. Photo: Steve Newvine

Reading books

My pack-rat storing of books from the Friends of the Library shop, garage sales, and thrift stores created a good foundation for reading during shelter in place. We’re looking forward to the reopening of these sources of books, as well as the reopening of our local book stores.

I’m anxious for thrift store donation centers to reopen so we can give away our gently used books for resale.

Dental and optometrist appointments

These professionals had to end routine services during the crisis. We miss them, and remain mindful of how important they are to our overall health.

Phone calls, including video calls. Both incoming and outgoing checks from family and friends are appreciated all the way around. The practice should not have to stop when this is over.

Email and social media

When I say social media, I mean the good kind: pictures of family, friends, vacations, and even the exotic entrees some of our friends might order at restaurants.

Unfortunately, the angry political social media will continue.

Listening to music

My collection of compact discs continues to provide hours of entertainment, centeredness, and pleasure. There’s no danger that will stop, but I will always be grateful for the gift of music. Shopping in stores here in Merced County.

I miss my runs to the Mall, shopping plazas, and Main Street in Merced. I especially miss the Merced Antique Mall where I could always find something I didn’t realize I needed.

The cultural events that add some zing to our lives. I want to see the marquee at the Merced Theatre tell us about the next show coming to town.

I want to be in the audience for a performance from Playhouse Merced.
I want to have the dilemma of having to choose between a concert at Merced College and an event at UC Merced that might be taking place at the same time.

We want our regular lives back.

Here’s hoping we return to the new normal in Merced County real soon.

Steve Nervine lives in Merced.

His book Course Corrections is available on Lulu.com

The San Luis Obispo Mission-

Four Visits in Twelve Years-An Indelible Impression

The San Luis Obispo Mission. Photo: Steve Newvine

At the time of this column posting, most of Merced County (and the world for that matter) is closed due to COVID restrictions.

As a result, there is nothing Merced County related in my story pipeline. So I’m going to my reserve for some reflections from the visits made at San Luis Obispo Mission over the past dozen years.

I traveled to the city of San Luis Obispo many times on business.

On at least four occasions, I visited the mission founded by Father Junipero Serra.

The Mission was founded in 1772. It was named after Saint Louis, Bishop of Toulouse, France.

The mission website (MissionSanLuisObispo.org) contains a lot of history. From that site, I learned that the San Luis County region was known as the Valley of the Bears by people back in the late 1700s.

There is a story about how people near the neighboring San Carlos Borremeo mission in Monterey were starving.

A hunting party was dispatched to the region now known as San Luis Obsipo County and returned with twenty-five loads of dried bear meat and seed.

The bounty kept the missionaries, soldiers, and baptized Natives (also known as neophytes) alive. It also informed a decision to build a mission in the Valley of the Bears.

Father Serra decided to build, and then left for the mission in San Diego. Father Jose Cavaller, five solders, and two neophytes began building what was then called Mission San Luis.

Over the years, buildings were added, land was acquired, and crops were grown to sustain the mission.

A statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the courtyard of the San Luis Obispo Mission. Photo: Steve Newvine

The Mexican War for Independence began in 1810, and at the Mission, mill wheels and a grain store house (granary) were built. After Mexico won independence from Spain in 1821, all California Missions were secularized by the Mexican Government.

The San Luis Obispo Mission was sold for just $510 in 1845. Later in that century, the Catholic Church asked the government to return some of the Mission lands back to the Church.

A major restoration took place in the 1930s and an annex was built next to the sanctuary in 1948.

There is a lot more detail on the history of the San Luis Obispo mission and the other California missions on that website.

It’s a story that continues to feed our curiosity about the development of our state.

Inside the chapel at the San Luis Obispo Mission. Black and white photo by Steve Newvine

My four visits over the past twelve years were always on the fly as I shuttled between work meetings. On two occasions, I attended early morning Mass in the chapel.

The caretakers have been mindful to preserve the actual experience of attending Mass in the original facility.

There are no padded kneelers and no cushions on the seats. The lighting is not brilliant. All of that is fine with me. I also enjoyed walking in the courtyard outside.

There is a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary that stands atop a bright blue and white marble base. The central feature in the courtyard is a display called “The Mission Bells”.

An information plaque explains the parish tradition and history behind the three bells. They are known as the Joy Bell, the Gloria Bell, and the Sorrow Bell.

This plaque describes the meaning behind the three bells at the San Luis Obispo Mission. Photo: Steve Newvine

The mission grounds are at the south end of the City’s main downtown thoroughfare. Walking in the solitude of the mission helped me relax and sort of slowed down my fast paced lifestyle if only for the short time I visited.

The din of traffic is in the background serving as a reminder that we can be as close as a city block away from the congestion of urban life, yet still be a restful environment.

When the COVID-19 restrictions are eventually lifted, I recommend the three-hour drive from Merced County to spend some time at the Mission.

There’s also the San Juan Bautista Mission in San Benito County that is about forty-five minutes from Los Banos.

That mission was the subject of an Our Community Story column back in 2018.

Both will reopen when the crisis is over.

There are a lot of things we all want to do when the coronavirus is no longer a threat.

Visiting the missions of California might be among those things.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

His latest book Course Corrections is available at Lulu.com

Signs of the COVID Times

The marquee sign at Merced Mall reminds people that Big Lots and Target are open. Photo: Steve Newvine

How Merced is coping in the corona virus era

The marquee sign in front of Merced Mall has become a barometer of our community’s response to COVID.

Immediately after Governor Newsom imposed quarantine at home restrictions on March 19, the sign informed passersby that the Mall was closed.

It is a sign of the changing times in Merced.

A clerk at a neighboring store told me how he felt when he drove past the Mall with all the empty parking spaces.

“It’s eerie,” he said without breaking his smile. “I never thought I’d see a time like this.”

In the days since the restrictions were announced, the sign was changed to reflect that the nearby Target and Big Lot stores were open.

In the foreground heading East on Olive, the sign promoting the Mall expansion project remains.

Barriers have been placed at the parking lot entrances at St. Patrick’s Church in Merced. Photo: Steve Newvine

We’re now in the COVID era where church parking lots are empty, and lines form a half hour before some grocery stores open.

The churchgoers turn to televised services on line or on their televisions.

The shoppers are hoping to find TP, paper towels, hand sanitizer, and a myriad of food products that seem to disappear overnight.

Some call it the COVID era. Others call it the hoarding era.

A grocery store clerk lamented, “In the store I asked a man I know who is single why he needed two large packages of toilet paper. He just looked at me and said ‘Why should you care?”

Empty paper product shelves symbolize the state of flux in area retailing. Photo: Steve Newvine

On a lighter note, I recognized an acquaintance waiting in line at a store that opened early one weekday morning just for seniors.

He told me, “I feel as though I’m at my fiftieth high school reunion with all these familiar faces.”

We know this crisis will change the face of commerce in many ways. Restaurants are converting to take-out and delivery transactions as dining rooms are shut down.

The iconic Branding Iron sign waits for the day the popular steak house reopens. Photo: Steve Newvine

On Sixteenth Street, a familiar neon sign has gone dark. Merced’s Branding Iron sent a message on Facebook in late March saying they were shutting down until further notice.

The management thanked customers for their support in the post adding, “Alright, so we kept going as long as we could but the time has come now when we HAVE to shut down completely until further notice.”

While the primary shopping area is closed to shoppers, construction crews continue their work on the Merced Mall expansion. Photo: Steve Newvine

The signs we see, whether in front of the Mall, or taped to an empty store shelf, each share a part of the COVID story’s impact on our city. Some may offer a ray of hope for the future.

Construction continues on the Mall’s expansion project. The project remains on schedule.

We’ll know things are getting better when the marquee changes one more time at the Mall, and when the neon is blazing again at the Branding Iron.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

He has written Course Corrections, My Golf Truth, Fiction, and Philosophy. The book is available at Lulu.com

Merced’s Japan Internment Memorial now 10 Years Old

Site marks the place where 4,669 were held during WW II

The Japan Internment Memorial at the Merced County Fairgrounds. Photo- Steve Newvine

Marlene Tanioka remembers turning five years old behind the fences at the Merced Assembly Center during World War II.

Her family was among the 4,669 Americans of Japanese ancestry from Merced and surrounding areas who were incarcerated at the Center as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order that established the internment.

“I had forgotten what home looked like,” Marlene said as she visited the Memorial again recently at the Merced County Fairgrounds.

Today’s home of the Merced County Fairgrounds is the site where the Assembly Center was built in 1942.

Marlene Tanioka and Patti Kishi view with bronze depiction of a Japanese American family and their belongings as the family is about to be incarcerated at the Merced Internment Memorial. Photo: Steve Newvine

According to the Merced Assembly Center’s website ( http://mercedassemblycenter.org/), construction of the buildings at the site began in March of 1942.

More than two-hundred, fifty buildings were constructed. Most of the buildings were barracks that held five families each.

The rest were mess halls, laundries, shower, and toilet facilities.

All of it was fenced in with barbed wire.

The Merced Assembly Center Memorial includes a wall with the names of individuals incarcerated at the Center during World War II. Photo- Steve Newvine

Within that barbed wire, the site functioned like a fully functional community. Temporary schools were opened for the one-thousand children within the group.

Religious services were held on the site. Emergency departments such as police and fire were set up.

The Center closed later that year in September. Most of the internees were moved farther inland to Colorado until the war was over.

Patti Kishi views the Memorial Garden at the Merced Assembly Center Memorial. Photo- Steve Newvine

The memorial was dedicated on February 20, 2010 at the County Fairgrounds site on Martin Luther King Drive in Merced.

Building the Memorial a little over a decade ago was easier than an earlier effort back in 1980s to have a historical marker placed at the site.

“The Fair Board at that time back in the eighties was not as enthusiastic about even a historical marker,” said Patti Kishi whose father was incarcerated at the Center during World War II.

“They eventually came around.”

A marker was placed outside the Fairgrounds footprint.

After learning about a federal grant available to build a memorial, members of two local Japanese American groups took up the challenge.

This time, when the 2008 Fair Board was approached about putting up this Memorial within the Fairgrounds, it was very receptive to the idea. They granted the six-hundred square feet of space to place the Memorial at a prominent spot inside the Fairgrounds.

The grant helped spark fund raising. By 2010, the Memorial opened to the public.

One of the information panels at the Memorial has photographs of area Japanese American soldiers who served in the US Armed Services during World War II. Photo: Steve Newvine

The Memorial features written accounts of life in the internment centers. There’s a wall listing the names of all the internees. Behind that wall is a reflection garden.

There’s also a panel honoring Japanese Americans who served in the US Armed Services during World War II.

Patti Kishi says there is really only one thing she hopes visitors take away from their time at the memorial.

“History,” she says. “It’s our history, our County’s history. It’s important to understand what happened here so that it never happens again.”

The barbed wire image is included in the plaque descriptions at the Merced Assembly Center Memorial. Photo: Steve Newvine

For Marlene Tanioka, memories from that period of time are still burned into her memory.

As a five-year old, she feared forgetting what her real home looked like. But her older sister took that worry away.

The sister drew a picture of the family farm so that Marlene could be reminded of what her home looked like.

“She drew a row of walnut trees, two barns, and a farmhouse,” Marlene said. “And when we were finally able to go home, it looked just like the picture she drew: a row of walnut trees, two barns, and a farmhouse.”

She knew then, she was home.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

His book California Back Roads - includes a section on the Japanese American Internment icons on display at the Livingston Historical Society Museum.

Paying Respects to Porterville

Departments statewide, including Merced, sent firefighters to help out

The city block in Porterville where the Public Library once stood. Photo by Steve Newvine

The Porterville Library fire is a story that impacts many of us on several levels.

There’s the tragedy of two firefighters losing their lives battling the blaze, the arrest of two teens who now face charges of arson and manslaughter, as well as the loss of a community resource that served hundreds of families in the City along with many others from around this City of sixty-thousand residents.

Words come up short in trying to describe the feelings of citizens who lost two of their own.

At the heart of the story is the outpouring of help and the paying of respects to a community dealing with their loss.

This sign in front of the Porterville Elks Club announces the postponement of activities out of respect for the first responders. Photo by Steve Newvine

Upon entering the section of the downtown area where the library once stood, I spotted a sign in front of the local Elks club announcing the postponement of some events “with respect to our first responders”.

Respect seems to be the best word to describe what I saw upon my visit just a few days after the tragedy.

The fire broke out around five o’clock Tuesday evening, February 18.

Porterville Fire responded within minutes. A second alarm, signifying that more firefighting resources would be needed, was pulled within minutes of the first crew responding.

Captain Ray Figueroa and Firefighter Patrick Jones died fighting that fire.

There are beautiful descriptions of these two heroes on the Porterville Fire Department’s Facebook page.

The community of Porterville, and others, paying respect with this display in front of the Fire Department. Captain Ray Figueroa (left) and Firefighter Patrick Jones lost their lives fighting that fire. Photos from the Porterville Fire Department Facebook page. Photo illustration by Steve Newvine.

Departments from all over the area helped out to put the fire down, and in the days following there were departments sending in resources as far away as Los Angeles.

In Merced, Deputy Fire Chief Casey Wilson told me the department sent two firefighters to Porterville the next day to help relieve others.

Public safety barriers encircled the block where the remains of the Porterville Public Library once stood. Photo by Steve Newvine

As I entered the scene, there was a public safety yellow tape serving as a barrier. I asked a police officer nearby if I could go beyond the barrier to pay my respects. He told me they were not letting anyone other than employees who worked in that area beyond the barrier so that crews could work on removing the debris.

I thanked the officer, and told him I understood that decision. This tragedy has been hard on the police department as well.

It’s been hard on all first responders.

Flags fly at half-staff out of respect for the two firefighters killed battling the February 18th fire. These flags are in front of the Porterville Police Department and the Elks Club. Photo by Steve Newvine

Porterville is about one-hundred, thirty miles south of Merced. That seems like a long way, but this tragedy is shared across California.

On the streets of Porterville, I spoke with a firefighter from outside the region as he was heading to his department vehicle.

He told me he wasn’t familiar with the area, but he was here to assist where needed.

He, like many others, were showing respect to firefighters Figueroa and Jones by doing whatever he could to help out.

That’s what good neighbors do.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced

At Home with Elvis

My Three Visits to Graceland

Graceland Mansion in 1983. Photo: Newvine Personal Collection

There have been a few big moments in my working career.

Three of them came when I visited Elvis Presley’s home, Graceland, in Memphis.

My wife and I went to Graceland on a day off from work when we lived in the southeast United States.

We were tourists and didn’t mind waiting in line to get a chance to view the graves of Elvis and two of his family members.

We spent about an hour on the grounds and another hour or so at some souvenir shops across the street.

Now let me take you back to 1981 when I working as a television news reporter for station WAAY in Huntsville, Alabama.

My boss was asking the staff for ideas on multi-part stories we could produce for the upcoming ratings period.

Back in 1981, local television stations would try to increase their ratings during February, May, and November when the national viewing surveys would take place.

The thinking was if we attracted more viewers to the newscast, the station might get higher ratings and hopefully greater revenue from ad sales.

I had done multi-part or mini-doc reports early in my tenure with the station. But this time, I had a big idea.

Why not go to Memphis, about a four-hour drive from Huntsville, and do a series of reports on Graceland and Elvis?

The fourth anniversary of Elvis’ death was coming up in August.

So we sold the news director on doing a three-part series for the November ratings period.

While we were there, we agreed to do a segment on the anniversary celebration for the next night’s newscast.

Fans visit the graves of Elvis Presley, his father, and his grandmother on the grounds of Graceland Mansion in Memphis in the early 1980s. Photo: Newvine Personal Collection

My videographer Bill and I left the station early on a Sunday and headed to Memphis along highway forty across northern Mississippi.

We arrived in Memphis around lunchtime. I don’t remember where we ate. But I do remember what it was like to see Graceland for the first time. Back then, the interior of the mansion was not open to the public.

But we had plenty of things to shoot on the grounds.

I did a couple of stand-ups where the reporter talks on camera from the scene of a story. One stand-up was for the fourth anniversary story.

The other one would be used in the three-part series to air later in the fall. Someone told us there was an Elvis symposium at the local college.

I remember being amused by the words symposium and Elvis being used in the same sentence. It was at that conference that I met authors Neal and Janice Gregory who wrote When Elvis Died.

The book was about how the national media covered the news of the internationally known superstar’s death.

Mr. Gregory spent a few minutes answering my questions. We used his interview in the series that would air later in the fall.

The book When Elvis Died, by Neal and Janice Gregory.

We finished up shooting around three PM. Realizing that we had already been up well over ten hours, we decided to head back to Huntsville.

Bill, who knew his way around Memphis, had another idea. He drove us to the area in the City where the Lorraine Motel was located.

The Loraine was where Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior was assassinated in 1968. “They’re going to turn this into a museum someday,” Bill told me as we slowed down. There is was.

All I could do was remember that spring of 1968. Martin Luther King was killed in April, my uncle Bill lost his life in a car accident in May, and Bobby Kennedy was shot in June of that year.

We stopped the car and we looked at the motel façade. We knew we had a long ride ahead of us, so we got back in the car and headed home.

The Lorraine Motel eventually became part of the National Civil Rights Museum.

The grave marker of Elvis Presley. Photo- Newvine Personal Collection

Our story on the forth anniversary of Elvis’ death aired the next night on the six o’clock news.

A three-part special report called, “The Elvis Influence” aired over three nights in November. I don’t recall if we got rave reviews or higher ratings.

I do remember people asking me about Graceland for a long time after the series ran. In the spring of 1982, I read how the Presley estate was going to open Graceland Mansion to the public.

At the time, the estate was losing money. The decision by the family to open the mansion for paid visits was welcomed by fans, and is credited with saving the estate from potential bankruptcy.

This was another reason to go back to Graceland.

This time, we were permitted to shoot inside in the so-called Jungle Room. The room was like a recreation room Elvis and his Memphis Mafia used. Workers were assembling items for display when the home would formally open to the public.

I was able to strum one of Elvis’ guitars, sat behind the wheel in one of his cars, and interviewed someone who was helping stage the permanent exhibit inside the mansion.

In late May, the interior of Graceland Mansion was opened to the public.

It was a memory that I’ve recalled over and over in the past four decades. It truly was something I will never forget.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

He has written Course Corrections. He congratulates the ten winners of a recent contest sponsored on MercedCountyEvents.com. Each winner will get a copy of the book.

Niner Stories

For San Francisco fans, the Super Bowl is about remembering a special time.

The San Francisco 49ers resurgence brings back a lot of memories for Bay Area fans. Photo: Target.com

Going to the Super Bowl is all about hard work, tenacity, and making opportunities out of the other team’s mistakes.

The San Francisco 49ers know all about hard work. It took them more than a quarter-century to make it to the 2020 Super Bowl.

I spent the days leading up to the championship contest asking friends and co-workers “Who are you rooting for?”

Not surprisingly, everyone in my circle of California friends is rooting for San Francisco.

For some, cheering for the 49ers brings back memories from the team’s heyday in the 1980s.

“I’d go to the games with my dad,” one friend shared with me. “Those were some of my most memorable times, going to Candlestick to watch the Niners.”

It seems everyone is a football fan around Super Bowl time. Photo: Facebook

Another associate remembers coming to California to work in the eighties.

His career seemed directly tied to the success of the franchise. “That’s all anyone would talk about this time of year,” he told me over tea and coffee at one of our favorite coffee shops. “There was a real culture of winning in the Bay Area.”

There’s a lot of truth to that observation.

Between 1982 and 2003, Bay Area NFL teams appeared in seven Super Bowls.

The Raiders won one and lost one during that time. The Niners won five times.

While the 49ers last Super Bowl appearance was in 2012 , it’s been fifty years between appearances in the big game for the Kansas City Chiefs. Photo: Home Depot

The situation is about the same for Kansas City. Their last Super Bowl appearance before 2020 was in 1970.

I was living in western New York in the eighties and nineties. My team was the Buffalo Bills. But California has been my home for the past sixteen years.

I’ve watched our teams start strong.

I’ve endured the frustration as a season falls apart by the midpoint. And I’ve welcomed the resurgence of both Bay Area franchises as they have embarked on rebuilding campaigns.

Another associate told me a couple of years ago that it was hard to give up season tickets for Forty-Niner games when the team moved to Levi's Stadium. “The ticket prices jumped quite a bit,” he told me. “We had season tickets in the family for decades, but with the team not doing well then and the hike in prices, we felt as if we had no other choice.”

It’s been good for the Bay Area and Central California to watch some quality local NFL action this season.

Putting a winning season together is hard enough. Making it to the postseason is the reward for the teams that can pass muster week after week.

Making it to the Super Bowl is for the elites. For the fans, it’s something to cheer about.

It’s also something that connects to what truly was a special time in the past.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

He has written Course Corrections available at Lulu.com

On February 9, Steve will be the featured speaker at the Merced County Historical Society’s annual meeting. That meeting will be held on the third floor of the Merced County Government Center, 2222 M Street, Merced.

Highway to Hassle-free Access- Segment 2 of Merced’s Campus Parkway will Open Soon

A construction crew working on Segment 2 of Campus Parkway in Merced. Photo: Steve Newvine

Every day, construction crews reach another milestone in the road project known as Campus Parkway.

Construction of Segment 2 of the project is on track to be completed in early 2020.

The project includes the construction of a four-lane expressway from Highway 99, connecting to Highway 140, and will eventually extend to Yosemite Avenue near the Lake Road intersection.

The first segment went from Highway 99 to Childs Avenue. Segment 2 will extend the expressway to Highway 140.

Segment 3 will extend the parkway to Yosemite Avenue.

Campus Parkway will eventually take travelers from Highway 99 to Yosemite Avenue, where it will be easy to connect to Lake Road north to the UC Merced campus. Photo: Steve Newvine

There was one-hundred million dollars provided from the state in the Senate Bill 1 Transportation Package.

That money will fund the current project as well as Segment 3.

According to information from the Merced County Association of Governments website, Campus Parkway will complete the south-eastern portion of the so-called “Merced Loop System.”

That system will one day circle the City of Merced and connect surrounding communities including the City of Atwater.

This map from the Merced County Association of Governments website shows the three Segments of the Campus Parkway project. Photo: MCAG

These projects have been in the works for years.

Delays along the way included efforts to successfully pass a transportation sales tax that made Merced a “self-help” county.

Many leaders point to self-help counties as being in a better position to request state and federal highway monies because these jurisdictions have local “skin-in-the-game” through revenue streams such as dedicated local sales taxes.

Merced County voters passed Measure V, a countywide half-cent sales tax for transportation in 2016.

The sales tax, went into effect in April of 2017, and was projected to generate an estimated $15 million annually for transportation.

Another setback along the way was the recession from the late 2000s through the early 2010s.

Political leaders had to fight to keep local road projects from falling off the funding radar.

The first public meeting on the proposed project was in 1999, so the completion of this second segment seems as though it has been a long time coming.

Looking back on the past two decades, our community has undergone a tremendous change.

UC Merced is now part of the landscape.

Campus Parkway will help take traffic to and from the university. It will also serve to help better connect traffic to Yosemite National Park. It’s hoped it will open the City of Merced’s south side to more economic development. One thing is certain. The new limited access expressway will offer less stressful access for many drivers.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

He has written Course Corrections available at Lulu.com

On February 9, he will be the featured speaker at the Merced County Historical Society’s annual meeting. That meeting will be held on the third floor of the Merced County Government Center, 2222 M Street, Merced.

Seeing clearly in 2020- Looking ahead to a decade of change

A new year and a new decade.

We have started a new year and a new decade. It’s time to put it in perspective.

Unlike the start of previous decades, this one comes at a time when change is the operative word.

Forty years ago, I rang in the New Year by watching the movie Citizen Kane at a friend’s house. In the era right before video machines became prominent in homes, seeing a true Hollywood classic film was more of a special event.

In 1980, we knew the New Year would start a decade of life changes.

Later that year, I married my wife Vaune, and then moved twelve-hundred miles away from where my first job was in the northeast United States to take a new position in the south.

Most of the 1980s found me tending to my duties as a father to these two young ladies. Photo: Newvine Personal Collection

As the decade progressed, two children would bless our family and two more job changes took place.

We bought our first house, paying less than what some full size new cars cost.

It was the decade of beginnings.

The shift to the 1990s found me entrenched in the task of parenting. My family would celebrate New Year’s Eve about four hours earlier so that our children could make noise and be in bed close to their regular bedtime.

Later in the decade as our daughters became teens, we started a tradition of going out to dinner at a favorite Italian restaurant, and then come home to watch the movie Apollo 13 on our VHS tape machine.

The 1990s would eventually take me to a new career as a chamber of commerce executive where I would work with business and political leaders. L-R: Former New York State Lieutenant Governor Mary Ann Krupsak, Alan Fusco, me, and Lynn Herzig. Photo: Lynn Herzig

That decade would see me leaving the television journalism field for new adventures running a local chamber of commerce.

By mid-decade, I would add on a part time job as an adjunct teacher at an area college.

Both jobs made an indelible impact on the person I hoped to become. Community service would become an important part of life.

It was a decade of change.

We marked the start of the new millennium in 2000 with a house full of noise from a teenager sleepover and the television on with Peter Jennings anchoring ABC News coverage of the event.

As the whole world was celebrating the year 2000, the broadcast networks were all in for reports from practically every time zone in the world as each part of the planet welcomed in the New Year.
Over the next few years, I would mourn the loss of my mother to cancer, move to the west coast, and effectively push the restart button on my life.

It was the decade of transformation.

My wife and I started the past decade with the purchase of a home in our adopted home town of Merced. Photo: Newvine Personal Collection

Ten years ago, my wife and I were getting serious about moving out of an apartment and settling in again in a house.

By 2010 we had been in Merced three years and spent all that time sitting out the fall of the local housing market.

We weren’t sure even in 2010 that the worst of the recession was over. But we took a chance, met a fine local real estate agent, and found the right place for us.

A grandson arrived during the past decade. His birth has brought new meaning to the words transformative, change, and beginnings.

We opened our home to my wife’s parents when the time came for them to move from their home of more than fifty years.

I’ll never forget my father-in-law calling me shortly after he heard that I was okay with the idea of in-laws moving in with us.

He said, “They tell me you are fine with this, but I need to hear that for myself.” I told him I was fine with it, adding that I saw it as a gift to my wife: I was giving my wife her parents.

The past decade, the tens, was a decade of reframing.

And that brings us to the start of another new ten-year span. We know there will be changes starting with my decision to retire from my full time job later in this year.

What else is heading our way is not known, but if the past four decades have been any indication, it will be an adventure.

I don’t have a bucket list. The closest I came to one was in a column I wrote in 2019 about flying a kite with my grandson.

Some of the other items on my Grandpa’s Bucket list include:

• Watch him perform in a school play
• Enjoy an adventure that ends with the two of us at a real diner (my grandfather did this with me and I never forgot it)
• Attend his high school graduation and his college graduation
• Play some Sinatra and Elvis and explain to him why these artists are so important to me

So with any luck, I’ll knock off everything on that Grandpa’s Bucket list.

I might even start a new list.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

He’s published Course Corrections that can be found on Lulu.com

He will be the featured speaker at the annual meeting of the Merced County Historical Society on February 9 at the Merced Government Center.

Engineering Enthusiasm- UC Merced Students Present their Projects to the Community

Innovate 2 Grow is the semester-end presentation of engineering student projects at UC Merced. Photo- Steve Newvine

They may have the engineering correct, but how are they at presenting before a group of business people?

They are engineering students at UC Merced, and this is the twice-annual Innovate to Grow project presentation held at the end of the spring and fall semesters.

For the past four months, teams of students have been working with their business and non-profit clients.

The clients come to the table with real business process problems. The students use engineering principles studied in the classroom to research and apply solutions.

Week after week, they have updated their instructors on their progress, learned new approaches to solving problems, and stayed in contact with their clients.

By the semester’s end, they must present their solutions to a group of community representatives.

This team of UC Merced engineering students presented their solution to removing small pieces of plastic from recycling systems. Photo- Steve Newvine

I have attended this event over the past few years as an observer. But this time around, I signed up to be a judge.

I took time off from work and headed to the campus to help evaluate the projects.

The day started with a showcase of all projects in the college gymnasium. Set up like a trade show, the event was designed to give students a chance to answer questions in an impromptu environment.

The event also gave outsiders like me a chance to see other projects in addition to the three I would be judging. Following lunch and networking with other judges, we were led to classrooms.

The presentations were held in two buildings on the new section of the campus: the south side.

These buildings opened to students in just the past year. It feels funny to describe that side of the campus as new. UC Merced has only been around a little over ten years.

The Innovate 2 Grow event included half-hour judged presentations by School of Engineering Students. This portion of the event was held on the newly opened southern side of the campus. Photo- Steve Newvine

Inside the classrooms, student teams made half-hour presentations of their projects.

Each team of judges was assigned to evaluate three student presentations. As judges we would listen to the presentation, ask questions of the students, then fill out our digital evaluation forms.

The engineering professor who coordinated the presentations used the judges’ evaluations as a component of each student’s final grade. “Look at these presentations just as if the students were a real engineering firm making an engineering solution pitch,” Professor Alejandro Gutierez told us prior to the judging.

This pair of School of Engineering students developed an app solution that created a sensor to help the staff detect the number of people in specified sections of the UC Merced Library. If implemented, the solution would replace the current process of having staff manually count the number of users. Photo- Steve Newvine

Presentations were divided into three categories: Innovation and Design, Engineering Service Learning, and the Mobile App Challenge.

The three student teams within the Innovation and Design classification that our group judged took this final assignment seriously.

They were dressed in business clothes and were well rehearsed for the formal portion of the presentation.

I was impressed with each team’s handling of questions from the judges. They answered the questions, helped one another by providing additional information, and clearly demonstrated they were invested in their projects.

One project we evaluated was a solution to capturing bit pieces of plastic that fall to the floor from a recycling facility. The students analyzed the project from a cost, efficiency, maintenance, and complexity perspective.

They discussed their prototype, shared their implementation issues, and touched on barriers to moving forward.

Mark Matsumoto, the Dean of the School of Engineering, told me many of these students are first generation students. “This is their first exposure to the realities of engineering as a career.”

Innovate to Grow, or I2G as it is referred to on campus, started in 2012.

It engages the local community by identifying real engineering problems that students work on to solve. Having the public involved as judges of their projects helps take these students out of their relative safe comfort zones on campus to a more “real world” atmosphere where they have to sell their ideas.

They also have to sell themselves as authorities on their projects.

As one of the students summed up her experience with the Innovate to Grow initiative, “It’s great!.”

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

His new book, Course Corrections- My Golf Truth, Fiction, and Philosophy is now available on Lulu.com .

He will be the featured speaker at the annual meeting of the Merced County Historical Society annual meeting on February 8.