Had enough of gift catalogs yet? Does your kitchen table sag under the weight of them? Does your mail carrier glare malevolently at your house as he crams another 86 pounds of glossy, full-color catalogs into your mailbox? Mine does. In fact, I refuse to be anywhere near our mailbox when he arrives – there’s […]
I’ve written before about our two younger sons who left at the end of summer for different colleges – one to the south of here in San Diego and the other far to the north in Missoula, Montana. The difference in their respective choice of colleges and environments mirrors perfectly the distinction in the two […]
Before I’m as stuffed as the turkey on our table and people start calling me “butterball” (as if they don’t already), I want to take this opportunity to give thanks of my own. Having always thought that a so-called “attitude of gratitude” is one of the most valuable and redeeming character traits in a person, […]
On the rare occasion that our semi-bucolic Crescenta Valley is featured on the evening news – for either good or bad news reasons – I’m often left staring at the superimposed type identifying the location of the (Live! On-The-Scene! Eyewitless News Exclusive!) talking-head reporter. Expecting to see a familiar name like La Crescenta, Montrose, or […]
I realize columns about golfing are usually published during the spring or summer months, not early winter. Then again, as evidenced by our recent string of near-one-hundred-degree days, winter in Southern California is all too often more a state of mind than a condition of the weather. It was one of those mid-summer articles that […]
Bullying is in the news a lot these days. It’s the subject of national news exposés, of town hall meetings, of school board initiatives and considerable public debate as it should be. We live in a culture that is increasingly crass, crude and overtly aggressive and many good people wonder how we got to this […]
by Jim CHASE One of the best-written, consistently funny sitcoms on TV is Modern Family. On last week’s episode, a subplot had one the show’s featured fictional families, Phil and Claire Dunphy and their three kids, in a contest with each other to see who could go without their electronic devices the longest period of […]
By Jim CHASE On one of our recent walks through the Foothills, my wife and I began to notice how many hair salons there were along the street. As we passed one salon after the other, we got to talking about how many of them we could recall throughout Montrose, La Crescenta and La Canada. […]
Last week I wrote about the devastation to our family’s mountain vacation home caused by a faulty joint in a water pipe and many days, or possibly even weeks, of flooding coming from an upstairs bathroom. In late September, after nearly eight months of demolition, rebuilding, rethinking, and refurnishing, the home was finally back to […]
My thoughts, Exactly By Jim Chase I used to look forward to grocery shopping and have always found it enjoyable to shop for our family. In fact, my wife and I often joke about turning trips to the grocery store into a “date” that allows us to spend time together. Are we fun, or what? […]