HILLS NEWSPAPERS: March 16, 2012
I never thought I’d say it, but Lady Gaga has good taste. She had lunch at one of my favorite restaurants recently, ordering just what I would have ordered — muscles, frites and a Fig Kiss.
Can’t a girl get a martini without the world knowing about it? Apparently not, as Twitter and Facebook erupted with Gaga sightings across the Sonoma Valley. Continue Reading »
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MONTCLARION: March 16, 2012
It was the biggest memorial I’ve ever seen for an average guy. A thousand people turned out last week to remember Brad Shaw, a hills scout leader and dad who died doing what he loved — fishing.
Corpus Christi Church was packed, and so was the gym, where the Mass was telecast to an overflow crowd. When it was finished, an army of loved ones served sandwiches and drinks and kept the food coming for another three hours. Nobody wanted to leave. Continue Reading »
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Doug Perry, of Alameda, stands in front of an amphibious vehicle where he works for Ride the Ducks, a company that takes tourists on a tour on the streets and in the waters in San Francisco, Calif., on Friday, Feb. 24, 2012. (Ray Chavez/Staff)
ALAMEDA JOURNAL: March 8, 2012
You think you’ve got a tough commute? Try driving a boatload of people around San Francisco — then ending up in the Bay.
Alamedan Doug Perry works for Ride the Ducks, the company that takes tourists on those curious white boats on wheels. They’re actually updated versions of World War 2 amphibious vehicles that motor down city streets and then take to the water like — you guessed it — ducks.
Driving one is harder than it looks. Continue Reading »
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MONTCLARION: March 8, 2012
It was 1988 when my husband and I moved to Montclair. We were so smitten with the Village — with it’s little storybook library and fire station, western-themed park and baseball field.
We came here for the same reasons you did — the shopping, the nature, the small-town feel just minutes from the city. A lot has changed in 24 years, not the least of which is the shopping district. We’re seeing more banks and realtors and fewer Mom-and-Pop shops. Reader David Cloutier says it’s been a concern in his circle of friends for some time. Continue Reading »
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HILLS NEWSPAPERS: March 3, 2012
Travel takes on a different purpose for those of us approaching our “golden years.” We size up a destination with retirement in mind, asking ourselves what it would be like to live somewhere other than here.
In the last several years, I’ve known neighbors who’ve moved to Nashville, Tenn., Pittsburgh and even Mexico. There is life beyond the Bay Area.
On a recent trip to the Midwest, I met Jeremy Popelka and Stephanie Trenchard, two glass sculptors who left Rockridge in 1998 to raise their family in Sturgeon Bay, Wis. — population 9,000. Continue Reading »
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MONTCLARION: March 2, 2012
Sadness has settled over the Catholic community in the Oakland hills. Two Corpus Christi church parishioners died last week — one in a tragic shore-fishing accident and one at the hands of an intruder.
Joe Robertson was our darkroom manager at the Hills Newspapers for more than 40 years. He was a quiet older man who dutifully did his job up until his retirement in the late 1990s. His family and neighbors on Thackeray Drive are stunned that someone would have taken his life. It leaves us unsettled and wondering what kind of monsters live in our midst. Continue Reading »
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MONTCLARION: February 23, 2012
Who puts in three decades at one job anymore? Most folks are lucky to eke out five years before their position is outsourced or downsized. But Katie Murphy has been the principal at Piedmont’s Corpus Christi School for 31 years. Continue Reading »
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