Good evening, 919 Gang. I estimate I
have edited about 4,800 editions of this noble publication and until tonight I
had announced only one wedding – Preston Turegano’s. Tonight we add the second.
Congratulations, Walt and Deb.
WALT BARANGER writes:
And
now for something completely different: I got married over the weekend.
Early
Saturday morning, Deb and I decamped to Bullhead City, Arizona, where marriage
licenses are issued by mail. The minimal wedding party — Deb and me plus her
two daughters as witnesses and her son-in-law as officiant — met along the
shore of the Colorado River.
Flowers
marked 6-foot boundaries, and of course masks were removed during the ceremony
to improve audibility. It was 90° and heading to 100° when the ceremony began.
We were
cheered on by innocent bystanders about 100 yards away. Aside from the loud
motors of passing speedboats, it was a great venue for a Covid-era wedding.
Practicing
good social distancing, we said “I Do” and held a brief reception (everyone
brought their own food). Then we headed back and were home by 6 p.m.
With
California’s county clerks either not issuing marriage licenses or making
appointments many weeks in advance, it took a while for me to discover that
Mohave County, in northwest Arizona, routinely issues marriage licenses by
mail. (Maricopa County in metropolitan Phoenix now does them too.)
How
many wedding photos clearly show three states? In the foreground is Arizona,
along the far shore is Laughlin, Nevada, and the mountains are four miles away
in San Bernardino County, California. (The romantically named Dead Mountains
Wilderness Area.)
Here
are more photos:
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DON BARTLETTI writes:
Hello Jack. Recently Ken Stone from the online
Times of San Diego asked me six questions about my current Covid19 situation.
Here’s
the URL:
Below are the copied and pasted
comments and 3 photos.
 |
| Don
Bartletti is shown in the Vista garden he’s nurtured for 59 years. The retired
Los Angeles Times veteran spends much of his “sequester-at-home” time
maintaining and photographing his one-acre sanctuary.
(Photograph by Don
Bartletti)
| |
1.How are you working during this pandemic?
What telework tools are you using?
I retired from the Los Angeles Times a few
years ago. Now I feel like I’m retired from retirement. Instead of planning how
I’ll reward myself and my family with savings from a life of frugal living, I
see it disappearing down the proverbial toilet. After the Times and before the
virus spit hit the fan, I’d done some freelance photography, guest lecturing
and photo exhibitions from my 40-year documentary about causes and consequences
of migration across our southern border. Now my calendar is blank and a current
exhibit at the Oceanside Library is behind locked doors. My go-to telework
tools are FaceTime with four young grandsons and telephone calls with
colleagues about the good ol’ days.
2.
How many in your household — number of kids and adults? How are you all getting
along?
It’s just my wife Diana and I here at home. We
have our own spaces and plenty of room but occasionally Diana will quip, “Are
you going to be sittin’ there every morning when I get up?”
I never
expected grass would sprout on my roof much less that I’d take the time to
watch it grow. Nicely spaced rainfall has put a living patina on my Southern
California home and gardens. Beneath this roof I’m a healthy septuagenarian
who’s “sheltering in place” with too much time on my hands. So, I’m usually
outside gasping with joy at discoveries like this tiny rooftop volunteer
garden. And above that is my life size bronze hawk. For more than four decades
she’s symbolically held a roll of 35mm film in her beak with N.E.W.S. worth
remembering - no matter which way the wind blows.
3. How are you getting food and other
necessities? How often do you personally go out, or are you taking delivery
mostly?
Diana and I usually go grocery shopping at
Frazier Farms here in town. “Handsome Travis”, as Diana calls the manager,
recognizes us even behind her scarf and my blue bandana. We always steer our
way into his checkout line for friendly chats about family, politics, painting
and photography. Binge shopping is reserved for Costco; we’re now averaging
$200+ with every cart. We haven’t done the “seniors-only” early shopping thing;
8 a.m. is too early for a $2 polish dog and soda.
4. Aside from official local, state and
government channels, how are you getting news about the outbreak? How much
social media do you use?
At the breakfast table I’m “…sittin’ there…”
for an hour or so reading the pulp version of the Los Angeles Times and
additional time with the online Times and the Union-Tribune. I like keeping
tabs on what my former colleagues are producing at both papers. I also get
hyper local with the Times of San Diego. In the evening I channel surf around
the commercials to hit all the local and national news programs before settling
in with KPBS TV. During moments of morbid curiosity I punch in Fox News to test
my spin tolerance. Before long I unwrap my topsoil stained fingers from the
remote and hit “previous” before I decide not to hurl it through the screen.
And I love Facebook because it’s for friends my age. I regularly post a
beautiful photograph from confinement and a 30-second read about the image. I
don’t favor Instagram in deference to their goddam given right to sell anyone’s
posted photos without compensation. I have a Tweeter (cq) account but forgot
the password. Anyway, how much unedited BLATHER does one person need?!
Raindrops
shelter in place amid the spokes of a 7” nasturtium leaf in my home gardens.
Tiny outlier droplets hold fast but when a breeze wobbles the emerald plate
they’ll roll down the leaf into the swollen hub. Thank evolution and good
health that I’ve been able to hide from the dreaded bug we’re all hiding from.
But here in my outdoor sanctuary if I could be a bug, just for one day, I’d
tiptoe on all sixes for an even closer look at our fragile little world.
5. How do you ward off negative emotions —
fear, anxiety, depression? What steps are you taking to preserve mental and
physical health?
I spend 8-10 therapeutic hours most every day
outside on my beloved one-acre park-like property. I maintain fieldstone walls
I made with native stone, clip hedges, plant seeds and split firewood from
pruned trees, some of which I planted with my Dad during the past 60 years here
on the “homestead”. When I crawl out of bed in the morning and look at my new coronatee
chin whiskers in the mirror, I realize I look 73 years old. But once I work up
a good sweat, backache, and dirty hands in the home gardens, I feel blessed to
be alive and healthy. Then I use my camera as an elixir for a carefully focused
look at the life-affirming beauty all around me.
6. What else do you want people to know about
your own personal response to the outbreak?
With nearly 50 years as a photojournalist with four
California newspapers, I steadfastly believe in the irreplaceable importance of
print journalism in our democracy. When I read and hear elected officials,
pundits and hobbyist bloviators accusing the “MEDIA” for this novel hysteria, I
want to scream back, “It’s far worse than that!” News-starved Americans are
being spun in an information cesspool. Routinely, local and national radio
personalities swipe carefully researched content from mainstream newspapers and
magazines then inbreed it with political prejudice until it mutates into party
line sewage. Then our socially distanced neighbors and social media friends
become infected with this caca and go around town spreading those illegitimate
ideas. Rather than drive off the road or hurl your TV remote through that big
flat screen, shut the things off, buy an online or printed subscription --- and
READ! Print journalists with the PRESS dig far deeper and longer for the facts
than the plagiaristic radio guy or the grid of MEDIA propagandists cluttering
your cable TV screen. During my long career in newsrooms and in concert with my
reporters on the front lines I seldom encountered a colleague with an ax to
grind, or a deadline news editor who wasn’t fact checking just in case.
Nearly every time we gossip on the phone, one
of my retired curmudgeon photojournalist pals sarcastically proclaims his
frustration, “Don, we’re doomed!” Far worse I believe will be an incurable
pandemic of ignorance if newspapers and magazines continue to devolve into
extinction. If that happens, where will we read all about it?
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DAVID
FARMER writes:
There's
a word for Rick Smith that I first learned in the 1970s while working in TV
news in NYC: Maven. Many in this group will know that it means an expert,
usually in a particular field or subject. Rick is the maven of San Diego County
athletics.
As
such, he remembers things about the Southern Prep League that I never knew,
even though I played in it. My high school, Ramona, was a member of that league
during my playing days, 1952-56. The league was probably the smallest
conceivable grouping of schools. My entire class numbered fewer than 100 boys
and girls, and some of the schools were even smaller. For example, Julian fielded
teams in basketball, baseball and track, but couldn't muster enough boys for
football.
As
Rick recalls, the most talented player in the league was Ernie Trumper, a
classmate of mine. It must have been rare for a kid from a school the size of
ours to win a football scholarship at UCLA. Ernie soon returned to San Diego
County, finding the gap between tiny Ramona and giant UCLA impossible to
bridge.
Ernie
became an officer in the San Diego Police Department and spent his career
there. After retiring, he came back to his family home in Santa Ysabel, next to
the highway from Ramona to Julian. He puts his energy into the family fruit,
vegetable and honey stand.
Ernie's
status as a sports legend (to me and Rick Smith) came at a price. Football in
high school and rugby at the SDPD left him with damaged joints. He's had
replacements, and recent extensive surgery on his spine.
Ernie
married his high school sweetheart, Barbara Gilmore, not long after graduation.
(She's the sister of 919 Gang member John Gilmore.) I've known Ernie since the
5th grade at Ramona Elementary. I'm pleased that he's a member of Rick Smith's
hall of fame.
P.S.
if Rick had been from Maryland, he surely would have been a member of the
Baltimore Mavens.
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GINA
LUBRANO
writes:
Lorrie Birch, daughter of the late Bill Birch,
found a number of old Unions and Tribs in going through her dad's belongings.
Rather than recycling them, she asks if anyone in the 919 Gang is interested in
having them. As you will see, the collection includes the final edition of the
Tribune and the first edition of the Union-Tribune. If anyone is interested in
having any of them, please drop me a line (elubrano@san.rr.com) and I will pass your
information onto Lorrie.
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BRIAN CLARK asks:
Thanks to Ron Hutcherson for filling
in most of the details - though he left out the lascivious parts - on the
snub-nose-.38-in-the-face story. It was a good read. Several more questions:
Did this happen when he was working at a newspaper? And did he write about it?
Or did it make any publication’s police blotter? And who got the gal? Inquiring
minds, at least this one, want to know.
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REBER: A
birthday bonanza. Happy Birthday, April 29, to Bob DiVeroli, Bill Osborne,
Sharon Reeves, Pauline Repard and Rose Wojnar.
P.O.
Box 2239
Ramona,
CA 92065-0938
United
States
