Dec 28, 2021
In 1979, I served as a summer missionary for the Southern Baptist churches in Northern Nevada. I was one of hundreds of college students working nationwide, helping churches conduct Bible schools and summer youth camps.
Each missionary stayed within a region of churches, changing locations each week through a dozen churches. Most pastors hoped their missionary would be an ambitious college kid who could energize their youth group.
The pastors shared a pun among themselves to rate the energy of these workers: “Summer missionaries and some-r-not.”
I was more the “not” kind.
Dec 28, 2021
Find out what is going on in Pocket during the month of January!
Dec 28, 2021
Some people get frustrated when local government tells them something obvious. Not me. I find it satisfying, even comforting, to see a municipal report that validates precisely what I’ve been saying all along.
The Pocket Greenhaven Transportation Plan is one such document. The plan is a big deal, sponsored by the city to establish priorities and expenditures in traffic safety and connectivity for decades to come. The work started before the pandemic. Now it’s nearing the finish line.
Bureaucratic delays, combined with a reluctance to bring large groups together in town halls under COVID-19, slowed the project. Opportunities for public discourse were limited. But final opinions are now being solicited, leaving local City Councilmember Rick Jennings with a clear picture of community traffic priorities.
Dec 28, 2021
Terry a O’Neal is the consummate storyteller. During our nearly two-hour interview, she regales me with stories about young motherhood, awakening her writer’s voice, going through a traumatic divorce, advocating for youth and more.
She talks about her mother, a Southern Creole poet who inspired her daughter’s creative career. She tells of the complex characters that populate her poetry and prose. By the end of the call, it feels like we’ve only scratched the surface of the artist and human being that is Terry a O’Neal.
“I credit my mother for everything,” says O’Neal, raised in Stockton by her mother, Barbara Ann Tillman-Williams, a native of Louisiana who moved to California in the 1970s but reared O’Neal and her three siblings as if they were still in the south.
Dec 28, 2021
When Rivkah Sass retired last month as director and CEO of the Sacramento Public Library, she left behind a list of accomplishments that could fill, well, a book.
But make no mistake. Just because she retired doesn’t mean the tireless Sass will be less busy.
“I have other adventures to be determined,” she says. “My No. 1 priority will be spending time with my two new grandchildren who live in Idaho—Facetime is nice but it’s not the same as cuddling two squirmy, stinky boys.
“No. 2 on my list is to get certified to teach English as a foreign language so I can do more work with the Zaatari refugee camp on the Syrian border. There’s also my guilty pleasure, the Isle of Wight Donkey Sanctuary. I plan to go there to volunteer. I also want to learn to read music. And, of course, I plan to consult with libraries, since they’re my passion.”
