Dec 28, 2025
I’ve never understood how a few property owners near the Sacramento River made city and state officials think public safety means keeping people off the levee parkway.
For 50 years, the safety and security argument was a smokescreen—a stratagem to give exclusive parkway access to several dozen residents and lock out everyone else.
Now the ruse is dead. Mayor Kevin McCarty and the City Council are ready to finish the paved levee bike trail that links Freeport to Downtown and the American River Parkway.
The safety and security con job was obvious from the start, dating from the late 1970s. But nobody challenged it.
Dec 28, 2025
Max Baer loved to cruise Broadway in his convertible wearing nothing but swim trunks. The car was a yellow Pontiac Chieftain, a gift from his pal Larry Cameron.
Cameron was a North Sacramento auto dealer and scratch golfer. In the 1960s, he subdivided his ranch near Highway 50 and named it Cameron Park.
Max Baer was famous long before he met Larry Cameron. Baer was the world heavyweight boxing champ and a movie star. He could live anywhere. He chose Eighth Avenue, behind McClatchy High School.
Baer, wife Mary and children Maxie Jr., Jim and Maudie settled into a 4,270-square-foot, four-bedroom home with a balcony along the second floor.
Dec 28, 2025
In my family, only one person likes Old Sacramento. That’s me. I enjoy the wooden sidewalks, wrought iron balconies, tourist traps, train sheds and steamboat docks.
My feelings for Old Sac are nostalgic. I’m the only one in the family old enough to remember what Front and Second streets looked like six decades ago.
In those days, Old Sac was the West End. Residents were derelicts, bums, drifters, tramps, winos. They loafed in the shade, weary from picking fruit, drunk.
Nov 28, 2025
What a pathetic year in local sports. The Cal Expo Board of Directors and California Horse Racing Board destroyed horse racing and set the stage for Sacramento State University to embarrass itself.
Two sleepy state bureaucracies blew opportunities to expand thoroughbred and harness racing in Sacramento. Instead, they set aside a slice of Cal Expo for Sac State’s football fantasies.
Nov 28, 2025
I looked for Randy Paragary in an alley behind the Sheraton Grand Hotel and found Cesar Chavez. At least I think it was Cesar Chavez. It resembled him, though someone painted the name “Randy Paragary” under the mural.
Mistaken identity happens everywhere. Police lineups and courtrooms are notorious for confusing who was present when the gun went off. Some witnesses blame poor lighting. Or poor eyesight.
Which doesn’t mean I expect street murals to be precise representations of the people they wish to honor. A painting on the side of a building isn’t John Singer Sargent mixing bone black and lead white to produce skin tones for “Portrait of Madame X.”
Nov 25, 2025
Sacramento finally has a mayor who knows when to shut up. Kevin McCarty gets the beauty of brevity. He realizes the less a politician says, the more people listen.
The city’s long-delayed levee bike path through Pocket, linking Freeport to Land Park, Downtown and the American River trail, gives McCarty the perfect platform to show off his talent for tight speeches.
When the City Council voted unanimously to approve the Environmental Impact Report for the levee bike trail, the mayor boiled a half-century of fences, gates, backroom deals and deceptions into one sentence.
