R.E. Graswich

Writer and Editorial Team

About This Author

R.E. Graswich is a journalist, author and media expert. His book “Vagrant Kings” is the definitive history of the Sacramento Kings basketball team. He was Special Assistant to Mayor Kevin Johnson, managed the Sacramento Voices program for the Maynard Institute of Journalism Education and worked for the Sacramento Bee, CBS 13 and KFBK.

Articles by this author

Conflict Resolution

Eleven years ago, a cardiologist told me to walk. He said this while I was in bed at Mercy General Hospital counting staples in my chest that closed a surgical incision from a four-way heart bypass.

The doctor told me not to drive for three months. If I got into a crash and the airbag went off, about $250,000 worth of medical artistry would be wasted. Every day since, I’ve walked.

A favorite place to walk is the Sacramento River levee in Pocket and Greenhaven. I climb the levee at Garcia Bend Park or Zacharias Park. The river is beautiful.

He’s Unimpeachable

For seven decades, Sacramento State University wandered through the academy’s lost forest, praying higher education gods would take the school seriously.

Now there’s a leader with a new approach. President J. Luke Wood is turning Sac State’s weaknesses into strength, jujutsu style.

Wood backflips his critics. If the academic world thinks the Hornets are a circus, Wood provides the clown show.

Power Trips

Homeless crises are nothing new in Sacramento. The first one happened in August 1850, when outrageous real estate prices caused people to camp on land that didn’t belong to them.

Everybody had guns in 1850. The guns went off when city officials tried to clear camps around Fourth and J streets and Tahoe Park. Five people died and six were wounded before things calmed down.

Graceful Aging

Here was a great deal for someone tired of paying rent in Land Park. New Benson and Sedar homes with atrium entries, double master suites and oak cabinetry, starting at $85,900. A 30-year mortgage fixed at 11.9%. That’s how banks got rich in 1982.

Say goodbye to landlords. Move 4 miles down Riverside Boulevard and own a piece of the dream. Welcome to Greenhaven Pocket.

I missed my chance. When I bought a house in Pocket in 1990—three bedrooms, two baths, built six years earlier by Winncrest—prices had skyrocketed. I paid $183,000. Soon after escrow closed, recession hit. The home instantly lost value.

Double Occupancy

Even vagrant musicians get pretentious when they plug in for more than one night. They declare any extended stay a “residency.”

Residencies are popular with entertainers who play Las Vegas. But as the Vegas A’s stumble into the second of three seasons at West Sacramento, nobody calls the interlude a residency.

I’ve heard “couch surfing” and “camping” to describe the A’s. But residency? When it comes to West Sac and the A’s, show biz pretensions can’t get to first base.

Major League Baseball sees the badlands between Oakland and Southern Nevada as a practical joke. In sports lore, old time baseball players were notorious pranksters. Just for laughs, they set shoes on fire. They called it a hot foot.

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