A couple of Saturdays ago, a man and a woman lay on the grass beside each other in the deep shade of the First United Methodist Church in downtown Modesto. A shopping cart filled with their belongings was parked on the sidewalk nearby. I saw them as I was walking to the library that afternoon, under dusty sunlight slanting across I Street. They both seemed to be asleep, even with […]
Homeless Crisis Deepens with Summer Heat
As I waited for a downtown Modesto bus one day in late April I saw a woman pushing a shopping cart jammed with her belongings. The woman was still young and athletic-looking, but weather-worn from living on the streets. Nonetheless, she carried herself with a weary gracefulness as she wheeled her cart up off the intersection of Coffee and Floyd. We nodded briefly but companionably as the woman stopped to […]
Homeless Advocates Lobby for Safe Ground
“They walk on the sidewalk next to us, not behind us or under us. They are our community.” — Lynelle Loeb Solomon They meet every two weeks on a leafy street dappled in sunlight, at the offices of the Modesto Peace/Life Center. Some of them are retired, although you would never guess that by looking at their current resumes. Others are younger, still in the midst of busy, demanding careers. […]
HAVEN: Safety for those in Need Since 1977
Healthy Alternative to Violent Environments (HAVEN) is a Stanislaus County-centered catalyst for individual empowerment and societal change, advocating for those impacted by domestic violence, sexual assault, or human trafficking and working to end gender-based violence. It was only weeks into the pandemic and people were dying by the thousands across the globe. Most of us here in the Valley hunkered down in our homes as best we could – isolation […]
Riding the “S”: On the Bus with Tom Portwood
An icy wind buffeted mushrooming rainclouds in early January as two men sat in wheelchairs by a bus stop on Oakdale Road in Modesto, waiting for the 32 bus. It was running late, all the buses that afternoon likely slowed by the atmospheric river that had swept across the northern San Joaquin Valley that same day. One of the men was clothed in jeans and bright yellow pajama tops. He […]
Looking for Holiday Gifts? Try Empathy
I was sitting out front by my apartment the other day, putting a book down as dusk began to gather when I saw my neighbor Sally turn the far corner on the other side of the pond, walking with her floppy-eared fluffy white dog, gripping her walker as she struggled for breath, a cannula attached to her nose, an oxygen container resting on the seat of her walker. We waved […]
Gary Thomas: The Making of a Poet and Teacher
The arrows I knew when I was eight Were made by my father from leftover flooring, Extra tongue-and-groove scantlings, dense planks Of oak and maple, and as he sawed them thin And whittled them round and smooth, I breathed in The redolence of the grains and his labor… Thus with tenderness and love does Turlock poet Gary Thomas portray his late father at work in the opening lines of “Ox […]
Linda Scheller’s Wind and Children: Heartbeats from the Classroom
Each school day for thirty-six years, the children walked into now- retired Ceres teacher Linda Scheller’s fifth-grade classroom, eager to learn but “often burdened by grinding poverty and difficult family situations at home.” “A lot of my students’ families were very, very poor,” Ms. Scheller recounted recently when interviewed about her powerful new collection of poetry, Wind and Children (Main Street Rag Publishing Company, www.MainStreetRag.com), which focuses on her lengthy […]
A Foot in Two Worlds and a Dream Fulfilled
For Modesto Realtor Lourdes Bento, it all began by a faraway sea, where time itself seemed suspended in a chuva – a fine mist – of happy childhood memories. Ms. Bento remembers the summers, watching her maternal grandfather, her Vovó, whom she adored, and the quiet sunny days she shared with him as he taught her all he knew about fishing. She remembers that he grew his own tobacco and […]
Linda Knoll: a Champion for the Arts and Education
Whether creating a beautiful homage to the great marine biologist and conservationist Rachel Carson, or painting a loving, whimsical memorial to her cats, Modesto artist and arts advocate Linda Knoll’s canvases are always vividly colorful and arresting. But Ms. Knoll is not only an extraordinarily talented artist; she’s a gifted arts educator as well who has headed the Central California Art Association’s (CCAA) arts outreach program to Valley schools for […]