We have pleasant winters here, but the start of daylight saving time – extending sunlight into the evening – makes it an even better place.
I'm a longtime proponent of daylight saving time, much to the chagrin of some people who would apparently prefer to live in eternal darkness. While the idea of year-round daylight saving time makes sense, I admit that the excitement of an immediate one-hour extension of sunlight, such as will happen today, makes the second Sunday in March an annual highlight.
And once more, I'd like to point out that we're on "standard time" for 18 weeks a year, "daylight saving time" for 34 weeks a year. When will we call the November-to-March period what it really is: Daylight wasting time?
It's daylight saving time, baseball spring training is rolling and Tony Wade is awakening from his long winter's slumber. Everything is as it should be.
Let's celebrate by emptying my notebook:
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Three things that Suisun City has done right:
1. A cluster of downtown eateries. The development (redevelopment?) of the waterfront area stalled over the past several years, but most of the restaurants have survived and thrived. Consider that the Athenian Grill, Babs Delta Diner, The Joy of Eating and Cast Iron Grill all are on the east side of Main Street, while such restaurants as La Cabana, Taqueria Tepa, Main Street Bar and Grill, Puerto Vallarta and the new Ironwood American Bistro line the west side. There are plenty more, too. That's a lot of good food in a small geographic area, all walkable. That's a success.
2. Suisun City's section of what's called the "Central County Bikeway." That's the bike/walking paths along Highway 12 for much of the city, including both sides of the highway between Sunset Avenue and Marina Boulevard. Not only are the paths great for the safety of kids on the way to school, they provide a great weekend and evening place for walkers, runners and bicyclists.
3. The Kroc Center. When the NorthBay YMCA left town and the site was vacant for years, the big building on Pintail Drive looked like a dead weight around the city's neck. But when The Salvation Army came to town, renovated the building and began pouring money into community programs, it became one of the bright spots of the region. There have been few if any missteps since it opened – the city has a great nonprofit that serves nearly every part of the community.
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Brief detour: When I was a kid, quicksand was a staple of dramatic TV. Rarely did a week go by that someone wasn't trapped in the stuff, struggling to get out. We learned that the more you struggled, the worse it got. We also knew the way to get out was to have someone throw you a lasso and pull you out with a horse.
I spent a good portion of those years hoping to avoid quicksand and rattlesnakes, which seemed to appear every time a character on a cowboy show was on the ground.
Now? Both largely gone. Rattlesnakes don't often appear and I haven't seen quicksand on TV or in a movie for years.
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I know a lot of people respect Smokey Bear, but he pulled a punk move when he told us (particularly children) that only we can prevent forest fires.
We have a generation of people wracked with unnecessary guilt over the fact that they've been good, but somehow forest fires happened. That's not fair.
Shouldn't Smokey be held accountable?
Brad Stanhope is a former Daily Republic editor. Reach him at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.
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