I’ve got to catch up on a few things I wrote about over the past few days. Here goes:

Young Master Ryan who was in the horrific traffic collision at Sierra Highway and Vasquez Canyon Road is doing much better. He was taken out of ICU and put in a normal room. Prayer really works. My source says they are thinking he’ll make a full and complete recovery. Please continue with your prayers.

The intersection I mentioned above is not in the city of Santa Clarita. It is a county-maintained intersection. It is getting pretty easy to tell if a street or intersection is within Santa Clarita city limits. The street signs will have the city logo on them. That is mostly true as the city gets caught up on the signage changes.

I love it (not) when folks jump on the city of Santa Clarita for something that is a Los Angeles County problem. I hear about that mostly from folks in the unincorporated neighborhoods west of Interstate 5. The Canyon Country folks usually know the boundary lines on the east side of town. Some folks to the west seem challenged by the concept of being in the Santa Clarita Valley but not being in the city of Santa Clarita. The United States Post Office hasn’t helped by moving the Newhall Post Office to the Old Road west of the freeway.

Scene of crash that injured 10-year-old Ryan Rutledge, Sierra & Vasquez | Photo by Shelley Patterson

We all know how the west side can solve its identity crisis: Just request annexation by the city of Santa Clarita. I’d bet all you folks on the west side would like the increased law enforcement patrols and a local place to gripe instead of going all the way down to the main county offices. Local control and local government.

For those of you who wonder just where I find all of the stuff about the California High Speed Rail Authority, most of it is on the authority’s website. By the way, there are quite a few lawsuits to list, if all y’all want to know what they are. Let me know and I’ll spend that space to list each and every one. If this were a newspaper, the list would take up a good portion of a page. Look for yourself at www.hsr.ca.gov.

I haven’t written much about it of late, but The Dump is still out there in Val Verde, waiting on approval to enlarge. Maybe it already has started to enlarge. It seems a large part of a ridgeline about the industrial park is gone. A whole mountain seems to be gone. I can now sit at the headquarters building of the Castaic Union School District and watch the folks work in the dump. Anyone else notice this?

Oh, Chiquita, would you be jumping the gun a little? I pray you didn’t tear down the ridge where Bowers Cave is located. Having me angry with you is one thing. Getting the Tataviam Nation mad at you would be worse. There’s a number of interconnected lawsuits concerning the Chiquita Canyon Landfill and the planned 21,000-home development across the river from The Dump. Here it goes again.

I think Cemex is gone for sure. Hope we can celebrate soon. Time to drag out some new “Thank You” signs? If we have cake, make sure it is sugar-free. I do want to attend that party.

I don’t enjoy hot and humid weather. If I did, I wouldn’t have moved back home from the “sticky weather” East. Even so, there may have been a little funnel cloud near Placerita Canyon this week. Lightning started a small fire in Bouquet Canyon and the rain didn’t quite extinguish it. The rain did help, though. Fire is out.

Heck, there was even a hurricane off the coast. We know it is headed away from us, but all those years in Virginia made me sensitive to a major weather system off our coast. I can’t tell you how many times I sat and watched one of the storms churn its way toward Norfolk, Va. Now “Linda” is moving away from the coast. Thank God. We need the rain but not the way a hurricane gives it.

If the weather guessers are correct and El Nino hits us hard this year, do you have an emergency plan in case of flooding, mudslides, washouts and loss of electricity? A great way to store many of your emergency supplies is in one of those five-gallon buckets you’ll find at Home Depot and Lowes. Put in the stuff and jam on the lid. Everything stays dry and ready for you. An indelible marker will let you write on the top and sides as to what you’re storing.

So there you have it, folks. I’m sure there is something I’ll have to write about tomorrow. In the meantime, don’t forget there is the Los Angeles County Fair this month, and week after next is the Agua Dulce Country Fair.

See all y’all tomorrow. Be good.

Darryl Manzer grew up in the Pico Canyon oil town of Mentryville in the 1960s and attended Hart High School. After a career in the U.S. Navy he returned to live in the Santa Clarita Valley, where he serves as executive director of the SCV Historical Society. He can be reached at dmanzer@scvhistory.com. His older commentaries are archived atDManzer.com; his newer commentaries can be accessed [here]. Watch his walking tour of Mentryville [here].