It was a little cooler today at the camp by the river … being only 115 degrees with some winds that felt like a hair dryer blowing in my face, and arms, and legs, all at once. Just another summer day in Bullhead City, Ariz., as I am told by the locals. Very few tourists here at this time of year....

Hey, Hollywood. Please take notes and do something about this. Since the days of silent pictures, you, Hollywood, have been using Mentryville as a back lot. Thanks to many of those old films, we know what the old town used to look like in the 1920s and ‘30s. Today it just looks trashed. No, it doesn’t...

My father would have been 100 years old today. He was 35 when I was born and 51 when he died in a helicopter crash off Carpinteria on Nov. 7, 1966. I miss him still today. He was born just three years after the RMS Titanic sank after hitting an iceberg. Europe was engaged in a war so horrific we can...

Johnson Park in Pico Canyon A proposal to move an at-risk youth program from East Canyon to Pico Canyon is expected to be sent back to the L.A. County Parks Department on Tuesday for further evaluation. On June 2, when the Board of Supervisors delayed discussion of the proposal, it rescheduled the matter...

Snow. Snow belongs on the mountaintops. Snow should not fall when the kids already have off from school. Why waste a good snow day when you are already home? Right, kids? But the weather guessers say there is going to be snow as low as 2,000 feet. That means Acton and Agua Dulce will get it. So will...

I was going through some photographs of Mentryville and Pico Canyon and realized how few people know about the old oil boom town. I write about it a lot, but it seems even the folks who read this commentary often seem to miss when I write of Pico. We learn more and more of the history of Mentryville...

[KHTS] – A dozen years after naturalist John Quigley helped save the giant oak Old Glory from certain death, Santa Clarita Valley environmental group SCOPE is recognizing the importance of community involvement at 1:30 p.m. Friday, according to the group’s president. “I think what was so significant...

This Sunday morning, I’m going to ask you to use your imagination and picture what could be in the little village of Mentryville. You know the place. The former oil field boom town at the end of Pico Canyon Road, west of Newhall. I lived there from 1960 until 1966 and loved every single minute of that...

The city of Santa Clarita is considering the purchase of 114 acres of Lyons Canyon. The property is west of Interstate 5 and just north of Rivendale Park in Towsley Canyon. It would be acquired as open space for preservation as parkland and natural recreation area. For the thousands of you who drive...

I must have been 10 or 11 at the time. The first time it was a bright but still cool spring morning as I left Pico Cottage after chores and set out to hike up Minnie-Lotta Canyon to the big rock and down to the Wickhams’ home at the head of the canyon of the same name. I loved going to their home....