Mar 12
Now that Photos From the Vault has been on the scene for a few years it is fairly common to get questions from folks wanting reprints of historic events. Usually the request is very specific but our filing system is not. Here is an example; a reporter juggling taking notes and pictures likely made the …
Mar 07
Wheat was once among the royalty of the cash crops in the region but now it is not even in the top 20. Look at the list of agricultural products in the 2011 crop statistics report put out by the county and very little of it is dry land farming. One of those end of …
Feb 13
South county lost a patriarch of agriculture and community service on Feb. 11, 2013. Bill Morem is writing a story to be published in the Tribune tomorrow and soon on Sanluisobipso.com. Leslie E. Stevens wrote this biography published in the Tribune July 28, 2000. Rooted in community Arroyo Grande farmer recognized for lifetime of volunteerism …
Nov 07
Western civilization is built on wheat. The story begins about 10,000 B.C., a cross of three grass species is found to be a rich food source. Wheat farming is woven into the narrative of the United States. Clear the land of unproductive plants (and indigenous people), plant wheat, make money, and build a strong democratic …
Nov 06
Digging a little deeper in the San Miguel history folders I found this Lura Rawson column. The town had even more boom and bust cycles than I originally thought. From the Telegram-Tribune May 31, 1990: San Miguel: Like its namesake, a survivor. In an earlier column, I called Mission San Miguel Archangel a survivor among …
Sep 16
World War II would drastically change society on the home front. Some changes were temporary and frivolous. Silk was needed for parachutes and rubber for tires; stockings were no longer on the shelves. The ingenuity of the cosmetics industry came to the aid of fashion conscious women. Leg makeup. You could even draw a seam …
Apr 11
Technically you wouldn’t be nuts if you referred to almonds as a fruit. Almonds are the edible seeds of drupe fruits. The genus prunus includes plums, cherries, peaches, apricots and almonds. In fact where they are irrigated many almond trees grow on peach rootstock. You wouldn’t be nuts if you referred to Paso Robles as …
Mar 19
Olive trees were introduced to California landscape during the founding of the missions. Olive oil performs sacred, culinary and utilitarian roles. There are dozens of biblical references to the olive, and oil is still used to anoint the faithful. Stories surrounding the olive predate the Bible going back to early Greek and Roman history. Mediterranean …
Mar 03
Newspapers in early 1942 were a mixture of bad news from the war front and impossibly optimistic reports based on flimsy evidence. Locally the dairy industry was impacted by demands from the selective service. The Harmony Valley Creamery association sent a letter to the head of the draft board requesting deferments to preserve production levels …
Sep 30
Do you prefer crunchy or sweet? A study written up in the Los Angeles Times a few years back discovered that younger consumers preferred produce that crunched, older consumers selected for flavor. The research showed that a generation raised on trucked supermarket produce, did not like the softer sweeter vine ripened produce. Our family would …
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