By Chuck Doud
The Madera Tribune

The governor’s declaration of a state of emergency for water in the Central Valley, along with Madera County’s quest for a disaster decree due to water shortages should drive home a lesson to all Madera County residents, which is that our lives are likely to change quite a lot unless wet years return and we finally get to see more storage capacity built in the upper San Joaquin River.

Here are possible effects:

+ No more lawns. Lawns may not be allowed with new houses, and present lawn-watering schedules may reduced or eliminated.

+ Water metering required. Some believe we are insane not to be metering residential water usage right now.

+ Certain water-hungry crops such as cotton may be phased out.

+ Re-use of treated wastewater for irrigation of parks, municipal landscaping and golf courses. This is something already being considered.

+ An outright ban on new construction of housing developments that would demonstratively add to the overdraft of the water table.

If you think it’s bad now, wait until we have to start spilling extra water from Millerton Lake to restore salmon runs to the lower San Joaquin River. While that won’t in itself add to the overdraft of the underground water supply on which most of us depend, that spilled water will be unavailable to help recharge the water table. Used for irrigation, it supplies at least some recharge. When it is sent down river, water must be pumped to replace it, or crops will go dry.

Right now, the only good news is that the Madera Irrigation District had the foresight to establish its water bank, which has the potential of providing considerable storage. But that will not enable us to continue to use water in the ways we are accustomed.

Over the past two years I had the pleasure of attending graduation ceremonies at two of the largest high schools in the Central Valley, namely Bullard High and Madera High.

What a difference in the way the two schools handled their graduation ceremonies.

In 2007, I attended the ceremonies at Bullard High School, and was very impressed with the way Bullard acknowledged the efforts of those students who had earned a 4.0 or better G.P.A. for their entire four years of high school. Those students had their names announced, were asked to stand to be recognized and even had their college choice announced. Additionally, there were very few introductions of “dignitaries,” as this night was about accomplishments of the students, not the administrators.

Madera, on the other hand, handled their graduation quite differently. There were the introductions of no less the 15 “dignitaries,” from the school board to the head counselors at each campus; each one of those individuals stood to be recognized; while the 32 students who had earned a 4.0 G.P.A. for all four years of high school were asked to stand as one for a brief moment.

While I recognized that the senior administrators in all school districts are important, friends and relatives did not travel from near and far to hear the names of the faculty while settling for the 32 honored students to be collectively asked to stand simultaneously with no individual recognition. I applaud the efforts of those 32 Madera students who worked so hard to achieve such an esteemed accomplishment. I only wish that your administration had felt the same way.

That’s why our children go to school in Clovis. It’s about the students, not the administration.

Blanca Gastelum,
Clovis

By Elsa Mejia
The Madera Tribune

About a year and a half ago, after interviewing Chicano artist Simon Silva, not only did I leave with a notion for a good story, I also took with me words that reflected my own past.

“In our culture we don’t give as much recognition to our fathers as we do to mothers. Sometimes fathers demonstrate the love for their children in a very different way,” Silva said.

I pondered over Silva’s words as images of my childhood passed through my mind like a slideshow. The saying “actions speak louder than words” is one that definitely applied with my father.

Over the years I met people whose fathers were missing for one reason or another. Mine was always there. Food was always on the table, we always had clothes on our backs and a place to live. Of course that’s not all a man does to be rightfully called father. A real father gives and never expects much in return.

My father’s glittering eyes when he saw any award I brought home were enough to show he was proud. The serious look on his face preceding disciplinary action to my noxious behavior taught me life lessons. And though my rebelliousness would not allow me to hear his words of advice at the time, I eventually followed them.

Despite my many reprehensible acts, to this day I can thankfully say my father is still there. I can still hear him rousing in the early hours of the morning on his way to another arduous, sweltering day’s work to provide for his family. I still feel his sacrifice and see his rough hands aging.

I doubt I’d be the same person had my father not been there to lead me. Though he’s not the type who says much to his children, he’s shown his love in a different way — through sacrifice.

Many say that people don’t realize what they have until it’s gone, but I can’t say I’m one of these. I realize what I have, and am grateful to have the man who made me and led me through life’s obstacles still alive today.

So for all these things, I thank and wish Paulino Mejia a happy Father’s Day.

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Elsa Mejia is a Madera Tribune reporter and also writes and coordinates editorial content for El Sol de Madera, the Spanish-English bi-weekly published by the Tribune.

Same-sex marriage will be legal in Madera County — and California as a whole — beginning Tuesday, although an amendment to the state constitution may or may not invalidate the unions in November.

What do you think about this shift in policy? Are you in favor of same-sex marriage or against? Or could you care less?

Had it not been such a tragedy for the working people of America, watching a bunch of political buffoons in Washington interrogate oil company executives was downright hilarious. It shows their complete lack of understanding of the real problem.

If the salary and benefits of all of these business leaders was taken away I doubt that it would change the price at the pump by one cent. If they want to point the finger of blame all they needed to do was look at each other, which is where the real problem lies.

The Pelosi, Reid, Feinstein, Obama, Clinton etc. left wing of the Democrat Party are so joined at the hip with radical environmentalists that they do not dare do anything to relieve the pressure on regular Americans. Do you realize that since Pelosi and Reid took over Congress that gasoline has increases in price by 70 percent and will probably keep rising.

It is no surprise that the approval rate for Congress now stands at 18 percent, just a little more that half as high as President Bush, who they all say is the bad guy.

Ask yourself who has continually voted against more oil production in this country, against off shore drilling, against drilling in ANWAR, against developing more nuclear power, against building more refineries and even against more solar or wind power if is in a location they selfishly want to keep for themselves. If you guessed most of the members of the Democrat Party, and yes, even a few misguided Republicans, you would be right.

Just a little information you might like to know. Solar now generates only one half of one percent of our electrical needs. American oil companies control only about three percent of the world oil supply. Big oil is not owned by a few fat cats sitting in a smoke-filled room in Houston — most is owned by pension plans, retirement funds and shareholders who depend on them for a living…

We have the ability to easily become energy unrepentant in just a few years. We have the technology and the oil in this country, what we lack is the political courage. We can do this in the short term while we continue to develop long range solutions including nuclear, solar, wind, battery, ethanol and hydrogen power.

Now if you want to keep paying more and more for gasoline, heating and cooling your home, food and everything else you use, just keep sending more Democrats to Washington. They will give you the same song and dance they have for years and have no real solutions as always. They will keep paying subsidies to people who don’t need them and keep earmarks (pork) flowing as always to buy votes and as usual we will pay the price.

Gordon E. Skeels,
Madera

By Chuck Doud
The Madera Tribune

Mrs. Doud and I spent the past week and a half on vacation in the Pacific Northwest, and it was nice to get away.

Now that we are back, though, we are thinking about getting a second mortgage on the house to pay for the gasoline we used.

The last time we filled up, in Corning, we paid $4.64 a gallon. In Burlington, Wash., where we spent four days, we saw gasoline prices being raised as we drove past.

“Here come the Douds,” somebody probably said when they saw our California license plate. “Get those higher prices up there fast.”

One thing we saw plenty of was rain. On the trip north, it started to rain as we passed through Oregon.

“What’s that stuff hitting the windshield?” Mrs. Doud asked. It had been a while since we had seen that much rain. When we lived in the Pacific Northwest, it would sometimes rain “upside down.” That is, it would rain so hard that the drops would bounce off the pavement and go up your skirt, if you were wearing one, or all over your trousers. That’s how it was raining when we were there.

We saw enough rain in a week to solve the entire Central Valley water crisis and then some.

I had hoped to get a look at Mount St. Helens and Mount Rainier as we drove by, but it was not to be. All we saw were clouds stacked up against the mountains like big gray pillows.

We did get to see all our kids, grandkids, granddogs and grandcats, and my sister, which was great, and well worth the trip. We also saw a lot of friends. For us, that is the best kind of vacation.

One of the best parts was coming downhill from the Siskiyous, and seeing Mount Shasta burst into sight, welcoming us home to California. The best of all, of course, was getting home to Madera, where we can dry out.

In our newspaper, The Madera Tribune of Saturday, May 17th, I read where the majorettes led the Madera High School Band when it was known as “the show band of the valley” and it brought me lots of good memories.

While working at the Simon Cleaners in 1972 I remember when band director Allan Harkins and his wife Faye, who (had) done lots of work for the band, brought the uniforms to the cleaners every year. Between the years of 1969 and 1972, Madera High School didn’t see any record on the football field. But the band letter girls and majorettes took every prize offered for this half time and pre-game shows.

In 1972, our daughter Jane was one of the six letter girls, and the other five girls were Ester Lopez, Dawn Schwenk, Amanda Wilson, Nancy Waldhard and Nanette Johnson. On Thursday Oct. 25, my daughter Jane told me, “Dad, we are having a fundraiser. We are selling popcorn during Friday’s football game.” To raise money for their uniforms.

She told me they had the corn, salt and butter but they didn’t have any boxes to put the popcorn in. So that same night, Thursday, Oct. 25th, I went to see Mr. Henry Preciado at the El Rio Drive-in. He was a good friend of mine since 1950 and he immediately he called AJ Preciado at the snack bar and he told AJ, “Give Eddie a hold box of popcorn boxes.”

I stayed there at the ticket office talking to Mr. Henry Preciado. I got home at 10:45 p.m. and turned the TV on and they had breaking news that Mr. Henry Preciado just had been killed at his ticket office. Good thing I left (or I) probably won’t be here writing this story.

The letter girls had boxes for the whole season thanks to Mr. Preciado, who got robbed and killed for 85 cents.

Eddie Chapa,
Madera

All comments are edited for length and content. Due to content some comments may not be published. Please limit your calls to two minutes or less. Some weeks, due to the number of comments and space, some may not be published.

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A woman, “born and raised in Madera,” commented she “has never seen Madera look so bad. How can you sell property with dry yards, swimming pools half empty with three feet of algae? That is a heavy mosquito-breeding farm. If I was to sell my home I’d be lucky to get two cents. It is time the City of Madera, the Code Enforcement and Madera Redevelopment Agency takes some action.”

A man wanted “to shed some light on the Madera High (north campus) girls softball team’s playing field. Had the school district done the proper job on the (new) field back where the ag farm used to be they would have had a nice field to play on. But the dirt on that field was so atrocious that coach Shaubach could not allow the girls to play on it because of the rocks, the glass (and) the metal that were in the dirt. So the girls had to play on the old field, and elementary school field.”

“In regards to the lady who doesn’t care for (columnist) Leon Emo at the Relay For Life hugging different ladies,” said a gentleman, “she needs to go crawl in the closet and close the door behind her and quit worrying about what goes on in respect to Mr. Emo. Maybe she’s jealous because she wasn’t one of them that he hugged.”

Several more calls were received in support of Emo’s actions during Relay For Life. One caller said, “he was probably wearing shorts too. Funny she didn’t mention that.”

Another man said, “if she would just identify herself maybe Leon would give her a big hug.”

Another lady said, “I don’t know if that woman realizes after she called last year complaining about the same thing, Leon got the idea to give even more hugs. Only this year he charged $2 a hug and donated it all to Relay For Life. Next year, they should put up a booth or table for him to sell hugs and raise even more money.”

A lady called “about the cartoon in today’s (no edition given) paper, ‘Zits,’ about a carbon footprint. In my opinion it is very foolish. Our society is spread over a large area, not crowded in the cities. So people in the U.S. have to drive further to get to work and to shop while Al Gore and his rich crowd can invest in carbon credit and use private jets and huge cars. This country grows weaker by the day because of their rules that is only for the average person. Wake up America. We need energy sources for our whole country.”

A man called “to gripe and complain about our town of Madera and all the responsible and irresponsible people that disrespects the city’s laws. They speed, and a boy was killed on Foxglove Way this past Sunday. People are just using Foxglove Way as a speedway, and yet, Madera doesn’t want to do anything about it.”

“Thank God, for the Highway Patrol in Madera,” began a lady, “and around our rural streets. I will be so happy if they can clean up some of these people that are speeding and running down people, cowards who kill and run down people and don’t have the guts to stop. I hope they (CHP) stay here a long time and keep writing tickets.”

A woman called to clarify her item in the Red Line last week. “It was worded wrong. I said, if you are going down Gateway, going northbound, that they block the lane, at least one car is out in the lane, and you have to go around it into oncoming traffic when the gas lines are real long.”

A woman, after these past winds, wish they would “fix the trees now just leaning against the wall on Madera South campus. Put the trees back in shape so they will be allowed to grow beautiful.”

“I’m a veteran,” began a gentleman’s call, “and at least someone took notice. I fought in France and Germany during World War II and I enjoyed (columnist) Leon Emo’s fitting and moving tribute to D-Day on June 6. Somebody thought of us, anyway.”

An online reader, self-identified as “Eugene Stolk,” writes, “I wonder if you can help me contact old friends from Madera. They are Alan and Lani Cozens. They used to farm in your area. They had two sons and a daughter. I have lost contact with them and would like to correspond with them again. Thanks for your help.”

An Internet guest responded to a letter to the editor by Elaine Bethel-Fink, chairwoman of the North Fork Rancheria of Mono Indians of California. In her letter she wrote of “a glimmer of hope” in tribal relations regarding the proposed casino. A visitor writes, “Does this mean that the Tribal Council of North Fork Rancheria reached out to the Picayune Rancheria to discuss Ms. Jones’ comments?”

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Thank you for your calls. Remember, the Red Line is open for your messages 24-hours a day by calling 674-4478, or by visiting www.maderatribuneredline.com.

By Thomas Elias
California Focus

There are few travel pleasures greater than leaning back on the French TGV (train a grande vites, French for high speed train) as it glides smoothly out of a Paris railroad station, then watching as it whizzes effortlessly past cars traveling nearby at top freeway speeds. The comfort and the pace continue all the way to Geneva, Switzerland, Lyon or Lourdes, the Roman Catholic shrine city in the shadow of the Pyrenees mountain chain at the far south of France.

You don’t get an excess of time to enjoy this, though, because you reach Lourdes, for example, in just over three hours – much less than one-third the time of a conventional train or automobile trip between the same two points.

The sensation is similar aboard the Eurostar, which heads northwest from central Paris to downtown London via the “Chunnel,” requiring far less time and trouble than getting to and from airports for a plane trip between those cities.

And the feeling is much the same aboard the ACE high-speed train between Madrid and Seville in Spain or similar trains between Tokyo and Kyoto in Japan.

Now the route for something similar in California has finally been chosen, if not yet set in stone. High-speed trains would run from Union Station in Los Angeles via Palmdale and the San Joaquin Valley to San Francisco and Sacramento, with the tracks splitting approximately at Los Banos in Merced County, where the route to the Bay Area would head over Pacheco Pass to Gilroy and San Jose before coasting into San Francisco’s Trans-Bay terminal via an existing Caltrain right-of-way. A spur route would offer similar service to Sacramento. The system would eventually be expanded south to San Diego.

The entire trip would take about 2 and a half hours, far less than driving, and with far less hassle than air travel.

This plan for California is still far from reality. It can get a start with a $9.95 billion bond issue up for a vote this November.

The question: In a day when the state may run a $15 billion deficit or more and when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has tried for across-the-board 10 percent budget cuts, how can we afford a massive new toy? Many equate the high-speed train idea to a family that wants to buy a new Ferrari when it can only afford macaroni and cheese for dinner.

But high speed trains may be more than a mere luxury. They can make business travel between urban centers easier and more comfortable, without many of the restrictions and complications terror fears have brought to air travel. They can also restore California’s aura of leading the way toward a better lifestyle for all Americans. The trains would be instant tourist attractions, with reservations booked months in advance.

These realities suggest the financing plan now proposed, with a conventional bond to be paid off by all state taxpayers, might not be the best way to finance a massive project like high speed rail.

By Chuck Doud
The Madera Tribune

I have been trying to figure out where the price of oil is going lately, because I think it might be a good idea to invest in oil so I could have money to take care of Mrs. Doud and me in our old age, which is likely to come about 40 years from now.

But investing in oil is hard to do. First, it comes from Iraq or Alaska in tankers, which carry more oil than I would want. If I want to buy less oil than a tanker-full — maybe I’d get eight or 10 barrels at today’s prices — I would have to roll out my barrels to the tanker dock and tell the captain to fill ’em up. If the captain didn’t want to do business with me, maybe I could take the barrels over by Coalinga and get a fill-up from one of those field tanks.

The next problem would be capping the barrels and wiping them down. Mrs. Doud wouldn’t allow me to bring them home unless they were clean enough not to make spots on the garage floor. Also, she would not want the cat to get sick from licking them or dirty from jumping up on them. An oily cat would certainly raise hob on the carpet.

Once I got the oil put away, I would have to start staying awake at night worrying about the dollar. When the dollar gets weaker, the price of oil rises. A lot of people don’t like the dollar to get weak, but if I have 10 barrels of oil stashed in the back of the garage and in the tool shed, it can’t get too weak to suit me.

You know the old saying: “Weak dollar, hoot and holler. Strong buck, I am stuck.” To me, a weak dollar is one that won’t go through the changer on the Pepsi machine.

After a while, when the prices go up, I’ll have a driveway sale. I’ll put a barrel of oil out on the driveway and put a pricetag on it, “$150 a barrel, take it or leave it.”

Am I an investor, or what?