Susan Beckett

Way back in 1174, the Italian architect Bonnano Pisano began work on his most famous project: an eight-story bell tower for the city of Pisa. But he had just one “little” problem: his builders quickly discovered that the soil was much softer than they had anticipated and before long, the entire structure had begun to tilt - and tilt - and tilt. The tower took 176 years to build and has stood for over 840 years, but it leaned 18 feet away from where it should be.

“I told you so!” We’ve all said it at one time or another. According to Gore Vidal, the four most beautiful words in our language are “I told you so.” But if you check in with A. Waldman, “There’s nothing quite as annoying as the phrase, ‘I told you so.’”

News flash! Camels don't store water in their humps! (The humps are actually full of fat.) It's a myth that wolves howl at the moon! (They howl because it's night and that's when they're active). Eating food within 5 seconds of dropping it on the floor is not safe after all.

I was truly saddened to read all the great publicity given by the Chronicle to the R-rated Paranormal Cirque coming to our valley this week, complete with trendy pictures. What a catch of free publicity for the dark-horror show! As if our nation isn’t seeing enough blood and gore with mass shootings each week - and with violence & sexual perversion at an all time high - we are now importing this sleaziness into our community!

Our family once took a few days off to visit Orange County and while there, we visited a local mall. My husband gave our two daughters some spending money and told them they could buy whatever they wanted. Of course, they were more than thrilled and ran off to spend their wad. We met up with them an hour or so later.