John Spencer’s boyhood home was a cattle ranch in Santa Maria where his dad raised prime beef. One summer while in middle school, his dad taught him exactly where and how to plant cuttings for a cabernet sauvignon vineyard. At fifteen the Righetti High School student coveted a car. His dad expected him to earn it if he wanted it, thus, began his life’s career in the grocery business. His first job was “meat clean-up” at Williams Brothers Store #7 — the Santa Maria store that would become the first independent neighborhood grocery owned and operated by John and Beatrice Spencer.

“We just celebrated our 20-year anniversary owning Spencer’s Fresh Markets,” said Spencer. The couple currently own and operate stores in Santa Maria at 3580 Orcutt Road and Morro Bay at 2650 Main Street with approximately 100 employees. www.spencersfreshmarkets.com. Note the word fresh in their name!

 

But first Spencer would experience intensive on-the-job training to learn the grocery business inside and out. He worked his way up at Williams Brothers to store manager before he was promoted to operations supervisor overseeing 19 stores. “I preferred being out in the stores. When Vons purchased Williams Brothers they saw I knew first hand what was going on so kept me on.”

For four years Spencer did the forecasting and budgeting for The Vons Companies. When he realized a couple of the locations were not performing up to corporate standards, he worked out a deal with then CEO Phillip Hawkins to purchase the Santa Maria store.

Meanwhile, Young’s Market owners Phil and Yvonne Young wanted to retire from their Morro Bay store.  “They liked how I ran Williams Brothers when I was the store manager. We put together a handshake deal and they are still my landlords although we lost Phil a couple years ago.”

“My time spent with Vons is probably the reason we are still in business today,” said Spencer. He added his stores operate professionally using corporate procedures while remaining a neighborhood grocer offering many local products.

Spencer still prefers his time in the stores. “I like that our people are neighbors serving neighbors. Customers can talk to the store manager and request the products they want to see us carry.”

Many local products got their start or expanded their popularity at Spencer’s Fresh Markets. “We develop personal partnerships with our local product owners,” said Spencer. “Darren’s Berries started in a fruit stand then approached us to be his fruit stand. Twenty years later we’re still carrying Darren’s Berries.”

Spencer’s was first to feature Central Coast grown avocados. Customers will also find a variety of locally grown fruits and vegetables, including early season strawberries. Santa Maria-style barbecue meats and products, Brian’s Bread made in Atascadero, Cayucos Hot Sauce and local wines can be found at Spencer’s.  Many partnerships started during the Thursday afternoon Farmer’s Market at the Morro Bay store.

Spencer noted Frank Bouget was a find for Spencer’s Fresh Markets. “He trained in French culinary schools and can bake anything. I met him in the late 1980s when he first arrived in the United States.” Spencer lured him to Williams Brothers and then re-hired him in 2010 to handle all the store’s fresh bakery items and special orders out of the Santa Maria store.

“We have fun, too,” said Spencer. “When we added Cal Poly Eggnog, Frank came up with Cal Poly Eggnog Cream Pie. He also created Raspberry Pinot Noir Cream Pie.“

The market produces its own salsas and a variety of sausages from a fully customized meat department. The deli features prime Boar’s Head products and creates fresh signature sandwiches, salads, pasta dishes and deep fried and roasted chicken.

Spencer gets teary-eyed talking about how he met and hired Doug Carroll, popularized on KVEC’s Dave Congalton Show as Pastor Doug. “It all started as Free Flapjack Fridays on Sunny Country. (From his wheelchair) Pastor Doug would cook with me during customer appreciation breakfasts. Then he created his own recipes pulling products off the shelves and serving samples in the stores.” All the while Carroll battled Multiple Sclerosis with a positive attitude, infectious laugh and stories that inspired all who met him until he succumbed at 54 in 2011.

Spencer can be heard regularly on KVEC-Radio promoting local seasonal products and Spencer’s Fresh Markets’ deals of the week.

Beatrice still works with her husband in the office. They married August 1, 1981 and have four daughters, Caitlin, Kristine, Kayla and Cameryn, each a graduate or current student of Cal Poly.

Note: John Spencer was also the exclusive market to support the Kelsey Wine Program that benefits the Morro Bay Maritime Museum.

 

Editor’s Note: My first paying job was in high school –15-going on 16. That summer, I was in summer school at Bakersfield High School taking typing in the morning and my friend’s (Bette Lou Kane) father was the publisher of THE BAKERSFIELD CALIFORNIAN He got me the job taking classified advertisements in the afternoons until I could be full time once summer school was over. However, it was Mr. Partridge, my immediate boss,  who literally taught me how to type, requiring I type the ads directly from the phone conversation with the client instead of writing it out and then typing. Somehow I did it, but that’s another story maybe for another time.

The job I really wanted was upstairs in the newsroom, but it took a career of teaching 4th graders, then high school English, then radio, TV, etc. etc. and moving to the Central Coast before I worked for a newspaper writing stories about the people and events that happened in Morro Bay, Cayucos and Los Osos.

Early in my journalistic career my husband and I vacationed in Massachusetts, Maine and New Hampshire. I was excited about finally writing for the newspaper and picked up all the local free papers along the way to glean ideas. I was working for The Bay News at the time in Morro Bay and found a way to adapt our vacation to my new home town.

Might Morro Bay’s Sister City Be Kennebunkport, MN  By Judy Salamacha

Central Coast to East Coast – from sea to shining sea – people and places are so different yet so much alike.  While traveling the south-central coast of Maine recently, I noticed a New England accent couldn’t disguise the parallel lives shared by new friends met with friends back home on the Central Coast.  In particular I found three individuals that instantly reminded me of a Morro Bay counterpart.

Named the “Best Family Restaurant on the Maine South Coast,”Mike’s Clam Shack and Fish Market is located in Wells, MN.  Owner Mike McDermott has been in the family business forever and his philosophy and operations reminded me of Giovanni’s Fresh Fish Market.  Not just because Gio was awarded by the Morro Bay Harbor Festival “Best Clam Chowder” for three year’s running, but both Mike and Gio are popular with locals and tourists. Both pride themselves on featuring fresh fish and family friendly prices.  Walk in either restaurant and you’ll hear “Where’s Mike?” – “Can I talk to Gio?”

Mike has expanded four times growing from a 20X20 clam shack serving 125 on a good night to over 2,000 a night at the height of the summer season.  Gio is currently expanding again and likely serves almost as many on a good summer day.  Mike buys fresh daily at the Portland fish market, while Gio often buys direct from the fisherman right off his dock.  Mike and Gio cater to locals, who in turn recommend their restaurants to tourists.  Mike’s Clam Shack is well known for their Haddock & Chips, Lobster Rolls and, or course, like Gio, award-winning Clam Chowder.

Then there was Harbor Master Lee McCurdy of Cape Porpoise Harbor in Kennebunkport.  Like Morro Bay’s Harbor Master Rick Algert, McCurdy manages the dock and reports to the local advisory board.  Both supervise the harbor patrol and harbor leases. McCurdy handles the fisherman’s day-to-day off-loading of lobster traps while Algert is more involved in harbor management.

Although lobster fishing is still going strong in Maine, legislation is continually hampering the working fisherman. Both McCurdy and Algert are advocates for the shrinking number of fisherman still trying to survive in an overly regulated environment.  Just as Morro Bay’s fisherman continually fight for their right to fish, so it was with the latest issue for the lobster fishermen.   Due to two incidents of whale entanglements in the last couple of years, the fisherman might have to re-engineer their float ropes at thousands of dollars to the fisherman.

McCurdy, a former gill netter, enjoys being close to the water and industry without his livelihood tied to the sea, but with shrinking numbers of fisherman in his harbor he, like Algert, share concerns about life as they’ve known it.

The Noonan family was a local dynasty reminding me of the Tognazzinis. Richard Noonan, like Mark Tognazzini was a fisherman’s fisherman.  Richard works 800 lobster traps. Richard’s daily catch went directly to their restaurant, Noonan’s Lobster Hut, in Kennebunkport, just as Mark fishes for Tognazzini’s Dockside Restaurant when allowed to fish.  And just like the Tognazzinis, the entire Noonan family, including the patriarchs George Noonan or Wilmer Tognazzini, is involved in the restaurant.  And just like Mark, Richard works closely with other fisherman promoting fishing and consumption of fresh-caught fish and seafood in Maine and on the Central Coast of California.

Hoping to continue the family tradition Richard’s son, John, loved lobstering with his dad. He had just completed his first full year with his own traps and it was a good year.  At age 20, he hoped he could survive in the business, but was realistic enough to take construction management at the community college just in case times got leaner.  Another son, Ben, was a master boat mechanic.  His biggest client was the Secret Service based at former President Bush’s Kennebunkport estate.

Sister-city programs foster sharing commonalities and better business practices. The Central Coast could learn some tricks of the tourist trade from Maine’s tourism-based communities. Maine has many more than the two lighthouses in San Luis Obispo County, Maine, however, has preserved, protected and endowed their lighthouses in order to attract the tourists by car, tour bus, trolley or harbor cruise.  Portland alone offered multiple harbor cruises with picture-perfect views of five lighthouses.

Both coastal communities had a familiar variety of gift shops, shirt shops, art galleries, and nautical museums. One entrepreneur we visited had found his niche. The Lighthouse Store in Wells attracted busloads of tourists, which had basically the same products for sale as Central Coast gift shops, but it was marketed on-line and around the tourist communities as the “ultimate lighthouse destination” boasting 12,000 lighthouse products.  Tourists had to stop just to see if the shop really had 12,000 lighthouses.

Like Morro Bay, Maine had harbor dinner cruise vessels similar to Morro Bay’s Papagallo II or The Chablis.  Whale watching and sport fishing tours were comparable to Virg’s Landing.

However, the Central Coast might be missing one cruise opportunity.  Non-fisherman, most likely tourists, pay the lobster captains big bucks for a chance to crew on a lobster boat.  On the other hand, not this land-lubber. No, thank you,

In fact, Gio or Mark, can you take the lobster meat out of the shell before serving me, please?

 

 

 

 

 

Editor’s Note: This column first ran in INSPIRED HEALTH Magazine Volume 4 — published by http://www.simplyclearmarketing.com.

Inspired Heath — Dr. Steven Sainsbury

Dr. Steven Sainsbury hates meetings – except those face-to-face with his patients in San Luis Obispo County or some-wherever he is needed in the rest of the world.

Back in November, 2008 he transitioned from hospital emergency care to develop a unique mobile primary care practice — visiting his patients in their homes creating a true house-call practice.

Dr. Sainsbury served patients for 20 years chiefly as an emergency physician at Sierra Vista Hospital. He discovered he liked the night shift best.

“I could be off duty sleeping when staff meetings were held,” he joked.

The U.S. Census as of July 1, 2016 lists the SLO County’s 65 and over population at 18.9%. As Dr. Sainsbury contemplated retirement, he realized he had developed the skills to prepare him to advocate, diagnose and treat San Luis Obispo’s growing senior population. He realized there was a hole in patient care in the county and decided to consult with two north county practitioners, including his fellow medical director at Central Coast Hospice, Templeton’s Dr. Jeffrey Bourne. www.centralcoasthospice.com.

“They liked their practices so I decided to try it,” he said. “I needed a saner lifestyle and serving seniors offered the best of what I liked about patient care – diagnosis and immediate treatment.”

Hospital emergency care had also established contacts with every doctor in the community so his fledgling practice grew quickly with immediate referrals.

The new practice offered two major surprises. “Paperwork,” he said. “I always had staff to take care of filing Medicare and insurance. I needed to carve out time to do it myself.”  He spends a minimum of three hours per day on paperwork.

“I also didn’t anticipate the number of phone calls. Now I’m working directly with the patients, families of patients and medical facilities where most of my patients reside.”

Dr. Sainsbury visits 25 private homes monthly and has 300 patients in a variety of homecare facilities. Typically, 250 are private Medicare patients with others under Hospice care. However, after eight years, he is finally in a place where he’s adjusted his schedule so he can sleep at night. He doesn’t take calls after 9pm. And he doesn’t take on more than the load he is currently carrying.

Why is such a practice valuable within a community? “It’s hard for many patients to leave their homes even to go to a doctor’s office and they are always more comfortable in their home environment,” Dr. Sainsbury explained. “At home I can also check their meds and eliminate what they shouldn’t be taking.” He mentioned many seniors are taking Lipitor or Statins. “Frankly, after 90 they don’t need them. The side effects could be making them uncomfortable.”

His biggest challenge is dealing with patients’ families. “The family wants the best or the most care needed for their loved one, but in-reality will a mammogram help an elderly patient in all cases? Should I diagnose chemo when I know the outcome would be the same anyway? When I know a treatment won’t improve quality of life should I recommend it anyway?”

Dr. Sainsbury’s stated his ethic. “I’m the advocate for the patient. All I care about is what the patient wants and his/her quality of life.”

He adamantly advises families need a clear DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) policy earlier than later in life and one that everyone must agree to abide by. All must do what the patient originally wanted. The DNR will not complicate decisions when emotional stress takes hold.

Family – his and others – have always been very important to Dr. Sainsbury. His personal life has been full raising children, volunteering as team football physician for Cal Poly and traveling annually on medical missionary trips to faraway places such as the Congo, Jordan, Guatemala and the Amazon with several different groups — Flying Doctors, Doctors on Call and more.

“It takes a certain personality to provide a house-call practice,” he said. “It is easier or at least much different when patients come to an office or to the ER. “There is plenty of work for others to come into the field, but I believe there are only a few doctors that are willing to do what I do.”

Editor’s Note: Dr. Sainsbury is loved by patients, families of patients, and administrators at the facilities he serves. I know this first hand. He cared for our Aunt Stella for the three years she lived and thrived at Garden House in Morro Bay after breaking a hip at her assisted living home in Michigan where the employee ratio was not sufficient to care for her so we were able to bring her to California and to Garden House.

Kasey Watson, Administrator/Owner of Garden House of Morro Bay, which is the first SLO County nonprofit secured home for patients of all dementias, works regularly with Dr. Sainsbury, which is how our family first met him. He regularly serves most of the residents at Garden House. There are fifteen residents living onsite at any given time. Garden House has a waiting list and encourages families to plan ahead, tour the home and if it will fit future needs, register on the waiting list.

Kasey Watson: “Dr. Sainsbury takes the time to listen to his patients needs and concerns, as well as their family members. He is available by phone and willing to meet with families when they have questions.   He collaborates with our care team by seeing our residents monthly which maximizes the quality of their lives by keeping him educated as to a resident’s current well-being. Our Residents needs can change dramatically in a short amount of time. When we need to inform or consult with him because of a change in a residents’ status he always responds quickly, either by phone, email, fax or text, whichever is most appropriate. Because he does this so quickly, it elevates our response times and ensures that best possible comfort and outcomes for the Resident.” Kasey Watson, Administrator, Garden House of Morro Bay

For more information: www.drsainsbury.com (805) 546-7650

To Contact Garden House of Morro Bay contact www.gardenhousemorrobay.org. Ask for Jody Salamacha-Hollier or Kasey. Another note: After moving to Morro Bay and experiencing Garden House while Aunt Stella was there years ago, she discovered what a positive work-environment it could be for her and is now Assistant-Administrator after two years on the job.  Jody and Kasey are always on the look-out for caregivers to help fulfill their mission providing the highest quality of life and health and companionship for their residents. If you care and are looking for a loving place to work, give Jody or Kasey a call.

 

 

 

Late 2018 the Central Coast saw lots of good rain and thankfully no or little damage. 2019 is stacking up to be a wet year and we’re facing another big storm coming in this afternoon or tonight which is February 1. Midwest-style thunder and lightening happened a couple days ago, but then gentle rains. The winds and high — King Surf, Blood Moon have all been exciting.

I thought it would be interesting to post the following column that appeared in Tolosa Press, the former name of Simply Clear Marketing and Media. It was my “Then & Now” Column for 1/14/16 and appeared in The Bay News, Coast News, and SLO City News. It was reflective of years ago when Morro Bay actually experience flooding and the Gary and David Owens Family, owners of Village Cleaners in Morro Bay came to the rescue…what we do in small communities!

Enjoy the column:

Cheers! As of January 4, 2016, PG&E Meteorologist John Lindsey announced on his FACEBOOK page, “El Niño has arrived. A series of storms will march across the Pacific toward California this month, if not longer.”

And as promised, January 5 saw rain dousing the plains – and rooftops, freeways, wine grapes and avocado trees, lettuce and strawberry fields with more expected the entire week.

Let’s hope it continues at a steady start-and-stop pace rather than what happened March 10, 1995 when father and son, Gary and David Owens, were called into duty rescuing folks from their cars, waterlogged under the Hwy. 1 — Main Street underpass. The corridor was flooded all the way to the intersection at Hwy. 46. Main and Radcliffe Streets which were underwater by over 4-feet deep.

“I don’t expect this to happen again,” said David. “Both of the trailer parks were flooded from all night rain. A shed got loose and lodged under the highway so the water backed up. I’m sure we’re better prepared to handle El Nino today.”

Gary Owens further explained, “There was a major fire a few months earlier off Hwy. 46 — almost to Hwy, 101 and SLO — so the ground behind the trailer parks couldn’t absorb the water. We got 9.5 inches in less than 24 hours.”

David and his mother, Marlene, were co-owners and operators of Village Center Dry Cleaners at 750 Napa in Morro Bay. David took a call for one of his employees, Carol Harpster. The fire department was looking for her husband, Fred, because they knew he had a boat.

“I volunteered I had a Zodiac we used for diving,” said David. He was immediately enlisted to help. The inflatable was at his dad’s home a couple blocks away from the cleaners. “I said to Dad – Do you want to go rescue people?”

David said there were three to four cars stalled near Radcliffe with “water up to the roof.”

Gary said he noticed the “bottom of the water was to the top of the street sign. Estero Glass (fronting Main Street) had cars parked with water running over them.”

When they launched the inflatable, David stepped onto the street at the Radcliffe intersection and it was almost over his head. “It was deep enough to run a 6-hp motor,” he said. “The first guy had dropped his keys and wanted Dad to dive for them. He found his keys. Then there were two guys standing on the top of their Volkswagen grateful to be rescued.”

Next the Owens motored over to Preston Lane where there were people trapped in an apartment complex.

“We rescued two ladies, a guy and their cats. One lady was most grateful for us rescuing her luggage. The firemen couldn’t take it,” said David. “I had to leave Dad there because I didn’t have room. It was a bumpy ride going against a swift current getting the ladies out. I later found out one of the ladies was Norm and Nancy Blackburn’s mom and she had a heart condition, but she made it even though one of the cat carriers was sloshing out of control. At the exit an ambulance was waiting to check them out.”

The Owens team even had to rescue a CDF team. “Their ‘turn-out’ suits filled with water as they were trying to dislodge the shed,” said David. “There was so much current around Preston Lane, I got banged up shins and we both ended up with poison oak getting in and out of the water.”

The entire Owens Family have been business owners in Morro Bay and active community members. Gary and David are both past presidents of Morro Bay Rotary. Marlene has since retired and spends time making finely crafted walking sticks after recuperating from a car accident and making sure she would not only walk, but hike again. She sold her half of the business to David in 2000. Her father, Pete Stock, started it in 1969 after bringing the family to Morro Bay from Nebraska. She was on the founding board of directors for Camp Hapitok, which closed as of 2015. Marlene is also very active as a member and in leadership positions for Quota Club of Morro Bay. They have been involved since it began in the early 1970s.

(Note: Author update information) Today in his spare time Gary enjoys woodworking and is proud of his grandchildren.

David wonders how many of his softball tournaments and games might be rained out this season. Besides managing the cleaners he officiates for the American Softball Association (ASA), recreation department basketball, and high school volleyball. Last year he officiated over 170 games. (Note: David has added Cal Poly events to his officiating schedule since this column was published.)

David also served as president of the board and then director of the Morro Bay Harbor Festival for five years. Wife Dawn was volunteer coordinator for the Harbor Festival and the two of them have four children; Dak, 22, Dari, 20, Dexton, 16, and Devan, 11.

We will hear more from the Owens family. Their children were active at Camp Hapitok and Dari has taken top academic honors at college and Dak is fitting nicely into the family-owned business.

Thank you, Owens Family, for all you do for the Central Coast and Morro Bay.

May 19, 2018 the SLO (San Luis Obispo) Sisters in Crime invited me to give the Welcome for their first annual conference. I was honored and it forced me to ask the conference’s thematic question “Why I Wrote,” which led me on a journey to remember how I finally got to where I wanted to be – a writer writing an author published. Slightly modified I’m sharing it on my blog for readers to get to know me a bit better as I continue to post past published articles hoping the reader will enjoy.

Why We Write?

When I was very young my best friends were my paper dolls who humored me as I created stories about their lives. In grammar school, I won a poetry contest and seeds were planted to someday become a writer. In Junior High, my graduating peers gave me a newspaper bannered with a fake news headline stating I would thrive as a journalist. In high school, I lived two lives – junior journalist behind the “pen” on the school newspaper and social butterfly performer cheerleading for Garces Memorial High School’s sporting events. At Bakersfield College, I contributed and assisted the professor who edited the college’s Literary Magazine.

I chose to transfer to Northwestern Journalism School because it was the best, but I had to settle on UCLA after my mother offered the only career discouragement I can remember her giving me, “Judy, you don’t pay attention to the details.” At UCLA, I was diverted from a a straight pathway to reporting for the LA Times or San Francisco Chronicle. I became a generalist testing our a variety of specialties in English and History. I enjoyed changing gears and lacked confidence to focus on communications classes and creative writing

After graduation, I became a career gypsy. I didn’t realize my bouncing from one entirely different career to another was hands-on research – prep for a future writing career. I was an English teacher, marketing and public relations VP for a land development corporation, radio talk show host, television executive, and an auto-racing promotions director for Bakersfield’s NASCAR track – and in between tested out many learning positions on nonprofit boards.  

I also learned to pay more attention to the details, but still didn’t realize how important my mother’s advice was until I realized a good editor could make or break a newspaper career – the career I finally chased after 2001 when we moved to the Central Coast.

I’ve been blessed to write for SLO County’s Tribune, The Sun Bulletin and Simply Clear Marketing & Media’s newspapers and magazines. I was even publisher of The Bay News for a time because I’d “…never done that job before” until it merged with SLO City News to create Tolosa Press.

My favorite stories have always been discovering something few knew about people – telling their story – in fact, that’s how I stumbled into co-authoring the first and currently only biography about the namesake of Bakersfield, Colonel Baker’s Field, An American Pioneer Story with Sandra Mittelsteadt. No one had written this amazing pioneer’s life story although his great-great grandson, Chris Brewer, had done all the research and was willing to share it with two determined women get tell his story for the residents of Kern County and Visalia – and even Des Moines, Iowa. Brewer was willing to share many first source photographs that added to the historical quality and design of the book along with the exceptional artwork created by my daughter Jody Salamacha Hollier. Brewer was also a small press publisher (Bear State Books), a professional California historian and author of many California books.  

 

It is no secret I tend to do things back-ass-ward. I’m should have gone to Cal Poly since my career philosophy has always been “learn by doing.” I didn’t want to write a traditional biography or history book, I wanted it to read like a novel so on top of researching the content available, we had to learn to tell a story infused with creative license acceptable to a California historian and a great-great grandson sharing his research.

Publishing was easy, but writing what ultimately became a creative nonfiction narrative took four years, many trips to Bakersfield and Exeter for interviews, and untold calls and emails with my co-author and two editors — Plus the fun part – getting lost in the 1869 research. We had many false starts and I would still be revising if my co-author hadn’t taken it away from me. But sage advice at a Central Coast Writers Conference by Editor Jordan Rosenfeld was key to our success. She not so gently told us during a conference workshop we were telling the story not showing it. Aha! Her book Make A Scene gave us the tools to complete and publish our book.

But then we had to market it. Today we’re lucky enough to be in our 2^nd printing. We listened to many who purchased the first edition and told us the book needed to be in the schools. Before we ordered the 2^nd print, we worked with community sponsorship to fund 1200 additional books for Kern County/Bakersfield middle school classrooms.

What are the tricks to marketing a book? Frankly the only marketing benchmark we found effective was to find the right audience to tell your story and the audience will buy the book – one or 10 books at a time.

So why do we write? Each year while directing the Central Coast Writers Conference someone would announce, “We write because we have to.”

I don’t believe that anymore. We write because we make a determined choice to write – a good story percolating in our brains, a commentary on the world’s condition, a biography of someone who needs to be remembered – sharing our own insights in our memoir for our children, our students or maybe posterity.

 When do we write? No matter how busy we are with our daily lives, we carve out the time to write when we are passionate about what we want to say – or we have a deadline!  

And how do we become passionate enough to force us to carve out the time to tell the story or offer a commentary? Staying close to those who will teach us more about our craft is critical. Being in the presents of other writers, attending workshops and reading the works of other writers to broaden our perspectives will provide the examples we need to encourage us to focus on our own writing. Better yet learn and write then share what we have learned with our peers and share our drafts with a critique group that will give us honest feedback and motivation to continue our work.

Let me leave you with a few of my favorite quotes that inspire me…

Already published before we worked on Colonel Baker’s Field: An American Pioneer Story, my co-author Sandra Mittelsteadt’s answer to those who say they always wanted to write, but…She will say, ”The only difference between you and me is I wrote the first word.”

A Central Coast friend and fellow writer Anna Unkovich said, “I believe that we’re in our most blessed, joyful, and peaceful inner place when we’re in a state of creativity.”

 A favorite movie quote is from chick-flick Up Close and Personal. Michele Pfeifer’s character — reporter Tally Atwater says, “What we in the news business can never forget is that we are only as good as the stories we tell.”

 I think the quote that is spurring me onto whatever new pathway in my writing career I seem to be chasing comes from Jane Goodall, ‘You’re never going to win an argument appealing to a person’s head. You have to change their heart.”

In today’s world, there is certainly reason to change hearts. As writers, I believe we can do that.  But if writing is simply a personal endeavor that helps you get through the day or might show the next generation a “slice of life in 2019” that’s perfectly okay. Gloria Steinman’s philosophy is probably universal for most people who love to write. She says, “Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.”

And as my favorite interview ever!!! author Bertha Tyler taught me to say, “Thank you, thank you, thank” because that’s what Dean always said to her. Bertha is a restauranteur — the Chat ‘n Chew of Morro Bay, co-owner with husband Dean of the Morro Bay Aquarium and the most positive person I know — and first time author at age-92.