UPPER LAKE, Calif. – Earth and Fire Pottery artist Gregg Lindsley will host a free one-hour class on how to make sauerkraut and other fermented foods on Saturday, Sept. 24.

The class will begin at 2 p.m. at the Lake County Wine Studio, 9505 Main St. in Upper Lake.

Lindsley will demonstrate the basics of making your own sauerkraut with a live-culture fermentation crock.

He also will discuss the process to make kimchee as well as other types of ferment and the health benefits of regularly using fermented foods.

For more information call Lake County Wine Studio at 707-275-8030.

The year 2016 marks the 70th anniversary of AAA’s annual School’s Open – Drive Carefully campaign.

Launched nationally in 1946, the mission remains the same, to help reduce the number of school-related pedestrian injuries and fatalities. The campaign kicks off at the beginning of the new school year, reminding motorists to watch out for children as they travel to and from school.
 
As 50 million children across the country head back to school, AAA urges motorists to slow down and stay alert in neighborhoods and school zones, and to be especially vigilant for pedestrians during before and afterschool hours.

The afternoon hours are particularly dangerous for walking children – over the last decade, nearly one-third of child pedestrian fatalities occurred between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m.

“More than 309 child pedestrians died in 2014 and 11,000 were injured,” cautioned AAA Northern California spokesperson Cynthia Harris. “The ‘School’s Open – Drive Carefully’ awareness campaign was designed in 1946 to curb a trend of unsafe driving behavior in school zones and neighborhoods that can result in children’s injury and death. Seventy years later, the message remains- we must remind motorists to slow down and stay alert as kids head back to school.”

 AAA Safety Tips to keep kids safe this school year:

 · Slow down. Speed limits in school zones are reduced for a reason. A pedestrian struck by a vehicle traveling 25 mph is nearly two-thirds less likely to be killed compared to a pedestrian struck by a vehicle traveling just 10 mph faster. A difference between 25 mph and 35 mph can save a life.

 · Eliminate distractions. Children often cross the road unexpectedly and may emerge suddenly between two parked cars. Research shows that taking your eyes off the road for just two seconds doubles your chances of crashing.

 · Reverse responsibly. Every vehicle has blind spots. Check for children on the sidewalk, driveway and around your vehicle before slowly backing up. Teach your children to never play in, under or around vehicles—even those that are parked.

 · Talk to your teen. Car crashes are the leading cause of death for teens in the United States, and more than one-quarter of fatal crashes involving teen drivers occur during the after-school hours of 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. Get evidence-based guidance and tips at TeenDriving.AAA.com.   

· Come to a complete stop. Research shows that more than one-third of drivers roll through stop signs in school zones or neighborhoods. Always come to a complete stop, checking carefully for children on sidewalks and in crosswalks before proceeding.

· Watch for bicycles. Children on bikes are often inexperienced, unsteady and unpredictable. Slow down and allow at least three feet of passing distance between your vehicle and the bicycle. If your child rides a bicycle to school, require that they wear a properly fitted bicycle helmet on every ride.

Find videos, expert advice and safety tips at www.ShareTheRoad.AAA.com .

KELSEYVILLE, Calif. – On Monday afternoon, the Lake County Public Works Department closed portions of Fairway Drive and Tenino Way in Kelseyville due to a water main breach.

Fairway Drive is closed to all but local traffic from Chippewa Trail to Tenino Way, Public Works reported.

In addition, Public Works said Tenino Way is closed from Highway 281 to Fairway Drive to all but residents living on that section of roadway.

The intersection of Fairway Drive at Tenino Way is closed to all traffic. Officials said that portion of the roadway is impassable.

One-way traffic control will be in place for local residents to get to and from their residences beyond Tenino Way and Fairway Drive, the agency said.

As of Monday afternoon, no estimate was available as to when the roadways would reopen.

Public Works can be reached at 707-263-2341.

CLEARLAKE, Calif. – Soroptimist International of Clear Lake will hold a luncheon meeting on Thursday, Sept. 22.

The meeting will begin at 11:45 a.m. at Howard's Grotto, 14732 Lakeshore Drive in Clearlake. The cost of lunch is $13 per person.

Following the lunch Samantha Strowbridge will give a presentation titled “Lake County Says … NO MORE.”

Samantha, 15, is very active in the community and also a candidate for Miss Lake County. She is the daughter of Ami Landrum, Soroptimist International of Clear Lake's recording secretary.

“No More” is a signature program of Soroptimist that aims to raise public awareness and engagement around ending domestic violence and sexual assault.

Launched in March 2013 by a coalition of leading advocacy groups, service providers, the U.S. Department of Justice, and major corporations, “No More” is supported by hundreds of national and local groups and by thousands of individuals, organizations, universities and communities that are using its signature blue symbol to increase visibility for domestic violence and sexual assault.

Membership in Soroptimist International of Clear Lake is open to anyone with the desire to help women and girls locally, nationally and internationally.

For more information about the luncheon or joining the group, contact Membership Chair Wanda Harris at 707-225-5800 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. , or President Olga Martin Steele at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

California’s 2016 deer season continues with the opening of the D3-D5, D8-D10, X8 and X10 Zones on Sept. 24.

Drought and dangerous fire conditions persist in many areas of the state, and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) urges hunters to be mindful of wildfires and forest closures that could affect the area where they plan to hunt.

CDFW does not refund tag fees due to wildfire closures.

CDFW does not close or open areas due to fires, but leaves that authority to incident commanders with CAL FIRE and the U.S. Forest Service.

Current information on forest closures can be found at the following links:

– CDFW: www.wildlife.ca.gov/hunting/area-alerts ;
– Cal Fire: www.fire.ca.gov/general/firemaps.php ;
– U.S. Forest Service: http://inciweb.nwcg.gov/closures .

Hunters are encouraged to check these links frequently in order to obtain the most up-to-date information.

Nick Norwood's most recent book is Gravel and Hawk, published by Ohio University Press.

This poem has sorrow at the top and happiness at the bottom, which means there's a lot of living in between. It's from the quarterly journal Five Points. Norwood lives and teaches in Georgia.

Ronnie's

Dad dead, Mom—back in the bank, tellering—
started dressing in cute skirts and pants suits
she sewed herself from onionskin patterns
and bright-colored knits picked up at Cloth World.
Got her dark brunette hair cut in a shag.
And she and her single girlfriends from work
on a weekday night would leave me to "Love
American Style" or Mary Tyler Moore
and step out to hear the country house band
or now-and-then headliners like Ray Price
and Merle Haggard. Mom's blue Buick Wildcat
shoulder to shoulder with the other Detroit
behemoths in the dim lot around back.
Wind skittering trash along the street. Bass
notes thumping through the sheet-metal walls
and the full swinging sound suddenly blaring
when a couple came in or out the door.
I know because I'm there, now, in the lot,
crouched behind the fender of a Skylark
or Riviera, in the weird green glow
of the rooftop Ronnie's sign, not keeping tabs
on Mom, not watching out, just keeping time
with the band and sipping a Slurpee
while she dances through this two-year window
before getting re-hitched, settling back down.
Just twenty-seven, twenty-eight years old,
looking pretty, having the time of her life.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation ( www.poetryfoundation.org ), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. They do not accept unsolicited submissions. Poem copyright ©2015 by Nick Norwood, “Ronnie's (Five Points, Vol. 17, no. 1, 2015). Poem reprinted by permission of Nick Norwood and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2016 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.

MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – The Middletown Luncheon Club's meeting this week will include a forum for the four candidates in this fall's Middletown Unified School District Board of Trustees race.

Lunch will be served at noon on Wednesday, Sept. 21, at the Middletown Senior Center, 21256 Washington St. The program will end promptly at 1 p.m.

For only $5 per person, enjoy chicken Parmesan, spinach salad and an orange wedge.

Nov. 8 is the general election. Not only will community members have the opportunity to vote for the next president of the United States, they also will be voting to fill two openings on the Middletown Unified School District's school board.

There are four candidates running for those positions and meeting attendees will get a chance to meet them and ask questions of them at the Wednesday meeting.

The candidates are Misha Grothe, Sean Millerick, Helena Welsh and incumbent Sandy Tucker, who has been on the board for more than 10 years.

Reservations are required as space is limited, especially at candidate forums. Don't count on showing up that day and being able to have lunch (though you can stay and listen).

If you make a reservation and then find you cannot attend, please call the senior center to cancel so someone else may attend in your place.

To make a reservation, call 707-987-3113 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. before 6 p.m. Tuesday.

For reservations or cancellations after Tuesday evening, please call the senior center directly at 707-987-3113.

SACRAMENTO – The governor signed two bills strongly supported by the chairwoman of the California State Board of Equalization (BOE) Fiona Ma, CPA, to help victims of domestic violence and businesses devastated by natural disasters.
 
AB 1399 (Baker) will create a checkoff box on California personal income tax return forms which will allow Californian’s to donate to the newly created Domestic Violence Victims Fund.

Domestic violence shelters will be able to apply for a grant from the new fund, administered by the California Office of Emergency Services, to help provide much-needed assistance to victims.
 
According to the National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV), nearly one-third of all women murdered in the United States in recent years were murdered by a current or former intimate partner.

In 2010, 1,017 women, more than three a day, were killed by their intimate partners. A survivor's safety and well-being is most at risk during episodes of violence and when attempting to leave an abuser. Domestic violence shelters are a key part of safety planning to prepare ahead of time and be as protected as possible.
 
“Women and children who have endured physical, mental, and emotional abuse need our help putting their lives back on track. AB 1399 (Baker) will help keep the shelter doors open and provide a place where women and children can sleep soundly, without fear,” said Chairwoman Ma.
 
During her six year tenure in the Legislature, Chairwoman Ma served as Chair of the Domestic Violence Select Committee and witnessed how many California domestic violence shelters were forced to turn away women and children because of a lack of funding.

In 2013 NNEDV conducted a 24-hour survey of domestic violence programs across the nation and reported 66,581 adults and children had found refuge and assistance, while an additional 9,641 requests for services were unmet because of a lack of resources. Each one of those unmet requests is another lost opportunity to break the cycle of violence.

Now that Gov. Brown has signed AB 1399 (Baker), shelters will receive greatly needed financial resources.
 
Another bill signed by the governor, AB 1599 (Dodd) will allow the BOE to provide business owners in disaster areas more time to file returns and pay their BOE tax obligations.
 
“California business owners who have been severely impacted by natural disasters are focusing on the recovery of their business, which will affect their ability to file and pay their taxes,” said Chairwoman Ma.
 
“The Board of Equalization can now grant tax relief to countless businesses across the state that have been impacted by natural disasters. I’d like to thank Governor Jerry Brown for recognizing the urgency of this bill and acknowledging that California needs to do more to assist victims in the recovery process,” said Assemblyman Bill Dodd.

SULLY (Rated PG-13)

The famous “Miracle on the Hudson” landing of disabled US Airways Flight 1549 on a cold day in January 2009 in the frigid waters of New York’s Hudson River dominated the news cycle for many days and to this day remains etched in the public memory.

An instant hero was created in Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, the veteran airline captain who piloted the Airbus A320 after its engines had been taken out at the low altitude of 2,800 feet by a flock of geese.

Capt. Sullenberger, a self-effacing Everyman, thought of himself as a man just trying to do his job while keeping his wits about him to save the lives of the 155 passengers and crew members onboard the crippled aircraft.

The ordeal unfolded during a period of 208 seconds and the challenge for the movie “Sully” was to turn the events of a short, yet terrifying white-knuckle ride into a full length feature film with plenty of drama.

It’s difficult to imagine any current actor better suited to playing the role of the titular character than Tom Hanks, a modern-day Jimmy Stewart who can pull off the essential Everyman character that “Sully” demands.

For his part, Clint Eastwood as the director of “Sully” knows his way around searing real-life drama, something he proved most recently with “American Sniper,” a film that received six Oscar nominations, including for Best Picture.

The combination of Tom Hanks and Clint Eastwood is the winning ticket for a high-flying adventure that soon comes down to Earth and requires plenty of personal, troubling reflections and great moments of tension to sustain the approximate 90-minute running time.

The fateful day begins uneventfully at New York’s LaGuardia airport, when the flight bound for Charlotte, North Carolina looks routine, even with three ecstatic late-arriving passengers excited to just barely get on the plane.

Speaking of the passengers, mostly ordinary folks traveling on business or to meet family, only a few are given just the slightest glimpse of any character, whether it’s a mother with an infant or some elderly ladies.

Nothing much is asked of the passengers except for the constant command to “brace for impact” and to keep heads down during the landing. That all passengers were saved meant, of course, that nobody was left behind or froze to death during the water rescue.

Capt. Sully was fortunate to have with him in the cockpit his co-pilot Jeff Skies (Aaron Eckhart), a looser, funnier guy who contrasted with Sully’s more reserved, quieter demeanor but was fully in agreement with the split-second decisions that had to be made.

In fact, later on during the hearings before the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), it was First Officer Skiles who corrected the inquiry about how a plane ended up “in” the Hudson River when he replied “On the Hudson.”

Both Sullenberger and Skiles were in sync with the belief that the daring and unprecedented landing on the water was a “controlled landing” that offered only the best outcome given the limited options.

The fact that Capt. Sully and his co-pilot remained cool and collected during crisis was a testament to their professionalism, though Sully later tells his wife Lorrie (Laura Linney) in a phone call that “I want you to know that I did the best I could.”

Because the forced landing consumes only a matter of minutes, the tension has to be developed in other arenas, and a film like this could use a few “villains,” so to speak, to drive the narrative that the harrowing experience had repercussions.

This tension is explored by the adversarial NTSB hearings in which lead investigator Charles Porter (Mike O’Malley) and panel members Ben Edwards (Jamey Sheridan) and Elizabeth Davis (Anna Gunn) insist that Sully had other options for an emergency landing.

The bureaucrats, naturally, question Sully’s judgment during intense grilling and forcefully contend that flight simulators and computer analysis demonstrate that a landing could have been made at LaGuardia or even in New Jersey.

Holding their ground, Sullenberger and Skiles manage to poke large holes in the line of questioning.  On a side note, the airline itself could not have been thrilled to lose an expensive aircraft to a watery grave. 

Outside the hearing room, Sully has to cope with a number of predicaments, from self-doubt worries about whether he did the right thing to having nightmares about crash landing into Manhattan buildings in a vision reminiscent of the 9/11 horrors. 

What we already know, that is now reaffirmed by Eastwood’s skillful direction, is that Sullenberger and Skiles executed a successful water landing that created a national hero in the airline’s captain and “Sully” celebrates the valor and courage.

Sure, we know the story, but “Sully” is a finely-tuned, nail-biting drama that shows that a good result can come from a bad situation, while also portraying the heroic efforts of first responders who accomplished the rescue of everyone within 24 minutes.

Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.