It was a busy night in Kernville last Thursday, March 26.  Life and art were in the air.  After finding a place to park and the spring twilight walk towards the Odd Fellows hall, entrances jammed with people and anticipation greeted you and you just knew that something special was happening. For this Green Art show gave birth to the Living Green festivities that filled our valley last weekend.

Entering, you became a part of the gift.  Everyone was smiling; hugs and handshakes deve

Typical of the many magazines I subscribe to are the plethora of tear-out cards, inserts and special advertisements that are enclosed within. Today was no exception.  I found four magazines in my mailbox.

When I got home I pulled out all the loose and perforated cards, inserts and stiff pages. You see, that's part of their ploy. They want you to remove the pages and inserts. The chance of you doing something with them is greater than just reading an advertisement in the regular pages.

W

Murdoc Douglas/Kern River Courier

The Sequoia National Forest has extended the deadline for comments from the public concerning travel on public land around Isabella Lake from March 31 to April 20.

Controlling uncontrolled travel has been a “hot button” issue lately, since a public meeting March 23 in Lake Isabella which a large crowd attended and voiced their concerns about managing travel.

Forest Supervisor Tina Terrell received requests for more time to review the documents, so the comment period has been extended f

Jim Woodley shows off a beautiful trout he caught at Boulder Gulch Monday.

For those of you visiting the Kern River Valley for the first time, here is just a little information for future reference. Lake Isabella and sections of the Kern River are open to fishing 365 days a year. Anglers come

There are classes one may take for insight as to when another person is being misleading. I have taken such classes, so I have heard from multiple sources that valuable relationships can be injured by good intentions. Take the expression “white lie,” for example. How I answer a question such as

“Does this skirt make me look fat?” almost always has the potential of volatile consequences. For this reason that same question is also used to justify the white lie. Human logic

When Medicare premiums didn't go up in 2009, and the amount of money received by some people on Social Security increased, but the savings on the insurance and the increased income actually ended up costing them more!

Now, how is it that if your expenses don't go up, and your income does, it could be a bad thing?

For many Californians, who are receiving assistance through the state's Medi-Cal program, it has created a situation where their classification for benefits went from getting

There were some new and interesting numbers that came out last week concerning real estate sales in California.

C.A.R., the California Association of Realtors (which tracks real estate trends and sales data for the whole state) recently released their February sales figures for the state.

For February 2009, sales of existing homes are up statewide over 80 percent from February 2008.

This is a good trend that hints toward the market normalizing, but there is still a silver lining to it all. Price

Once upon a time, there were storytellers.  Each village waited expectantly for the storyteller to arrive; a top form of entertainment rivaling even theatrical presentations. Reaching a crescendo with radio, this art form’s decline seemed to follow the advent of television.  Storytelling, relegated to the youth, has been left behind by adults.

Last Friday night, Joy Tessman, Kernville photojournalist, photographer, filmmaker, songwriter, illustrator and all-around renaissance woma

The economic downturn has had a big effect on newspapers across the country. Many papers have folded, and more are ready to fold. (That’s a newspaper pun, but a sad one.)

Wherever we go, people say they have seen the news and are concerned if we are going to survive.
Well, look at all the ads we have!

This issue is crammed with ads. That’s because our advertisers have realized that people are reading the Courier, and they’ll advertise anywhere their ad is seen by a lot of peopl

Continuing with the description of the map "Where the 1906 earthquake was felt" from last week.

A few days after the quake, many scientists that were studying the damage patterns near the San Francisco Bay area were positive that the epicenter was located near the Point Reyes town of Olema.

This was due, primarily, to the large amounts of horizontal and vertical displacement displayed along the trace of the fault. This was a logical conclusion, but was later proved to be an incorrect. T

Andrew Jackson, “Old Hickory,” is one of my favorite presidents. He was sure a man you couldn’t ignore.

By the time Jackson became president at the age of 62, he had been a lawyer, cotton planter, land speculator, frontier fighter, army officer, congressman, senator and judge!

Hey, I’m sorry I missed his first inauguration. The nation’s tiny capital, new on the banks of the Potomac, was jammed with 10,000 visitors and every one of them apparently came to see the new

Donna Jean Melson
May 8, 1940 - March 28, 2009

Born May 8, 1940 in Peoria, Ill., Donna Jean Melson passed away in Bakersfield, Calif. on March 28, 2009.

She is survived by her husband, Earl S. Melson; daughters Christina Berger and Brenda Warner; stepsons Earl Melson III, Brad Melson and Clayton Melson; stepdaughters Amy Jursnick and Renee Sherer; granddaughter Jessica Yaden; grandsons Dominic Berger and Dante Berger; stepgrandsons Jason Melson, Reginald Melson, Corey Melson, Jeremy Melson, Zachar

Michael Batelaan/Kern River Courier