Tehachapi's Online Community News & Entertainment Guide
Tehachapi's Online Community News & Entertainment Guide
Sorted by date Results 26 - 50 of 69
Many of us can remember the days of "full service" gas stations. The instant you turned off the ignition someone was washing your windows, checking your tires, making sure your oil was topped off and, if you were lucky, they threw in a couple of glasses or steak knives, all at a 10th of the price we now pay for gas! While that level of service has gone the way of the dodo bird, we are left with something quite different. Because of rising costs, fast food restaurants are going toward kiosks – a...
I remember being in my late 20s and 30s, living in Thousand Oaks. The highlight of the summer was the Dallas Cowboys Training Camp at Cal Lutheran University. They made their annual pilgrimage to the college getting ready for the upcoming NFL season. I had two good knees at the time and used to run around and up above the school in the hills for my morning workouts. They had a fenced in weight room outside next to the track. Hung on the wired fence was a saying, "Your talents are His gift to...
Our Toys for Tots Drive normally ends up close to 1,000 toys between our "Christmas In July" and Christmas campaigns. This year our city really came through for our kids. During the December toy drive alone, we ended up with just over 1,100 toys! We had some businesses who really came through for us this and every year. Tehachapi Martial Arts had a few hundred toys, while Save Mart and Flying J brought over several toys on their own. Miramar and Country Real Estate are other locations that had...
What happens to a Christmas Card for Veterans, our Project DEFT (Don't Ever Forget Them), once the card arrives at our office? What's the journey a typical card takes from the author to the veteran? I've changed the names but the following story tells the trip so many cards have taken in the years we've been blessed to be a part of this project. Sally is an elementary school student here in Tehachapi. She has designed her own cards for our veterans. One in particular had a Christmas tree on the...
Anybody who has been in business for any length of time recognizes the ebb and flow of business. The best analogy I know is a sports analogy by Michael Jordon, some days the basket is like a peach bushel you can't miss and some days you couldn't hit water if you fell out of a boat. We all have those cycles, right now with the changes in the economy many businesses are unsure what to do! It remains to be seen if any of the actions taken by the government will work to bring back runaway inflation...
Marty Pay has been our local Farmers Agent for over 32 years. It was just announced that his office has made the prestigious Toppers Club award for the 25th year. His office is only the second in Kern County history to achieve this award 25 times. The award, made by less than 8% of the agents nationwide, is predicated on levels of service and sales in the previous year. Marty attributes obtaining the award to his incredible staff and fantastic clients. "I've been lucky over the years to have an...
[Editor's note: This is the conclusion of the article from our July 9, 2022 issue.] In 1990, Dan Kurzman's "Fatal Voyage" took a comprehensive look at the Indianapolis story. After reading a San Francisco Chronicle article about the book, Young reached out to Kurzman. According to a Jan. 30, 1991, article in the Chronicle, Kurzman had several conversations with Young and concluded, "I believe that what Young says is true." Kurzman rewrote a passage in the paperback edition of his book, adding...
[Editor's note: This is the continuation of the article from our June 25, 2022 issue.] Questions regarding the Indianapolis disaster – the U.S. Navy's largest loss of life at sea from a single vessel – began almost before the rescue vessels reached shore. Why did the cruiser not have a destroyer escort? Why wasn't McVay notified of Japanese submarine activity along his route? Why wasn't Indianapolis listed as missing when it failed to arrive in the Philippines as scheduled? For the time bei...
It took a sailor, a schoolboy and survivors more than half a century to disperse the cloud hanging over the sinking of the heavy cruiser. July 30, 1955, marked the 10th anniversary of the worst disaster in American naval history – the sinking of USS Indianapolis. That Saturday retired salesman and World War II Navy veteran Clair Young was at home in Southern California reading a day-old Los Angeles Times article that related how men in the heavy cruiser's Radio Room 2 knew an SOS message had gon...
It's officially summer and many Californians will renew their love affair with the beach. For many Tehachapians that would mean a ride down Highway 46 ending up at Pismo. I'm an L.A. kid at heart (I thought a horse was something that had a pole in the middle and went around in a circle until I moved here) so for me the beach means a trip down the 405 to Santa Monica and beyond. It's funny how our mode of transportation to the beach changed as we got older. When we were 14, two of us used to...
Laurie and I recently got to spend the day in Normandy, walking the hallowed ground where American, English and Canadian soldiers made the ultimate sacrifice on June 6, 1944. We were honored to observe the playing of taps at the American Cemetery in memory of the men buried on the grounds. Our troops attacked the beaches at Utah and Omaha as well as Point du Hoc while the English landed at Gold and Sword and the Canadian troops at Juno beach. About 18,000 men of the US 82nd and 101st Airborne...
For many of us, Mother's Day is a time to reflect and remember family who have gone home. In my case, when this article is published, I'll be in my mom's hometown, Amsterdam, Holland. My mom grew up in war torn Europe. She often commented on her childhood being lost due to the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. I remember the stories of sirens in the middle of the night and hopes and prayers that the soldiers wouldn't stop at your home. But when they did stop you heard the yelling and...
With recent hurricane activity in the Gulf and Florida, people obviously have been wondering about insurance: How would they be covered for natural disasters here in California? Our concern here in Southern California is earthquakes, as well as, possible floods. Both exposures can be handled by insurance. We've read several articles recently on how California is long overdue for another sizable earthquake - how would insurance help? The CEA (California Earthquake Authority) was created after...
Many of us have had friends we've known for a long time. My best friend and I went to high school together. Since then we've climbed Mt. Whitney, ran a marathon and did a 100-mile bike ride. We've done a lot together! Up until Covid, we still managed to meet at the beach and ride 25-40 miles. We decided to resume our beach riding, but things have changed a little. He wants to wear a mask while he rides and our normal hangout, where we have a late breakfast when we're done, is no longer on our...
Many small business owners have, at one time or another, for whatever reason, been faced with running the business alone or with the help of their spouse. Sometimes this is because of the nature of the business or just because the business is not at the point of being able to hire staff. One of the advantages of being in this situation is the Self-Employment or Individual 401(k) plan otherwise known as the Solo 401(k). The Solo 401(k) has some great advantages as far as retirement options. In...
(Note from Marty Pay: No squirrels were harmed in this story; I can't say the same about the car.) Those of us in the insurance industry for any length of time have seen claims that are laughable years after the events have occurred. I thought I would share this one from a fellow Farmers Agent. Keep in mind the car was covered and, of course, no animals were injured in the making of this true story. Two rather large dogs were lying around their front yards, peacefully relaxing but keeping one ey...
Toys for Tots had another great year here in Tehachapi collecting just under 900 toys for kids in our community. Last year between our collections at Christmas and our Christmas in July, we collected over 1,200 toys. This year we were at about the same level, collecting over 300 this past July. We've been fortunate to have several incredible businesses supporting this effort. Country Real Estate, Tehachapi Martial Arts Center, the City of Tehachapi, Bank of the West and Tehachapi Treasure Trove...
It's that time of year again as we gear up for Toys for Tots in our community. This truly has been a community effort and the response has always been fantastic! Between our "Christmas in July" and our Toys for Tots in December, we managed to collect over 1,200 toys last year, all of which stayed in our town! We're looking at the same incredible group of businesses supporting our effort. Boxes will be at Country Real Estate, Tehachapi Treasure Trove, Miramar International and Tehachapi Martial...
It's that time of year of year again as we gear up for Toys for Tots in our community. This truly has been a community effort and the response has always been fantastic! Between our "Christmas in July" and our Toys for Tots in December, we managed to collect over 1,200 toys last year, all of which stayed in our town! We're looking at the same incredible group of businesses supporting our effort. Boxes will be at Country Real Estate, Tehachapi Treasure Trove, Miramar International and Tehachapi...
Christina Athans was a kindhearted young woman always thinking of others before herself. She loved the outdoors and nature, enjoying hiking on our many trails. She lived by the saying, "How beautiful a day can be when kindness touches It." Her beautiful life was cut short by pancreatic cancer. But even then, knowing the end was near, she thought of others. She told her mom and dad, Pat and Alex, to have people make donations to pancreatic cancer research in lieu of flowers. She wanted to help...
Many veterans who signed a blank check to serve their country may not be getting a card for the holidays. Project D.E.F.T. (Don't Ever Forget Them) is designed to make sure that doesn't happen here in California. For the past fifteen years Lynda Smith and her husband have orchestrated a drive that delivers cards to veterans hospitals and state veterans homes here in our state. For the past few years Tehachapi has been the only area involved in gathering the cards which the Smiths make sure...
The subject of what we would like done once we leave this earth is not a subject many people are comfortable discussing. Unfortunately, many people pass on without making financial or final needs arrangements. There are some simple things we can do to make things easier once the time comes. One easy thing to do is list beneficiaries on items such as retirement accounts and bank accounts. If your spouse for example inherits your IRA account, she has several options as a beneficiary. She can role...
Albert Einstein once wrote, "Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it...he who doesn't...pays it." So how does one get to be on the winning side of this equation? One way is through our retirement accounts. My first recommendation to students and clients is to maximize the matching funds that may be offered by your employer. Let's say, for example, your employer does a 5% matching fund. If you're making $75,000 a year, 5% would be $3,750 dollars. So,...
I made my semi-annual trip to Tehachapi this July and couldn't have been happier with the results! I really love towns like this, they had 45-50 people at the Christmas in July event at Marty Pay Farmers Insurance and they collected between 325-350 toys, all of which will stay locally in your wonderful community. The heart of this town was on display in the weeks leading up to the event. Drop off stations where all throughout the city. Tehachapi Martial Arts has always been great gathering of...
This past year we have lost over 600,000 Americans to COVID-19. In the same time period, according to the Wall Street Journal, we have lost an additional 200,000 small businesses. Prior to the Pandemic our country enjoyed a 50-year unemployment low of just 3.5 percent. But at the end of COVID we were looking at over 14.7 percent unemployment or over 20 million jobs lost. Americans, though, are resilient and to date over 48 percent of the population is fully vaccinated, we are coming back!...
