By Kathryn Reed

It took me a few tries to get into “The Days are Gods” by Liz Stephens. Normally this is not a good sign. But something kept the book on the nightstand instead of the give-away pile.

That was a good decision.

This memoir of Stephens was published this year. It takes the reader on a journey from her life in Los Angeles to a remote town in Utah where she earns her master’s degree to the day she leaves to begin her doctorate.

Her life isn’t extraordinary. But the way she describes the events and the emotions associated with them are compelling. Her words contain a certain raw honesty that isn’t off-putting.

It’s not just about her, though. It’s about the animals and the people in her life. It’s about how the world changes even when you don’t want it to. It’s simply about life.

Anyone who has made a significant geographical move, who knows what it is like to be an outsider, will be able to relate to some of her anxiety, the challenges and eventually heartache in leaving.

The biggest complaint is the title. I think she would sell more books if it weren’t called “The Days are Gods”.

• Warren Miller’s “Ticket to Ride” will show at Harrah’s Lake Tahoe on Nov. 15-16 at 7:30pm. The $16 tickets are on sale at Sports Ltd. in South Lake Tahoe, and Harrah’s and Harveys box offices, or at the door.

• Sierra-at-Tahoe is having a job fair Nov. 2 from 11am-2pm at the resort’s main lodge.

• Here is the Sierra roadwork schedule for this week from Caltrans.

• Truckee is having an economic development meeting Nov. 12 at 7:30pm in council chambers.

• Char-Pit in Kings Beach is recommended by members in the November-December issue of Via magazine as a good place for a burger.

By Kathleen Miles, Huffington Post

Nearly two-thirds (65 percent) of Californians support legalizing, regulating and taxing recreational marijuana in the state, according to a Tulchin Research poll.

The figure, based on responses of 1,200 likely 2016 voters surveyed during the last two weeks, shows a “solid majority” back proposals to legalize adult recreational marijuana, the San Francisco-based pollster said. The poll found 32 percent oppose legalization and 3 percent were undecided.

Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and American Civil Liberties Union representatives released the poll results during a news conference Thursday and announced the launch of a two-year research effort focused on proposals to legalize recreational marijuana. Newsom will chair a panel of 16 experts, including professors, medical professionals and policy researchers, who will study legal and policy issues involved in adult recreational marijuana.

“This is about real people,” Newsom said to the Huffington Post. “Communities are devastated because of this abject thing called the drug war. Forget the politics. This is the right thing to do.”

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To the community,

Thank you to all who braved the chilly temperatures and occasional snow to help make the ninth Mutt Strut one of our best.

And thanks to our generous donors. We had a wide variety of raffle and poker hand prizes that were snapped up by ticket buyers. We greatly appreciate your support, and are pleased we are able to keep our spay-neuter program going.

But we’re not just sitting back enjoying the success of the Mutt Strut – we have also planned our next fundraiser, another bowling night at Tahoe Bowl. Join us on Nov. 8 from 6-9pm – we’ll once again have great raffle prizes, and Tahoe Bowl is offering game, shoe rental, food, and drink specials, and a portion of your bowling purchases will be donated to ACT.

And here are two other fun October events for you and your pooch:

Dog Dog Cat dog costume party and parade, Oct. 26 at noon at the store (4000 Lake Tahoe Blvd., South Lake Tahoe).

Tahoe Best Friends Howl’oween Costume Party, Oct. 27 from 1-3pm, 2197 Ruth Ave., South Lake Tahoe.

Animal Coalition of Tahoe

By Pagan Kennedy, New York Times

Scientists disagree about when humans first tasted kale. But it is known that the ancient Greeks cultivated leafy greens, which they boiled and ate as a cure for drunkenness. And early Roman manuscripts include references to “brassica,” a word that encompassed wild turnips, cabbages and kalelike plants.

By the Middle Ages, kale had spread through Europe and Asia. The Italians developed plants with “dinosaur” scales, while the Scots created varietals with leaves like frilly petticoats. The Russians produced kale that could survive in the snow.

But by the time Tim Peters, who was then farming in Oregon, began experimenting with the plant in the 1980s, kale had become “boring.”

“You only saw the green kind in the supermarket,” he says, “if you could find it at all.”

To create his own varietals, Peters planted Siberian kale on his farm, and also along roadsides, so that bees could cross-pollinate the vegetables with neighborhood weeds.

“I love working with bees,” Peters says. “They’ll do stuff that you didn’t dream of.” One day he noticed that some of his blue-green Siberians had produced “babies” that looked nothing like their parents — they were red, with vellum-thin leaves. “I’d never seen kale like that before. I sent samples to seed companies, and they told me that it belonged to the red Russian family.”

Peters, it turned out, had created several new types of red Russian kale, a varietal that had been around for centuries. He named one particularly delicate strain Winter Red. As kale caught on, so, too, did Winter Red: some companies grew “huge productions of it and released it as ‘Red Russian’ or ‘Russian,’” he says.

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Two people died and two others were injured in a shooting at Sparks Middle School on Monday morning.

For more info, click here.

By KCRA-TV

A fire in Placer County led to a power outage to at least 500 customers early Monday morning.

CalFire officials said that the fire has spread to about three acres in an area near Foresthill by Spring Garden and Mountain roads.

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Pecan

Pecan is the last remaining kitten at the shelter from this past summer. He is 6 months old and has been waiting for a home for several months.

He is a beautiful gray shorthair boy who will fit into just about any home.

Pecan is neutered, microchipped, and vaccinated. He is at the El Dorado County Animal Services shelter in Meyers, along with many other dogs and cats who are waiting for their new homes.

Go online to see photos and descriptions of all pets at the shelter.

Call (530) 573.7925 for directions, hours, and other information on adopting a pet.

For spay-neuter assistance for South Tahoe residents, go online.

— Karen Kuentz

Isaiah Tannaci demonstrates what the equipment in the Sports Medicine Center at STHS is used for. Photos/Kathryn Reed

By Kathryn Reed

Isaiah Tannaci doesn’t have to rely on a textbook to answer a student’s questions. There’s a good chance whatever is asked he has the answer from personal experience.

Tannaci is not the ordinary high school instructor. His goal was never to be a teacher. And he’s just starting to work on his credential. But none of that stopped Lake Tahoe Unified School District from hiring him to start this school year.

“We are thrilled to have someone with such a strong background and passion to launch our new Sports Medicine Center at South Tahoe High School,” Principal Ivone Larson told Lake Tahoe News.

Students are excited too. The maximum — 90 students — signed up for this semester and for next semester.

Tannaci was a paramedic in Mount Shasta City when he got a call from a friend about the director job for the sports med program at STHS. He was blown away when he saw the facility. More equipment keeps arriving. It is state-of-the-art. Some of it is so new to the market Tannaci has only read about it.

While Tannaci was going to Southern Oregon State in Ashland, Ore., he became interested in athletic training. He has been a certified athletic trainer since 1998, has a bachelor’s in exercise physiology and a master’s in sports medicine. After he left Tahoe Fracture he went to paramedic school.

Exam tables for sports med students.

Tannaci has a million ideas for what he would like to do with the sports medicine facility. “Give it time” is the approach his superiors tell him to take.

One goal is to have students trained so there would be medical coverage at all school athletic practices and games. They would work under a certified athletic trainer in a similar manner to what goes on at the college level.

Through the emergency medicine side of the curriculum at STHS students could get enough education so they could volunteer for the National Ski Patrol. The minimum age to do so is 15. Between what STHS and Lake Tahoe Community College offer, students could become an emergency medical technician. Minimum age to do so is 18.

With this being the first semester for the program, intro to sports medicine is being taught multiple times so students have the basics. The program will grow to deal with emergency medicine, sports medicine and being a physical trainer.

As with most career and technical education programs, sports med has something for those who are college-bound, those who want a skill that will lead to a job, and those who want to dabble in something different.

The education is designed to flow into LTCC’s offerings where this fall it’s possible to obtain an associate of art’s degree in kinesiology. It could also be a feeder program for Barton Health.

“I am excited about the uniqueness of this program and the opportunities it presents to the students of STHS. I think it matches well with the internship program that Barton Health has, and that the exposure to sports medicine will foster more students to choose a career in medicine,” orthopedist Terry Orr said.

Even though Tannaci grew up a ski racer in Mount Shasta City, he is very familiar with Lake Tahoe.

He worked for Orr from 2002-08 when he was part of Tahoe Fracture. The two had met when both were working for the U.S. Ski Team. Tannaci was the athletic trainer for the team from 1998-2002. He was the men’s ski team’s head trainer during the Salt Lake City Olympics in 2002. (The traveling is what made him want to stop being involved with the ski team.)

“He was involved in all aspects of treatment of world-class athletes ranging from emergency triage on the race course to recovery from surgery. Isaiah has seen it all and lived it. The experiences he has had in the treatment of our nation’s best athletes brings a relevance to his teaching that would be hard to match,” Orr told Lake Tahoe News.

By Ellie Herman

He was 15 years old but looked 12, a reedy, pale little guy with a mop of dark hair. When he stood in front of the class to tell his story, he was so nervous you could see his skinny legs trembling under his khakis. The drama class assignment was to tell a story about a minor life event that led to some new realization about the world — an assignment designed both to help the kids get over their shyness and to teach the meaning of the word “epiphany.”

The “minor” life event the boy chose to relay was the time his father, addicted to meth and hallucinating, threw himself out a fourth-story window and died. At the end of the story, my student, sobbing, told us that his epiphany was that he was alone in the world.

We hugged him, many kids told him they loved him, and he said he felt better for having told the story. But that didn’t fix his life. His mother had remarried a man who disliked him, so sometimes that year, he’d stay after school and do homework in my classroom. But there were also many days he didn’t come to school at all. He didn’t come no matter how much I begged him or called his house, no matter how often our counseling staff met with the student or his mother.

I’ve been thinking of that boy lately as state and national officials are vowing to get tough on truancy. It would be hard to find an educator who doesn’t agree that truancy is a problem. Kids who skip class tend to do poorly in school, and they often don’t graduate. That in turn harms their career prospects and earning ability.

But to hear California Attorney General Kamala Harris or U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan talk about the problem, solving it is simply a matter of holding schools and families accountable.

What do they think we’ve been trying to do?

Ellie Herman is taking a year away from the classroom to learn from teachers in schools across Los Angeles. She is blogging about it at gatsbyinla.wordpress.com.

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