The Loop Newspaper - Tehachapi's Online Community News & Entertainment Guide

Something about new beginnings and firsts have always delighted and fascinated me. Which is one of many reasons I always look forward to the New Year, every year. Jan. 1 signals a great time to start...

Just in case you need a little levity as you celebrate the Christmas holiday, here are a few Christmas giggles... and a few groaners: A small cute little boy regularly went to Sunday school where he l...

As a child, thanks to my mother’s never-ending desire to learn all about other peoples and other religions, I found out that while I was totally and enthusiastically (and sometimes single-mindedly)...

The other day a friend sent me an email with "questions that can't be answered" and some of them made me laugh out loud. Like the first one: Who was the first person to look at a cow and say, "I...

Every year around this time I like to write about enjoying dark and scary thoughts. It is Halloween time, after all, and I love the whole month being full of scary movies on TV and in the movie...

Here's another of those little gems, a story called "Shipwreck" with a great message: A voyaging ship was wrecked during a storm at sea and only two of the men on it were able to swim to a small,...

I was born into a Christian family and raised mostly in two non-controversial protestant denominations: Presbyterian and Methodist. Neither church was on the fringe, and I learned a lot of good stuff...

Time to share another one of those little stories that shows up every now and then on my computer screen (by that prolific writer known as "Author Unknown"). I especially loved this one the minute I r...

I was stressed and tired one night. Things were crazy at the store, my car was acting funny and I'd had a fight with a friend the night before. My dogs seemed particularly demanding that evening, and...

Anyone who knows me knows I don't really like to watch "reality" TV, with one exception: "Survivor" is my one guilty pleasure, as it has been for the past 20 years. I've tried other "reality" shows...

A friend and I were discussing politics the other day -- the good, the bad and the ugly. Too many issues, too many things going on, we agreed. How do we keep up with it all? How do we stay on top of...

This story I'm offering up today – actually a story and a little story within the story – is one of the favorite ones I've received lately. I don't know who wrote it (that "Author Unknown" is...

I admit it, I'm not real big on housework. I do it as little of it as possible. Okay, okay, really, I HATE HOUSEWORK! But houses need work, and every now and then I find I have to do some (more)...

Some years ago I shared a funny email with my mother titled "Things my mother taught me." She laughed as hard as I did because, after all, mothers are also daughters (my mother had the same sort of...

Usually I'm a pretty optimistic person, but sometimes I worry about things both big and small. Take world peace, for instance (a really big thing) – I sometimes worry that no matter how noble a...

I read somewhere that every time you learn something, your brain gets a new wrinkle in it, suggesting that the more wrinkles your brain has, the smarter you are. Sometimes I just don't want to waste...

It's St. Patrick's Day – the day when everyone is a little Irish. And why not? If this is a holiday that brings us closer to a feeling of togetherness and camaraderie through green colored...

And the gypsies dance and the gypsies sing and the gypsies holler and they stamp their feet to the music, fala lalala, la la la, fala lalala la laah! When I was a wee child, I asked my mom why my stom...

Last year about this time I wrote about my experiences marching in Los Angeles in the Women's March, along with some 750,000 other people. This year I'm writing about the same kind of event, but this...

Every now and then I come across some especially interesting story – something I didn't write but kind of wish I would have – and if there is no copyright infringement involved, I like to share it...

With all that is going on in the world – and in our state and even in our own little mountain town – that most of us describe as uncertain or scary or challenging... or all of the above, it's refr...

It's almost "next year" (finally) and here's to having a good one! I've always loved the idea of a new year. It's as if suddenly, when the clock's hands both point upwards in the dead of a cold winter...

My childhood was pretty traditional, generally speaking, and our holiday celebrations were no exception. Through college, winter holidays were spent with my family – some years at our house, some ye...

In spite of all the disasters, killing sprees, ugliness and uncertainty going on in our world today, there is always something to be thankful for. Every morning when I wake up to a new day, I am thank...

Like Indiana Jones hates snakes, I hate spiders. I was really upset when I visited my parents in Tehachapi once and discovered there were black widows living in the garage. I went through conniption...