Afew short weeks ago a small group of volunteers sat at a table discussing ideas for special events that could be held downtown this holiday season. There was the annual Santa light parade to plan. Plus, business owners dedicated to staying open late for shoppers at least one night a week wanted to create promotions for Thursday evenings that would bring folks downtown and provide them with some free entertainment.

There were fewer than a dozen people at the meeting, but there was no shortage of ideas: “Santa could arrive in a helicopter ... let’s invite families to the library for story time and a visit from Santa ... an ugly Christmas sweater contest could be fun ... and what about a walk through the streets of downtown led by a knowledgeable docent who could shed some light on the history of downtown?”

House Calls runs every other Thursday. Today’s column is written by Ken Ortman, director of the Medial/Surgical Unit at Sutter Coast Hospital.

Did you ever wonder why the hospital asks you about your medications every time you go there?  Or ask yourself why they don’t remember from the last visit or can’t just get the list from your old records?

Well, according to numerous studies in hospitals throughout the country, medication errors injure and sometimes kill patients in alarming numbers. Nothing is more devastating to physician or nurses than knowing they have injured a patient. The emotional scars from a single incident will last a lifetime.

We as nurses and doctors have a commitment to you, the patient, to provide the best care possible, and that includes ensuring that the medications you’re taking are the ones you need for the illnesses you have. We also have a duty to ensure you’re not taking medications that don’t work with other medications or are no longer needed. A current list of all the medications you are taking is critical to this commitment. Only you know everything you are taking and can provide that information to us.

This morning, as I was preparing for this week’s column, I was able to sit down and talk to 1978 Warrior graduate and standout athlete Tim Haban. What a treat it was.

I look forward to meeting former Warriors who played for Del Norte during the years I was gone from Crescent City, and meeting Tim was special. I was told last year by Jim Costillo, who was Tim’s head football coach, that I needed to meet this gentleman as he was someone I would really have enjoyed coaching. How right Jim was.

Tim was a multi-sport athlete while a Warrior, but football was his specialty. He was involved in the basketball and track programs during his first three years at Del Norte. He was part of the Warrior football program all four years.

Well wishes for us and our leaders in next year

Some New Year’s wishes:

I wish more people realized what a privilege being American is.

I wish the younger generations would realize the importance of volunteering in our community.

I wish people would give back to our town rather than just take what they can.

From the pages of the Del Norte Triplicate, December 1951.

Timely discovery of a fire beneath the floor of Baird’s Mill out on Highway 101 about 1 a.m. on Tuesday morning saved the building from being destroyed.

The fire was discovered by Arthur Flick, an employee, who was returning from Cave Junction with a company caterpillar. He noticed the fire when he went to stow the tractor away and ran to the home of owner C. A. Baird.

It happened Tuesday night as I was about to unplug the tree.

Hours earlier, Laura had spread out a few wrapped gifts there. The first tag I checked had my Mom’s name on it. Visceral emotions arrived in a rush.

It wasn’t just the reality kicking in that my father, 91, and mother, 89, are coming to our house for the holidays. I’m not sure that’s ever happened during my nomadic adulthood, although I’ve spent many a Christmas back home with them in the Willamette Valley.

Educational woes stem from sense of dependency on system

While it was inspirational to read Josh Norris' take on educational problems in Del Norte county (“Consultants are not solution to Del Norte’s education problems,” Dec. 8), he seems to be putting forth the same solutions that have dominated the educational community for five decades, more teachers, smaller class size, and more money.

Those solutions haven’t made much progress either. I don’t wish to marginalize these as answers to our educational woes, but I think that public education took a systemic left turn about 50 years ago when it stopped trusting most parents to do the right thing when it came to their children. I think most teachers realize that they aren’t the biggest influence in a child’s life, but can greatly influence the outcome in any child’s life.

The joys of living in a small community become even more apparent this time of year. A week ago I opened the paper to see Jewel, age 7 and somewhat short of front teeth, passing out plates at the community dinner. Her pride and happiness shone like a light. Bless the parents who teach their children to give.

I once had a bumper sticker that read, “THINK GLOBALLY — ACT LOCALLY,” something that becomes easier every day. I took it to mean realize we’re all one community, then help where you can nearby. With the technology available, the children of today will find geography no hurdle to involvement.

A number of articles have recently been published concerning picking mushrooms in Redwood National and State Parks.

Several of those articles contained a significant amount of inaccurate and misleading information, which I felt the need to rectify.  However, I was prompted to respond to these articles primarily to address a larger issue of the reasons for and the basic concepts behind national and state parks.

The idea of national and state parks is truly an American concept, with the establishment of the areas around Yellowstone and Yosemite as national and state public preserves in the late 19th century being the birthplace of this idea.

Paying everyone’s way fosters sense of entitlement

The Del Norte County Unified School District has greatly misinterpreted the No Child Left Behind Act law and applied it to areas where it has no business being involved. A friend of mine is a teacher here in the district, and has seen nothing but trouble in recent years thanks to our district’s misapplication of the law.

She goes to a great deal of trouble every year to plan an annual weekend-long field trip for her class. Trips like that cost money, most of which either comes from fundraisers or the students themselves (and their families). It used to be that if a child didn’t come up with the money for the trip, he or she didn’t go. That’s how it should be. It’s a privilege to go on these trips, and they’re not a graded part of the curriculum.