One of the International Lions Club’s favorite programs is hosting and sending of foreign exchange students. For a few weeks each summer, students from around the world come to the cities of various Lions Clubs to spend time with host families. This year, students from Brazil, Germany, France and Belgium have been welcomed into host families of the local Lions Clubs of La Mesa, Lemon Grove and Spring Valley.

The program, which began in 1961, gives youth a unique cultural experience… Read more

Many photographers look forward to occasions where they can get together to talk about their craft and to find new inspiration. The 35th anniversary of the Museum of Photographic Arts (MOPA) in Balboa Park provided that opportunity with its unique Push Pin Party on Thursday, Aug. 2. For its anniversary celebration, the evening was a remake of the original event, initially premiering when MOPA opened back in 1983… Read more

I keep picking up the phone to call her, but then I remember she is gone.

No, I have not been jilted by a friend. Rather, my mother up and died.

Suddenly, two months ago.

She got sick with pneumonia and sepsis, but she had done that before and rallied. She was always surprising the doctors and nurses, nearly driving them out of their minds with her demands to go home. They would finally let her go when she proved she was just fine. She just did not like the hospital food… Read more

Every second Thursday of the month, people throng to the fire station on Dallas Street at 6:30 p.m., and within 10 minutes, the sound of beating drums booms from within.

The monthly Community Drum Circle led by Susan Hall, proprietor of RhythmWorx, is a regular event for drumming enthusiasts who meet regularly to make music. Many of them come for the sheer joy of community… Read more

These days, the high cost of movies often prevents people from going out to see them, with people choosing instead to watch DVDs in their homes. Thus, enjoying a movie has become almost an individualistic ritual, completely removed from community.

Not so with the Film Forum of San Diego, introduced by Ralph and Carol DeLauro, who began showing movies at the old Central Library 30 years ago.

The Film Forum is still a weekly event at the new library, with between 25 and 100 people filling the auditorium every Monday night… Read more

Late fall in my San Carlos neighborhood is still a time for butterflies. The dozens of cloudless sulphurs that fly erratically around our yard have quite a story to tell. But since they can’t speak, I’ll tell it for them.

A swirling cloud of yellow butterflies had always surrounded our Cassia splendida tree that blossoms bright yellow flowers September through November. These butterflies are the most elusive ones I’ve ever seen, always flitting about, never staying in one place long enough for me to study up close. While my husband and I had coffee out on our porch in the mornings, we would watch the elaborate mating dance of the male and female butterflies… Read more