La Conner Weekly News - Your independent hometown award-winning newspaper

I just turned 77 years old, and as I write this, I feel older and wiser. Well, wiser in some ways as we can always learn from our own experiences, but also facing the challenges of short-term memory loss.

As the son of Holocaust survivors, I thank God for every moment I have on this planet and when I sit in my rooftop hot tub and look out at the vast Universe, I thank God that humans are an incredible and extremely rare species.

I was very close to Father William Treacy and he gave me a column to post in this newspaper a week before he died at the age of 103 last year. His brain was working well right until the end of his amazing life and he was living proof that age can be just a number.

I’ve had an amazing career first as a journalist and then directing movies and television shows while living most of the time near the Hollywood studios. I fell in love with the Northwest while producing and directing my series “Psych” in Vancouver, B.C., and I decided to live out my life here, looking out at the bay and islands from my living room window at the edge of the continent.

My mother Rachel barely escaped Hitler and lived until the age of 94 and her brother Harry Rosenfeld lived to 91. Both are shining examples of what a great country America can be. Harry was Woodward and Bernstein’s editor at the Washington Post.

Journalism is obviously in my blood and the news stories ideas I have I pitch to my editor, Ken Stern, and he agrees I can cover them in addition to my monthly column. I’m working on a pickleball story right now which will run in next week’s paper.

I’m also becoming a karaoke star (in my own mind) and I’m inviting you to come see Melvis sing at the Big Lake Bar and Grill on Friday nights and the Longhorn Saloon in Edison on Sunday nights.

If you have a local story that you think is worthy of sharing, please contact me via Facebook and if I agree with you that it is a story to be told, I will pitch it to my editor.

Meanwhile, enjoy this wonderful weather in the amazing part of our country where we have wisely decided to settle.