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Your Town • Your Neighbors • Your Newspaper

Wrightwood Author  presents her new book

Bears Of Wrightwood

How many bears will offer to carry your groceries?

It depends on how many fresh berry pies you give them.

June 03, 2020 (San Jose, CA) — Snugly situated in the cool San Gabriel mountains above Los Angeles is the charming town of Wrightwood, California. It’s now also home to the fictional family of bears in the new book, Bears of Wrightwood. While bear sightings occasionally occur in the mountains, this delightful story imagines what might happen if a family of bears settled in a town already committed to existing happily with nature. When the bears discover that fresh berry pies are just steps away from their new home, they need to find a way to keep the delicious berry pies coming. The bears are large and dessert-driven but they’re also kind.

Author Ellen Shakespeare is a Wrightwood resident who sees how the community enjoys living in a lush forest environment. Her story is inspired by endless trips up and down Highway 2. Award winning graphic designer Rod Dyer illustrates the book. Bears of Wrightwood is now available at amazon.com.

“It is a delightful fictional book that takes its readers on a seasonal scenic journey with a family of bears living in beautiful Wrightwood. Their lovely story combined with the adorable book illustrations help the readers connect to them and to Wrightwood effortlessly and almost on a personal level,” said Nadia Khater, president of CRE8IZE.

Sample of Ellen Shakespeare’s Book “Bears of Wrightwood”

Once upon a time there was a beautiful family of black bears. They lived peacefully at Tabletop Mountain and were seldom bothered by people or other animals. They never bothered people or other animals because they had no reason. One evening, when Fall leaves littered the mountainside, and the moon seemed undecided about staying out in front of the clouds or behind them, the family went for a cool walk. 

The Dad led the way with a lumbering gait, and the Mother and two cubs followed. They walked happily for miles.  Soon, they were very south of Tabletop Mountain. Comfortably covered by the tall sides of a wash, they headed for the town of Wrightwood. 

Copyright @ 2020 Ellen Shakespeare

ABOUT CRE8IZE

CRE8IZE Publishing House was founded in 2019. It is based in the city of San Jose —the Silicon Valley of California. It is perfectly located in the global center of innovation and social media, bringing both authors and readers the latest in advanced publishing tools and advertising strategies. For more info, please visit the company’s website at https://cre8izepublishing.com .



Guest Columnist

Capitalism Versus “Crapitalism”

Submitted by Dean Alexander, Wrightwood

Labor Day has come and gone, and Christmas is in the air. So are the TV advertisements poised to pounce on our hard-earned dollars. I accept this as a fact of life since they support programming I watch. This trade-off is our America, and watching “Limu Emu” 2,000 times is a price I’m willing to pay (though he/ she had better watch his/ her step around Thanksgiving!!) My own capitalist instincts led me to invent a specialized shoe lace tying product that was lauded twice in the L.A. Times, sold through Nordstrom in the 90s, and awarded two U.S. patents.

What I cannot accept with ANY equanimity is the promotion of products that knowingly do harm to others. As a developmental psychologist, this is an especially hard pill to swallow when the targeted audience is young people. As if the smoking industry hasn’t wreaked enough havoc upon health, here comes e-cigarettes and vaping. JUUL, BLUE, VUSE ALTO, with ads that grab through “breakthrough technology,” appealing flavors, and psychedelics. In your mind, in your mouth, in your face; in your lungs, your vessels, your heart. The result: A slow onset of difficulty breathing, shortness of breath and chest pain, vomiting, diarrhea, and severe fatigue. Preliminary research points to vascular, respiratory, and cellular damage, and the possibility of seizures and pulmonary disease. Injury has occurred from exploding devices. All alongside nicotine addiction. (TIME magazine).

The census, i.e., the toll, increases daily. Several days ago, according to NBC, the CDC office (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) was aware of 450 confirmed or suspected cases in 33 states; and deaths in Indiana, Illinois, and Oregon. The number of deaths reported today has climbed to six (CNN). The U.S. Surgeon General has declared youth vaping an epidemic.

Recent studies indicate that 27% of high schoolers use vapes or e-cigarettes on a regular basis.

(BREITBART). Most are under-aged, i.e., illegal for teens. These products are not FDA approved, and many practitioners consider them “gateway” to traditional combustible products.

Christmas is in the air. So is smoke from e-cigarettes and vaping. With some irony here, the most popular story told and re-told at Christmastime is a tug-o-war ghost story. Ebenezer Scrooge is a “Crapitalist.” He personifies a readiness to make money off of the suffering of others who have fallen under his sway. Not outside the margin of the law, but anguishly exploitive. He no doubt would have died exploiting others but for an other-worldly visitation by his former business partner, Jacob Marley. Even witnessing Jacob in ponderous chains, Scrooge is reluctant to believe his own senses, in sharp contrast to life-long business sensibilities.

 ‘Business!’ cried the ghost, wringing its hands again. ‘Mankind was my business.

The COMMON WELFARE was my business, charity, mercy, forbearance,and benevolence, were, all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”     (Jacob Marley)

For a few, cautionary ghost stories may be as empty as a sheet with no body to support it. For many others of us, “A Christmas Carol” is as much a tale of our time as when Dickens penned it for his Christmas readership. The holiday season is time to take stock of what we have to offer to family, to friends, to humanity. Do we give or do we take? Are we helping others to break their own bonds- here, addictions- or forging unforgiving chains for them and for ourselves- link by link, yard by yard, puff by puff? Capitalist or Crapitalist? Time to take stock of our Better Angels.

Wishing you the season’s best,


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