In praise

In Praise of SN&R personal ads

My husband and I have been married for 13 years and met 14 years ago through your personal ads (before they were the “talking” personals). We are both from Chico and were familiar with your newspaper from our hometown, so when we individually moved here, it was the News & Review personals that we each turned to. We are still amazed that we grew up so close to each other, each moved to Sacramento, then found each other through the personal ads. Thanks, SN&R!

—Melisa Conwell, homemaker, Orangevale

In Praise of Joey

There was a new column in SN&R that I’d started reading from time to time. At one of my lowest points, I remember reading a few lines about how our darkest times are actually moments that precede transformation. People tend to shy away from change, the author said, because the unfamiliar scares us and, psychologically, we move towards what we already know, even if it hurts us. The columnist, Joey Garcia, offered a phone line and e-mail address for readers to correspond with her. I wrote in twice and later started meeting with Joey on a monthly basis as I slowly worked my way back into a life well lived. It’s been a little over a decade now, and while I can’t claim to have reached any sort of heaven-on-Earth state, I’m feeling very much alive and perfectly content with approaching those scary changes as a way of life, indeed, as pathways into real life.

—Aaron Sikes, Davis