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Walter and Sally Snyder of Gilroy are pleased to announce the

It was warm and sunny at San Jose's Alum Rock Park last Friday. At 11:45 a.m., a group of more than 50 people, varying in age from children in strollers to seniors with canes and including four clergymembers, gathered in the uppermost parking lot. They could have been there for a picnic.

Morgan Hill is a very different place today than it was 50 years ago. Then it was a farming community with a population of some 4,000 residents. The sick were treated in 50-bed Wheeler Hospital in Gilroy; north-south traffic passed directly through downtown on Monterey Highway; the largest employers were a signal flare maker, a travel trailer builder and animal feed processors.

I can feel hints of autumn seeping through the last days of summer. We will have more warm weather, but there is a chill in the morning air, and August took a big bite out our long sunlit days.If you are an immigrant from the northeastern hardwood forests, you will understandably scoff at the notion of fall color in California. In all but a few places, our fall foliage is a timid version of eastern forest fireworks. It is a subtle beauty, but beauty nonetheless.Surely, our local wineries have the best fall color in the area.  But if you prefer to explore the back roads and the trails, look for sycamore, big leaf maple, white alder, and Fremont cottonwood. These trees prefer a home along streams, often interspersed among conifers and other evergreens. So, we rarely see them in pure stands. Instead, they scatter flashes of yellow here and there amidst the still-green creekside forests.The sycamore trees in Coe Park's Hunting Hollow seem to have a knack for autumn elegance. Perhaps it is the wisps of lichen dangling from the branches or the way streaks of sunshine backlight the leaves against a shaded background. They seem to have a special glow. Just steps into the hollow, look for one trailside monarch that steals the show. As if thumbing its nose at the law of gravity, a massive trunk rises six feet before making a ninety degree turn from vertical to horizontal. What keeps this tubby trunk from falling? It brings to mind an Olympic gymnast holding the iron cross on the rings—continuously. The strain must be excruciating.I have three favorite spots along the Coyote Creek bike path between Morgan Hill and San Jose where I can step into the riparian forest and forget that Highway 101 is just steps away. Sycamores and cottonwoods light up the trail near the bridge just a short walk from the trail's bottom end in northwest Morgan Hill. A rarely visited spot is at the end of Burnett Avenue beyond Sobrato High School. Farther north, park in the lot just beyond Metcalf Road and walk back toward Coyote Ranch. From each of these spots, you can step into a dome of color.Above the creeks and cascades at Uvas Canyon County Park, the autumn color of bigleaf maples and sycamores light up an otherwise dark and shaded forest. Even along the road to the park, maples and white alders decorate Uvas Creek in a way that invariably pulls me to the side of the road and out of the car.Like the road to Uvas Canyon County Park, Hecker Pass Highway climbs the same Santa Cruz Mountains through stands of bigleaf maple that make simply getting to Mount Madonna County Park a great fall experience. Once you reach the park, look for more color on the Blackhawk Trail.Let your New England refugee friends brag about the fall colors they left behind. Winter is next, and they never brag about that.

Reported pregnancies in teenagers have declined steadily since

I was dead set against getting a dog. With two young children, I

SANTA CLARA – A 2-1 loss to the Los Angeles Kings Saturday night at Levi’s Stadium in the 2015 Coors Light NHL Stadium Series in front of a crowd of 70,205 has to leave the San Jose Sharks even more convinced about the remaining one-quarter of the season.