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Just when you think our South Valley can’t get any lovelier now that our golden hills have turned green, out of the cold and rain of winter (well, sort of—it’s been a strange year!) burst forth brilliant yellow flowers spreading like soft coverlets over our hills and vales.

SAN JOSE – Calgary earned a power-play goal 5:20 into the third period to lock up a 4-1 victory over the host San Jose Sharks.The win lifted Calgary into second place in the Pacific Division with 63 points. The Sharks also have 63 points and have played one more game than the Flames. Vancouver sits in fourth with 61 points, Los Angeles trailing in fifth with 60.Brent Burns, owner of the lone San Jose goal, was in the penalty box for the second time in the game for roughing at 3:28 of the third. The power play had 18 seconds left when Jiri Hudler’s one-timer from the left circle found the top right corner of the net.The Flames closed the scoring on David Jones’ shot from the redline at 18:07 after the Sharks had pulled the goaltender.San Jose plays host to the Washington Capitals Wednesday to end the three-game home stand.Calgary began the scoring on Mason Raymond’s ninth goal of the season 14:52 into the first period.Raymond controlled the puck at the Calgary blueline, speeding along the left boards before dipping into the slot for a slapshot that went past goaltender Antti Niemi.The Flames, looking for a 4-1 edge in the season series with their Pacific Division rival, went up 2-0 with 8:10 gone in the second period.Mark Giordano’s hard shot from the blueline left a short rebound that Lance Bouma controlled and jammed into the net.Burns gave the Sharks a spark with a goal in the final second of the second period.The game clock showed 3.9 seconds when Joe Pavelski won an offensive-zone face-off and pulled the puck to Logan Couture along the right boards. Couture’s low pass to Burns turned into a one-higher that flew high past defenseman TJ Brodie and a screened goaltender Jonas Hiller with 0.9 seconds to play. Burns has 12 goals for the season, trailing only Pavelski and Couture on the Sharks.NOTES: Evgeni Nabokov, who goaltended for the Sharks for 10 seasons, was obtained from the Tampa Bay Lightning for future considerations and is expected to retire as a Shark at a Wednesday noon press conference…Monday’s game drew a crowd of 17,010, the smallest attendance of the home season…Tommy Wingels came off Injured Reserve Monday and was in the San Jose line-up...San Jose finished with a 34-26 edge in shots on net.

HONORS: Cordero Gonzales: The Lone Star Conference released the 2014-15 fall semester honor roll. The list of honorees included 882 student athletes from nine schools, including Cordero Gonzales of Gilroy.

SAN JOSE – This season’s schedule has a little more than two months to go, time for San Jose to play its final 28 games of the regular season. Saturday night’s 5-4 loss to Metropolitan Division cellar-dweller Carolina left San Jose only two points ahead of both Calgary and Vancouver in the struggle for second place in the Pacific Division.Coach Todd McLellan would have earned his 300th career victory had the Sharks been able to turn back the visitors. Instead, Carolina scored in the final minute of the first period and never trailed in winning for the 19th time in 52 games.Goaltenders Cam Ward of Carolina and Antti Niemi each brought .915 goals against averages into the game. Ward was saddled with a 12-18-4 record based on the Hurricanes’ 111 goals scored. Only Buffalo, with 97 in the net, boasted fewer goals coming into the weekend.San Jose was able to pull into a 3-3 tie in the third period with a two-goal explosion in a span of 82 seconds. Tomas Hertl netted his second goal of the game at 2:27. Logan Couture’s slapshot from the right circle left it at 3-3.Carolina regained the lead at the 15:09 mark when defenseman Andrej Sekera’s headman pass toward the San Jose net ricocheted off the skate of San Jose’s Brenden Dillon and past Niemi.Hurricane rookie Victor Rask added an empty-netter with 1:10 left in the game. Patrick Marleau completed the scoring with a lofted shot from the left flank over Ward’s shoulder with 54.3 seconds left.Though Carolina fashioned a 14-9 edge in shots on net in the first period, the first intermission looked to be a scoreless tie until the Hurricanes’ captain Eric Staal recorded his team-pacing 17th goal with 57.7 seconds left. Jiri Tiusty’s low shot from the blueline went wide of the Sharks’ net, but the carom off the endboards allowed Staal to jam the puck past Niemi at the right post.Carolina rookie Andrej Nestrasil added his second goal of the season 5:33 into the second period. Winger Alexander Semin controlled the puck at the right point before dishing to Nestrasil for the rush down the slot between defenders.San Jose’s lone goal through two periods came at the 8:26 mark. Rookie Chris Tierney outworked Carolina’s John-Michael Liles for the puck behind the Hurricanes’ net. Tierney’s backhander to Hertl at the bottom of the left circle led to a one-timer under Ward.The Hurricanes’ regained the two-goal margin when Elias Lindholm whisked the low shot from the top of the right circle inside the left post at the 10:13 mark on a power play.NOTES: The game drew 17,139…Marc-Edouard Vlasic, reportedly not feeling well prior to the game, was held out of the Sharks’ line-up…San Jose concludes the three-game home stand with games opposite Calgary on Monday and Washington Wednesday.

Fixing the Miller Red Barn at Christmas Hill Park means different things to different people.

Mount Madonna School students recently performed in “Footloose.” Every student is involved in the performing arts productions, including all 66 ninth through 12th graders. Though there are auditions for the lead roles, everyone is part of the show.

In our youth-oriented culture, Eunice Coates is one of those elder adults that folks might overlook. On the surface, we might be tempted only to see the aging, retired Gilroy schoolteacher now in her eighties.But once she was a young woman traveling to Europe for the first time on a dream trip. Her father was an immigrant from Scotland, so she was thrilled to have the experience of touring the continent.Things didn’t work out quite as she expected. In fact, tragedy waited.One day, she and 35 other tourists, mostly American schoolteachers on vacation, were on a bus and journeying along a country road in Hergiswil, Switzerland, headed for Paris, The City of Lights. With them were a tour guide and his wife and the driver.Suddenly, a truck appeared out of nowhere, sideswiped the eight-ton bus along the edge of a steep embankment—with only a thin guard rail between the vehicle and a the dark, cold waters of a Swiss lake down below.Reeling from the impact, the bus toppled over the side and Eunice hastily prayed the only prayer she had time for:  "Dear Lord, help us!"  The bus plunged into Lake Lucerne on Aug. 2, 1961. "The water took me up near the ceiling," Eunice remembered. "When I came back down, it was up over my head and I had to hold my breath. “Then I felt something come on the bus and it was giving me the chills,” she recalled, as she described the feeling of knowing with certainty that an angel was among them.  he tried to get out through a window but to not avail. The water kept rising as the passengers and bus sank towards to bottom. She was about to try again when suddenly she felt a tremendous push and she was launched through a window like a cannonball, her movement so strong that, as she looked back, she could see her own wake.  “I felt something actually push me out. I can’t explain it, but I knew a greater power was helping me,” said Eunice, who was raised by a Baptist minister father.The next day, the coach was pulled from its resting place 210 feet below the surface of Lake Lucerne by a ship’s crane. Inside, divers found 15 bodies.  Another passenger died in the water. All those who perished were Americans; 14 were women. There were 22 survivors.Many years later, Eunice compared notes about the tragedy with a friend who also came close to drowning that day. They had never told each other exactly what they had experienced; each was afraid it would sound too ridiculous to the other.To her surprise, Eunice discovered that her friend had independently experienced the same exact feeling of the angel being on board, and she had heard the voice of the angel.The experience had a profound and life-long effect on Eunice. She went on to serve in her community in many ways, including as a schoolteacher for 31 years—23 of them in Gilroy at Glen View Elementary and Brownell.When I met Eunice, I was amazed at her knowledge of marine biology and how much she could make me see as we sat by the ocean. She knew so much about tide pools—about how small crabs camouflaged themselves in sand so that only the black dots of their eyes showed if you looked closely, about how much whales weigh, and about how to sit quietly to observe all the wildlife activity that you would miss otherwise.Although the things that gave her life meaning included being active for many years in local organizations such as Eastern Star, the California Retired Teachers Association, playing piano and organ, and singing in choirs, what has impressed me most has been her gift for visiting people. If anyone was ill, lonely, stuck in the hospital, recovering in rehab, or had no one to celebrate holidays with, Eunice was by his or her side.Driving the classic yellow 1960's Mustang that had been her husband’s until his death, she visited anyone who was suffering, and she didn’t just visit once. She went again and again. She visited some people so often, she became like part of the family.Maybe her empathy sprang not just from her faith, but also from her understanding of people as someone who married later in life and never had children of her own. Also, living so far from her family in Michigan, she understood the need to connect with people, and that we give strength to each other by how we care for one another.Now that she is recovering from a hip injury, it is heart-warming to see how her friends, neighbors and pastors look out for her. There are casserole dishes and salads on her doorstep and offers of help with grocery shopping. A neighbor across the street made sure she had her favorite vegetables and chicken for two weeks, “a perfect meal,” as Eunice put it. She is working on her exercises and is anxious to get back to her volunteer work at “Share the Bounty,” the free Wednesday meal at the Morgan Hill United Methodist Church where she helps feed those in need of a good, hot, nutritious meal. She also is hoping to support the St. Patrick's Dinner in Gilroy, which each year she coaxes others to attend with her, all to benefit low income families and the homeless.People such as Eunice are why I love living in our South Valley community; she is one of those angels who make our community “South Valley-Strong.”

‘The Story Of My Life” is about the relation-ships in life, what we miss, what we remember and what we could have done differently. Two actors carry this story with quality voices and good delivery.

At Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park above Santa Cruz, a single ridge separates two very different habitats. Walking the trails on the park’s east side through bright slopes of mixed evergreen trees and chaparral, it seems so unlikely that just over the hill giant redwoods nearly 300 feet tall shade a forest floor dark, moist and green. The great thing about this park is that both settings are within easy reach of a day hiker.

Last August we sent Junior off to college. It was horrible. I spent the entire day trying to be cheerful and happy, when all I really wanted to do was cry. Junior looked like all he wanted to do was get rid of his mother. I honestly think Harry could have stayed because the entire time he was helping Junior assemble the $3 million worth of useless dorm organization crap I bought*, he kept talking about how fun college life was and giving helpful advice on what co-eds to avoid and how keep track of your red Solo cup at a party.