Ben Shelton understands representation has mattered in his family’s tennis trajectory. (Image: Kathryn Reed)
Representation matters. Seeing people who look like you matters.
It’s hard to grow up dreaming you want do something when you don’t see other people like you doing it. Whatever it is.
That’ why this year’s U.S. Open tennis tournament that ended last Sunday was historic. Kinda sad, though, that it’s 2026 and we are making this kind of history. But progress is still progress.
Historically, tennis has been a sport for white people with a certain income level. I grew up playing on public courts; mostly at the local high school. While my parents were middle class—not upper—I had the privilege to take private lessons. I didn’t know it was a privilege at the time.
As a kid, I saw women playing tennis on TV at the highest echelons. I thought it was normal that women competed at this level and were on TV. As a white girl, I was represented.
I also remember seeing Arthur Ashe, a Black man, play. I remember Yannik Noah and Zina Garrison, and later Chanda Rubin and Michael Chang.
I know I gave it zero thought about how few people of color were playing at this level or my level.
Taylor Townsend last weekend became only the third Black woman in the whole world to complete a career grand slam in women’s doubles. The other two are Venus and Serena Williams. This means they have each won the four grand slam tournaments.
When Ben Shelton walked onto Arthur Ashe Stadium on Sept. 13 he was the first Black American man to play in the singles finals since Ashe did so in 1972. In fact, Shelton is the Black American to make it to any grand final since 1996 when MaliVai Washington was in the Wimbledon finals.
Shelton after his semifinals win credited Ashe for paving the way for his dad, Bryan, to play, and therefore for himself to be where he was that day.
That semifinal against Francis Tiafoe was also historic. It was the first time two Black American men played in a U.S. Open semifinal.
Ashe won the U.S. Open in 1968. The stadium was named after him in 1997. It is the largest tennis-only venue in the world.
Ashe died in 1993 before he could see his name on the tennis facility. He died from AIDS-related pneumonia in 1993 after contracting the disease from a blood transfusion.
No other Black man—not just an American Black man—besides Ashe has won the men’s singles titles at the U.S. Open or Australian Open or Wimbledon.
If you don’t think representation still matters, then maybe you should consider yourself privileged—and ignorant.
Boiling water makes Lassen Volcanic National Park special. (Image: Kathryn Reed)
Hot water is one thing Lassen Volcanic National Park is well known for. Not water to soak in, but water to appreciate from a bit of distance. It’s scalding hot.
The visitors center has a wealth of information about all the bubbling, boiling and gurgling going on.
“As rainwater and snow seeps through porous volcanic soil it trickles down to rocks heated by a chamber of molten or partially molten magma. Once water becomes super-heated, under intense pressure it works its way back up to the earth’s surface as steam, a boiling pool of water or bubbling pots of mud,” a sign reads.
These hot spots are scattered throughout the park. The smell of sulfur is a tall-tell sign hot water is nearby.
I few years ago I had the opportunity to hike to Boiling Springs Lake. I would put this on your to-do list. I had never seen a boiling lake before. The water is a consistent 125 degrees.
Last month I toured the visitors center again with some friends. It’s chock full of interesting things about the park. It seems appropriate to have been there in August, which marked this park’s 100th birthday. President Woodrow Wilson designated Lassen as the country’s 15th national park.
Rocks are stained from the sulfuric water at Lassen Park. (Image: Kathryn Reed)
Not far from the center is an opportunity to walk close to these boiling pools of water. Sulphur Works is “named for sulfur-mining operations at the site in 1865, at one time Sulphur Works also offered hot mineral baths. In 1951 the National Park Service acquired Sulphur Works to protect one of the park’s most dynamic and accessible hydrothermal features.”
Steam vents, called fumaroles, are here as well as mudpots and boiling springs.
NASA even has in interest in all of this.
“Researchers from NASA and academia are working together in Lassen to study microorganisms that thrive in water too hot for humans to touch. They can tell us about the first organisms on Earth, as well as the potential for life to have existed on Mars or other bodies in our solar system. The science that explores for life elsewhere in the universe is called astrobiology,” a sign reads.
It’s relatively easy to get to remote Blue Lake on the outskirts of Lassen Volcanic National Park. (Image: Kathryn Reed)
I can tell you about hiking to Blue Lake, but I can’t tell you exactly how to get there.
The latter is partly because I wasn’t driving, I’d never been there and road signs seemed to be non-existent.
Good thing Sally was driving and had been there several times.
Sally, Eve, Sophie and Kae at Blue Lake in August. (Image: Kathryn Reed)
Sophie, Eve and I joined her for a girls weekend last month at her cabin in Mill Creek on the outskirts of Lassen National Volcanic Park, with one activity being a hike.
I know we drove by Wilson Lake and were on a road with the same name, made a left at a four-way without obvious signs to me, drove several miles on a dirt road before parking on the right in a cut out wide enough for about four vehicles. The trailhead started across the street where what looks like a homemade sign says Blue Lake.
With ferns being some of the first plant life, I knew water was nearby. It seemed like within seconds we came across a little waterfall. We stopped at it on the way back to admire its beauty.
The trail makes a steady climb up, but nothing strenuous. In fact, this hike is pretty darn easy. It was the perfect amount on this particular day.
At times we walked through tall, blonde grasses that could have been wild rye that seemed to reach my shoulders. Other times it was looming conifers that towered about us.
While fire can be devastating, it can leave behind what looks like art. (Image: Kathryn Reed)
We skirted by Duck Lake on the right, but it wasn’t inviting enough to have us take a detour.
While this wasn’t the time of year for much in the way of wildflowers, plenty of plant life abounded. Tiny white flowers could be seen on the Russethair saxifrage. Wild buckwheat, drooping brome and penstemon were some of the flora.
Fire has ravaged these woods in the last several years. So much of Lassen Park was torched by the Dixie Fire in 2021, while Sally’s cabin and all of Mill Creek narrowly escaped the flames of the 2024 Park Fire.
Little water spills from the falls at the start of the Blue Lake trail in late August. (Image: Kathryn Reed)
The lake was the perfect spot for lunch. Sally was the only one brave enough to go swimming. I’m wussy when it comes to cold water, though surprisingly this was warmer than Lake Tahoe and the Sierra lakes I am more accustomed to hiking to.
We did an out and back, having gone about halfway around the lake. It was about 3 miles round trip, with an elevation gain of 344 feet. The low point was 6,009 feet, with max elevation 6,355 feet.
Searching online it seems like it’s possible to do this as a round trip that would involve a trek to Spencer Meadows; that would have mileage closer to 7.5 miles. Parts of that trail are said to be sketchy in terms of some cross country/winging-it necessary.
A generation is living in a world where they don’t know anything but life after Sept. 11, 2001.
I don’t know if the world was really better then or if it’s through rose-colored glasses that I see my younger self in a world that didn’t seem so rife with division. I feel like we have been at war with ourselves and some other country ever since then. Or maybe it has always been like this and I wasn’t paying attention.
It’s hard to believe this week marks the 25th anniversary of terrorists taking down the Twin Towers in New York City and ploughing a plane into the Pentagon, as well as another plane being thwarted by Flight 93 passengers who were able to steer it into a Pennsylvania field, thus saving who knows how many lives.
While the immediate aftermath of that horrific day brought people together, I feel like the divide between us today is almost unbridgeable.
I know the events of 9-11 helped lead to the state of politics today. But at the same time, we have choices. We can learn from the past, make different choices in our own lives, in how we treat others, and definitely in who we elect to office—be at the local or national level.
Five years ago, I wrote: “On this Sept. 11, let’s reflect on what we have lost. Because personally, I’m at loss as to what we gained from Sept. 11. I’d like to think we could gain perspective, compassion and understanding about why people could hate us so much to do what they did. If we don’t understand the ‘whys’ of any action, then we will forever be ignorant and on the defensive, and thus susceptible to future turmoil.”
For the 10th anniversary I was in Lake Tahoe, owner of Lake Tahoe News. We published a multi-day package of stories that still has relevance.
I wonder if people younger than me even think about Sept. 11. Maybe it’s like me with Vietnam; I was alive through most of it, but it had zero impact on me in any way that I’m conscious of today. Maybe it’s like me with World War II; something that has always seemed like ancient history even though it ended just 20 years before I was born.
It would be interesting to sit in a high school history class to hear how Sept. 11 is taught in the U.S. and abroad. What are they learning?
Maybe more important is what have we who lived through Sept. 11 learned?
Certain deaths have a way of rocking one’s world. I didn’t know Dolly Parton or Gloria Steinem. Never met them. Was never in the same room with either one.
Yet, now that they are gone it feels like they were part of my life in ways I had not previously acknowledged.
Clearly, Parton’s voice echoed through whatever speakers I was listening to her songs with. Her presence was felt in my living room and theaters through her movies.
Steinem’s words are still in my home with her books and online in so many formats.
To think these two formidable women died days apart—Parton on Aug. 25 at the age 80 and Steinem on Sept. 2 at the age of 92—leaves me a bit speechless and definitely sad.
They changed the world in similar ways, albeit with different approaches. Parton seemed to cross all the aisles, while Steinem could be polarizing.
Both lived lives worth emulating. They were good people. They stood up for things I think we should all believe in and fight for. They left the world better than they found it.
Two states, five counties, one city. Thousands of residents. Millions of visitors.
It’s the reality the Lake Tahoe Basin has been working under for decades. While today the collective burdens foster a sense of collaborative stewardship, 30 years ago this was a recipe for chaos, infighting and finger pointing.
“Let me be candid — before the summit, California and Nevada were not exactly on the same page when it came to Lake Tahoe,” Gray Davis said. “At one point, California had actually withdrawn its financial support from TRPA and imposed its own stricter regulations. Nevada threatened to walk away from the compact entirely. We wanted stronger environmental protections; Nevada wanted more room for development. The 1997 summit changed all of that.”
The late Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif, were instrumental in keeping the Lake Tahoe Basin on the radar of federal officials. (Image Kathryn Reed/2014)
Davis was lieutenant governor of California when the inaugural Lake Tahoe Summit took place in 1997. He was elected governor in 1998. Today he is of counsel at Loeb and Loeb law firm in Los Angeles and is co-chair of the Southern California Leadership Council.
The democrat was working alongside Gov. Pete Wilson, a republican. Wilson did not attend the summit, instead he sent Doug Wheeler, secretary of California Resources Agency, on his behalf. While the states were in disagreement, California was showing bipartisan synchronicity when it came to Tahoe.
At that time Nevada was under the leadership Bob Miller, a democrat.
“During the 1990s, there was noticeable erosion and a decline in the lake’s clarity and growing environmental concerns in the surrounding basin, which necessitated the attention of all stakeholders,” Miller said.
Today, Miller works at the consulting firm he started in Las Vegas.
Miller and Davis credit the summit with bringing the two states to the table to jointly and cooperatively work on issues pertaining to the basin.
“The first summit led to the establishment of an annual event and the creation of an environmental impact coalition. This has resulted in enhanced cooperation between federal, state, and local governments, as well as private interests,” Miller said.
The late Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., is credited with spearheading the idea for the presidential summit. During Reid’s lifetime he was as advocate for the basin. Right alongside him, until her death, was Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.
Bruce Babbitt remembers getting a call from Reid saying he was concerned about the divide between the two states, and that federal intervention was needed and that it was imperative President Bill Clinton be directly involved.
“I said, ‘Harry I will recommend to the president that he put together a federal participation, but I’m not sure if you can get President Clinton, but you will get a federal presence’,” Babbitt recalled. He was secretary of the U.S. Department of Interior.
Babbitt was aware of the division between California and Nevada when it came to Tahoe, and foresaw the problems only becoming more exasperated if left unaddressed.
“I had always known about Lake Tahoe since growing up in the west,” Babbitt said. “I often thought in those years if I could rerun history, I would make Lake Tahoe a national park. It is one of the great ecological and scenic assets of the west.”
Babbitt was governor of Arizona prior to joining the Clinton administration. Forever involved in environmental causes, today he is working on issues pertaining to the Colorado River.
Clinton obviously was convinced by Babbitt of the need for the summit and had a desire to be an integral part of it.
“We have a shared responsibility to build on our commitment at levels to be sure the lake and its environs are protected,” Clinton said at that first summit.
Davis said the three most important things go come out of the summit were:
“The creation of the Environmental Improvement Program (EIP): Bringing together state, local, nonprofit and private partners united under one coordinated restoration program was a game-changer. No more fragmented, agency-by-agency approaches.”
“The massive investment commitment: Nearly $2 billion flowed into Lake Tahoe over the next two decades, including through substantial California bond funding. That kind of money doesn’t materialize without the momentum a presidential summit creates.”
“The bipartisan model of collaboration: As President Clinton said, he came to show the nation a place where ‘everybody is working together in common cause.’ I saw that firsthand, and the trust built at that summit produced results for decades. The summit became an annual tradition.”
Clinton returned in 2007. Al Gore, who was vice president at the inaugural summit, gave the keynote in 2013.
“Here in Lake Tahoe an increase in air temperature means more precipitation that falls as rain and not snow. Snowsports are threatened. Ski resorts all over the world are threatened,” Gore said 13 years ago. He noted that the centerpiece of Lake Tahoe’s economy is tourism and that without snow and a pristine lake, that economy evaporates along with the snow and clarity.
All concerns that continue to resonate today.
In 2017, Babbitt returned to Tahoe for that year’s summit, where he was one of the speakers. At the time he was advising then Gov. Jerry Brown of California on environmental issues, and was asked by Brown to attend.
“I believe the summit’s legacy is best measured by results. Hundreds of projects completed — streams restored, 150 miles of bike and pedestrian routes built, 729 miles of roadways upgraded, tens of thousands of acres of hazardous fuels cleared. And most importantly, Lake Tahoe’s water clarity stopped declining and began to reverse. That alone vindicates the entire effort,” Davis said. “When I look back at my career in public service, Lake Tahoe stands out as proof that when leaders at every level of government align around a shared purpose, transformative conservation is possible. None of it happens without Harry Reid and Dianne Feinstein. Their vision and tenacity — they kept the summit going year after year and never let Washington forget about Tahoe. I’m proud of the role California played — and the role I played — in making that happen.”
Note: A version of this story first appeared in Tahoe In Depth.
Emotional roller coasters could be the definition of most love stories.
In The Things We Leave Unfinished (Entangled Publishing, 2021) author Rebecca Yarros weaves the tale of two love stories into one book.
Sometimes you just need a read that keeps your attention, but isn’t about anything real. Though, one can easily argue relationships are about as real as it gets. But when it’s fictional people, well, it’s pure make believe.
But any good writer will make you care about the people on the pages whether they were made up or not. Yarros does just that.
Part of the book is about two people who find each other during World War II, one half of the other couple is their great-granddaughter. Chapters go back and forth between wartime and essentially present day. It’s easy to follow and the integration makes sense early on.
Most of the time I was eager to get back to listening to the book. It was full of hope, despair, love, reality, anger, fear, strife, heartache and more love.
Toward the end, though, I felt like it was getting a bit repetitive, that it was time for Yarros to wrap this up. Keep reading or listening, I didn’t see the ending coming. Sometimes it’s easier to tell the truth from the grave. Read the book and that last sentence will make sense.
If the road to hell really is paved with good intentions, it’s easy to surmise where those who thought it a good idea to introduce nonnative species to Lake Tahoe will end up.
Then again, with wildlife biologists and others working feverishly to re-establish Lahontan cutthroat trout (LCT) in the lake, maybe another road is being paved for those who committed the earlier misdeeds.
LCT are Tahoe’s only native trout. They are on the federal engendered species list.
Logging, overfishing, dams and other water diversions along with the introduction of nonnatives led to the demise of the Lahontan cutthroat in the 1930s.
Other native fish at Lake Tahoe include tui chub, Tahoe sucker, mountain whitefish, Lahontan reside shiners and speckled dace.
Mackinaw, also known as lake trout, were first introduced here in the late 1800s. To this day one of the things they dine on are the LCT.
Millions of dollars are being spent on re-establishing Lahontan cutthroat trout to Lake Tahoe and other nearby lakes. (Image: California Department of Fish and Wildlife)
This century the feds along with both states have been working to bring LCT back to Tahoe and its tributaries, as well as to Echo and Fallen Leaf lakes. Nevada Department of Wildlife since 2022 has stocked Tahoe with 100,000 LCT.
The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service proposed the reintroduction of the native species to Fallen Leaf Lake in 1999, with the first stocking occurring in 2002.
The USFWS hatchery in the Carson Valley is the main source of LTC that are stocked at Tahoe and other Sierra lakes.
“In part we are trying to fix the problem we created,” Sam Sedillo, NDOW fisheries biologist, said.
The purpose to stock Tahoe, he said, is for sport fishing. The fish are tagged, with the hope people who catch them will report data back to his agency for their research purposes.
While Sedillo is optimistic about the studies going on at Incline and Third creeks in Incline Village, he said it’s too soon to know if LCT will be successfully re-established in the basin.
2012 was the first time Lahontan cutthroat reproduced naturally in the Lake Tahoe Basin in more than 70 years.
The goal is to have Third Creek be home to spawning cutthroat without rainbow trout able to make it up the same passage.
“We are not taking rainbow out of tributaries,” Sedillo explained. “What NDOW does with rainbow trout at the structure is we tag them. We will spawn fish onsite, take them to the hatchery, and release them back to Tahoe downstream so they are not moving into the tributary to spawn.”
Cross breeding of rainbow and LCT would eventually lead to the demise of the latter.
Lahontan cutthroat trout is Nevada’s state fish. The largest one to be reeled in—41 pounds—was in 1925 at Pyramid Lake.
Nevada and California’s wildlife departments are the main agencies working on LCT; however it’s a collaborative effort that includes the Washoe Tribe, Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, USFWS and Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit.
“For TRPA, recovering this native species is both a goal of the environmental threshold standards for wildlife and a major project of the Lake Tahoe environmental improvement program,” Jeff Cowen, TRPA spokesperson, said. “The biggest challenges for the recovery effort include reconnecting habitat by removing fish passage barriers in streams and rivers like bridges and culverts installed during Tahoe’s development. Also, hybridization with rainbow trout which share spawning ground and predation by Mackinaw trout which sometimes feed on their eggs.”
A West Shore project could be good news for the LCT. Caltrans is replacing the bridge at Meeks Bay, which ties into the tribe’s restoration of Meeks Meadow, while the Forest Service is removing the historic marina and making improvements to the creek. A goal is LCT will spawn again in Meeks Creek.
Tens of millions of dollars have and are being spent on getting Lahontan cutthroat trout to call Lake Tahoe and its tributaries home again. It’s all for sportfishing and to restore the wrongs committed years ago.
Zach Gordon, a boat captain and guide for Tahoe Sportfishing, calls the efforts wasteful and unsuccessful.
For years there has been a concern that LCT will decimate the rainbow trout population, which would impact the sport fishing industry.
Common nonnatives in addition to Mackinaw and rainbow trout include brown trout and Kokanee salmon.
Other fish seen and caught in the lake that are obviously are not native include goldfish being dumped from personal aquariums. Some have grown to 15 inches long. Largemouth bass, bluegill and crappies are other species the natives have to compete against.
What no one plans to do is remove the nonnative trout and salmon.
“We are not going to permit or go out and haphazardly remove sport fish in the lake for something that isn’t guaranteed,” Sedillo said. “An effort to remove nonnative fish is not worth it any shape or form, and it would not be successful either.”
Emotional roller coasters could be the definition of most love stories.
Amen!!
Beautiful!
Thanks for sharing ... I have no idea if we were near Likely! It was all new to me.
Well put.