To do this job, says Bob Anderson, ‘You gotta be a little horsey.’

At 79, Al Costa may be the state’s longest-tenured active private investigator. Armed with computer databases and “a built-in BS detector,” he delights in exposing fakes and frauds and reuniting families with lost loved ones. His motto: “When in doubt, check it out.”

My mother introduced me to the ukulele. I think I was 7 or 8. I  can still see her leaning against the kitchen counter in our house on  Newport Street in Denver. A Chesterfield smolders in an ashtray. She’s strumming her ukulele, waiting for the soft-boiled eggs to cook. It was years before I realized
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The crime’s seeds were planted when the trio played a what-if game about kidnapping a bunch of kids. Then, for a year, they expanded and planned out the unlikely scheme until there was nothing left but to carry it out.

Frank Borrego of Sonora has a job plenty of 20-somethings would love – teaching skiing at Dodge Ridge. At 87, this longtime high school teacher is one of the oldest ski instructors in the U.S. It’s how he defines “retirement.”

Two nights a week behind a downtown Sonora storefront, Dave Fairfield uses fulcrum physics to throw people, including young children, to the ground. Fairfield is
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Staying in top physical condition is as simple as playing with a three-and-a-half-ounce ball and doing the downward dog. That’s according to one Tuolumne County
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