Winging my way through the notebook while wondering if that really was a stealth bomber that recently crashed at Guam, then how did they find the wreckage? ...

Meanwhile, that erstwhile group of supporters for the Auburn Placer Performing Arts Center (APPAC) apparently did just as their leader, Paul Ogden, recently suggested.

Faced with the daunting task of raising $125,000 as its share of the upcoming marquee project, the board had been politely but forcefully informed that it was time for those leaders to reach into their own pockets.

What Ogden was up to was to have the board members show their bona fides.

“We really can’t ask other people to contribute to the project without first demonstrating our own dedication,” was the way Ogden put it, neatly equating cash contributions with the professing of support.

Well, as board member Monroe DeJarnette put it: “We came through.”

According to Ogden, the just completed Board Pledge Campaign “raised our share of the funds needed for the marquee proposal.”

Ogden said that although final bids aren’t in yet, the building of a marquee for the old State Theater probably will run about a quarter-million bucks. The city, through Project Auburn, has already pledged to take care of half that (mostly through in-kind labor and materials), leaving the APPAC board responsible for the other half.

“Project Auburn is scheduled to work on it during the last week in May, and we expect to see the marquee installed by the end of July,” Ogden added.

Ogden also said that they brought some equipment into the theater last Wednesday to see if the old cinema had those dazzling ceiling murals that many movie palaces of that day had.

“All we found was some painted ceilings, but we’ll make another try later on,” he said. ...

No place like Holmes: City councilman Mike Holmes, who left the Fourth Congressional race just at the right time, says he’s not through with politics.

He told the Meddlers that he was running for a seat on the Placer County Republican Central Committee, which to my way of thinking is somewhat akin to volunteering to test hand grenades in a closet.

Holmes said the current status of the county GOP usually results in not enough candidates for the central committee’s available seats.

“So then we wind up with just enough people volunteering so that there’s no election, or worse, where there are not enough candidates, and the central committee winds up appointing their friends,” he said.

“What I’m trying to suggest is that we get enough people to run so that there’s a real election. Without a vote, central committee members don’t have that gravity of having been voted in by their peers,” Holmes added.

With that in mind, he’s tossed his hat into the ring, and is actively recruiting other would-be candidates to file before the March 7 deadline.

Of course, there could be some problems, such as the current entrenched leaders yelling and screaming that Holmes’ efforts might amount to a takeover by Progressives (and we all know how close we’ll come to the Apocalypse should that happen).

“I hope this doesn’t get construed as a battle between RINOS (so-called Republicans In Name Only) versus the Neocons,” Holmes said, adding that it’s time the local GOP organization returned to Ronald Reagan’s Big Tent idea.

No doubt Reagan, whose famed 11th Commandment insisted that “Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican,” probably wouldn’t have liked the idea of a central committee endorsing one party member over another in a primary. ...

Sorry, Charlie: Charlie Brown may have thought he was a slam dunk for the Democrat nominee for the Fourth Congressional District, but he may have a primary battle on his hands after all.

John E. Wolfgram, a Foresthill resident, recently pulled papers to run against him.

Wolfgram is considered a gadfly by some, but others point to his seemingly perennial legal battles to ensure that the Constitution doesn’t become merely a piece of parchment in a museum.

He hasn’t officially got into the race, but told me that the delay is caused only by his work on position papers for the upcoming campaign.

The self-professed “blacklisted attorney” says the biggest problem with our election process is “nobody discusses the issues anymore.”

Judging by Brown’s earlier political effort, in which the decorated veteran seemed to steer every stump speech into a version of “How I won in Cambodia,” Wolfgram has a valid point.

Himself a Vietnam vet, Wolfgram earlier had published a Law Review article purporting that the judicial system had stolen the right to petition. He’s also big on ending government corruption and limiting government’s right to grant itself legal immunity. ...

You reap as you sew: One of the things that makes this area as close to paradise as we can get is a bounty crop of great kids. Among the current crop is Dena Hangaard.

For her Placer High School senior project, Hangaard is making quilts for HIV/AIDS orphans in Ethiopia as part of the Quilts Without Borders program.

She’s getting some assistance from the local Foothill Quilters Group, but can use some help, especially with fabric.

Form more info, give her a call at (530) 885-4612.

Jim Ruffalo’s column runs Wednesdays and Sundays in the Journal. He can be reached at jmruffalo@yahoo.com, or post a comment at auburnjournal.com.