Payne Green, 88, after getting his first Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. Photo by Kathryn Barnes/KCRW.
As vaccine eligibility opens to more people across California and the country, elderly people without internet or a helping hand are getting left behind.
My landlord, Payne Green, nearly became one of those people.
I’ve lived in a studio apartment above his garage in Santa Barbara for six years. He’s one of those rare, amazing landlords who leaves bags of hand-picked avocados outside your door. When my boyfriend and I asked if we could amend our lease so we could adopt a dog, he quickly agreed. And every December, he gives us a Christmas card with two $50 bills in it that reads “to my adopted children.”
MORE Paul Bullock owns the Eagle Inn, where he and his staff cook breakfast for roughly 60 guests when fully booked. He doesn’t want Santa Barbara City Council to ban natural gas lines in new construction. Photo by Kathryn Barnes/KCRW.
Paul Bullock loves cooking with natural gas. He owns the Eagle Inn, a bed and breakfast in Santa Barbara just a few blocks away from the wharf.
“We make scrambled eggs, bacon. And then on the weekends, we ll do waffles, crepes, pancakes, all the sweet stuff that people really dig,” he says.
His gas stove has two burners, a griddle, and an oven. It switches on and off fast. The heat spreads out evenly. He can flip pancakes while cooking quiche on the bottom. So when Bullock heard about a change in the building code that Santa Barbara City Council was considering, he grew concerned.
Listen 7 min Christmas trees line the streets of downtown Solvang. Photos by Kathryn Barnes/KCRW.
Jule Hus is the place to go for one more ornament for your Christmas tree. Nestled in the quaint town of Solvang, it’s filled with music boxes, advent calendars, and that last shepherd you’ve been missing for your nativity scene.
“Jule Hus is Danish for Christmas House. The attempt is to recreate a European Christmas with the old world flavor,” says the owner, David Watts. His family has owned the shop for 53 years. Shops get creative with their public health messaging. Photo by Kathryn Barnes/KCRW.
2020 in photos: Political battles, civil unrest, and celebrations hit the streets of a pandemic LA
Dec. 22, 2020
KCRW looks back at the year’s biggest events from President Trump’s impeachment trial to the protests against racial injustice, and the celebrations around victories by the LA Lakers, Dodgers, and presidential contender Joe Biden.
JANUARY
The death of Kobe Bryant
The sudden death of LA Laker Kobe Bryant brought the city together in a moment of collective mourning. He and seven others died in a helicopter crash in Calabasas. Hours afterward, thousands of Angelenos flocked to the Staples Center in downtown LA and grieved together.