Page 4 - Walker Ryan News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Sign up to get The Wild sent weekly to your inbox. Merry almost Christmas. Southern California has its very own Christmas berry called toyon, or California holly ( Heteromeles arbutifolia, for people who know their plants). You’re sure to see it along hillsides and trails at this time of year: clusters of bright red berries dangling from a tall shrub with long oval green leaves. They’re not for eating, just admiring. Supposedly, stands of toyon on local hills were mistaken for holly and attached to the name of L.A.'s most famous neighborhood. “This idea of floral origins for Hollywood i...

Walker Ryan got two important things when he was 14: his first skateboarding sponsor and a box of books written by his grandmother. He can’t remember whether it was the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or his friend’s older brother who got him interested in skateboarding. Forgive his fuzzy memory: He was 7. At age 10, Ryan started sending what skaters call “sponsor-me tapes”; four years later, he got his first sponsor, the sporting goods chain Play It Again Sports. Skateboarders earn their living from sponsorships, and they start young. It was Ryan’s grandmother, novelist Susan Trott, w...