Tim Hearden
A sign advertises the Garden of Lights, a Christmas light display in Redding, Calif. Thousands have descended on Redding, Calif., from throughout the West Coast for a Christmas light display.
In the community where I live, December was downright normal. Or, as normal as any smallish town could be in 2020, but certainly more normal than most of the West Coast.
Residents of Redding, Calif., at the very northern tip of the Central Valley about two hours and change north of Sacramento, spent most of the year as the outlaws of the COVID-19 pandemic. It started in May with a private rodeo in Cottonwood, just south of here, whose crowd of over 2,000 people gained national media attention and a rebuke from Gov. Gavin Newsom.