I wanted to let you know I’ll be giving two talks at county venues in June and July.

On Saturday, June 11 catch me at the Rancho Bernardo History Museum in the Bernardo Winery as part of the Rancho Bernardo Historical Society’s monthly Speakers Series. It’s at 11 a. m. and my subject will be “Picturesque San Diego: Snapshots of the Past.” Admission is free.

Picturesque San Diego was published in 1887 by Douglas Gunn, a former editor and publisher of the San Diego Union who also served as mayor of the city of San Diego from 1889 to 1891. The book offers a fascinating visual and narrative tour of San Diego city and county in a bygone era when the humans were literally outnumbered by the livestock. It’s been the subject of a few of my posts. This talk will present more of the book’s photos along with some of Gunn’s text about the county of his time.

To find out more about my talk and the museum, go to www.rbhistoricalsociety.org .

Then in July I’ll be giving a class on “Winners and Losers in U. S. Politics” for San Diego OASIS. It’s Wednesday, July 13 at 1 p. m. at the San Marcos Branch Library, 2 Civic Center Drive. I’ll be talking about how, in the first 150 years of our nation’s history, our “two-party system” didn’t always consist of the same two parties. That history offers some important lessons for our political decisions today.

Admission to this class is also free. It’s class number 709 on the OASIS online catalog. Go to https://www.oasisnet.org/San-Diego-CA/Classes and type in “709.”