Show: On The Town Station: KNCO File: 10:21.mp3 Air date: 2026-10-21 Source: OpenAI whisper-1 · shrunk from 30.7 MB to 6.1 MB --- transcript --- It's 1133 and 66 degrees and it's the day in which Tom Fitzsimmons, I believe, is at Nevada City, Northridge, for On The Town. Good morning, Tom. Well, good morning, Mo. Yes, it's always great to be here at the Northridge in Nevada City. This is just a wonderful restaurant and for whatever reason, the Northridge, I think, is extra special when it gets to be kind of fall because the clouds come in, you got that autumn feel, the holidays start coming in. As a matter of fact, it's a Toys for Tots, a place you can drop off your toys. I'm right here by the front door and no, Mo, I know it's cooler out, but I have not seen the cat out here, but we'll keep an eye out for the cat. Hey, Crystal. How are you? Doing well. Enjoying the rainy-ish weather outside. I just told our listeners, that's what I love about the Northridge. This place has a different feel. It's such a homesy feel, isn't it, when it gets cloudy and kind of stormy? Yeah, it definitely feels like a home away from home. It feels like where you're supposed to be. Do people kick it into gear for chili and stuff like that when it goes this way? Oh, yeah. I know. I get requests for soup every single day, so when we don't have it, it's really sad. You know, we don't talk about your soups enough, but what are some of the soups that you have from time to time? Well, the reason we haven't talked about them is they haven't been as consistent, so we have them when the feeling's right, but like today, we don't, but we've had like a creamed carrot with a garlic Parmesan croutons, and I know, and Southwest chicken, and seafood chowder is one of the all-time favorites. We have, yeah, so we have like a Mediterranean chicken salad. We get a minestrone in every once in a while, and all of them are homemade. All right. Now, you got your little ghost hat on here, so Halloween's going to be special here, right? Yeah, we do a little bit of dressing up every day. Rachel's the big catalyst in that one, so every day that she works, she's full face makeup and costume. We ease into it a little bit more, but have a little bit of that Halloween flavor. Yeah. Now, do you have trick-or-treat stuff happening here? We don't get a ton of trick-or-treaters, but we do offer a special on Halloween for all the families getting ready to go out trick-or-treating, so between two and four, I'm trying to remember off the top of my head. I just made that fire. Yeah, between two and four. Let's go over there. Yeah, we'll walk over there. You bring your little one in. Yeah, see, if I was sharp, I would have grabbed that with me when I walked over to get you. I'm like, I just wrote it, so it's not ... From three to six on Halloween day, which is Saturday, you get one free kid's meal for anybody 12 or under with the purchase of an adult meal. There you go. Oh, no, and kids need to get carved up and all that stuff before they go out trick-or-treating because it's like full contact stuff out there. Yeah, my child won't eat anything. Once we're on the road, it is business. It's serious. Now, do you have a costume you're wearing for Halloween? Yeah, I get to be a dinosaur for Halloween. A dinosaur? Do you have one picked out already? I'm going to be a ... I'm going to be a Triceratops. A Triceratops. A Triceratops. That's very cute. It is. It's warm. It's fuzzy, and my daughter picked it out for me. Do you have the little things on your back that go all the way down? Yep. Yep. A little hood on my head, all the things. All right. It's going to be lots of fun. All right. Anything else going on here? Because you guys always are helping out non-profits and such, and I don't know how we are timing-wise in the month. Right. The holiday season is usually very chaotic for us, so we don't usually do a lot of our fundraising during these months. We start back again in January. We do our ongoing Grass Valley Charter School. If you say that you're from the school, we take 10% of the money from the school. We do a lot of fundraising. We do a lot of fundraising. We do a lot of fundraising. We do a lot of fundraising. We do a lot of fundraising. We do a lot of fundraising. We do a lot of fundraising. We do a lot of fundraising. We do a lot of fundraising. Is the Marine Corps League dropped off your choice for Tots box? I know. We're so excited. Our poor choice for Tots box is always in dismal shape. Our poor choice for Tots box is always in dismal shape. Our poor choice for Tots box is always in dismal shape. I know. We're so excited. Our poor choice for Tots box is always in dismal shape. Our poor choice for Tots box is always in dismal shape. I know. We're so excited. Our poor choice for Tots box is always in dismal shape. I know. We're so excited. Our poor choice for Tots box is always in dismal shape. We're so excited. Our poor choice for Tots box is always in dismal shape. I know. We're so excited. Our poor choice for Tots box is always in dismal shape. I know. We're so excited. Our poor choice for Tots box is always in dismal shape. I know. We're so excited. Our poor choice for Tots box is always in dismal shape. I know. I know. We're so excited. Our poor choice for Tots box is always in dismal shape. I know. We're so excited. Our poor choice for Tots box is always in dismal shape. You do whatever it takes. Yes, yes, they're gonna need some extra help this year. Anything you want to add? I'm just, we're excited about the holiday season and Halloween is full throttle. We've had comments good and bad about our Halloween decorations. Some think it's too scary and some are super excited to come in. We try our best to accommodate but it's definitely our tradition. I'm home alone now. This looks like regular stuff for me. The cobwebs and stuff. I know, I just, we just don't dust all September to get ready. Exactly right. We're just right at home. Which is actually not true because we still keep it clean but, you know, that's the effect. Crystal, happy holidays. Starts here at the Northridge. Thank you so much. We love having you here. Yeah, great being here with Crystal here at the Northridge. Great place to be. Which all the locals come to enjoy themselves. We're gonna take a quick break, check in on Wall Street, then we're on the town with Winterfair when we come back. It is 1138, 66 degrees. Time to chat with Rick Fisher, financial advisor with Ostro Financial Consultants, LPL Financial, member SIPC and, yeah, Rick, you really impressed me with your knowledge of Back to the Future. Way to go. Well, I've only seen the movie probably dozens of times. It's one of my favorites. Yeah, me too. I like to watch all three of them. When I watch one, I like to make sure I see the next two. We do the same thing. Actually, the third one is my wife's favorite. Probably because it has Mary Steenburgen. Could be. I'm not quite sure why she likes it. She just likes that one better than the other two. Okay. Yeah, but they're all excellent. Yes. Well, great knowledge. How about Wall Street? What can you tell us about that? Well, we're up across the board. We were up this morning and we're still up. We've added to it. Currently, we have the Dow up 320 points to 52,816. S&P 500 is up about 57 points to 77.69. NASDAQ is leading the way up 339 points, about 1.3%, to 26,764. Taking a look at commodities, we've got crude oil is off 64 cents to $97.18 a barrel. Gold is up $14 and change to $4,157 an ounce, with silver actually giving back 17 cents to $57.84 an ounce. And the 10-year Treasury, currently, we have the yield at 5.11%. So that is your midday report, I should say. Yeah, and we'll get an update from you following the 5.30 newscast this afternoon. So until then, this has been Rick Fisher of Ostro Financial Consultants, Inc., LPL, inviting you to call us at 273-4425 and discover the difference when you think beyond investments. Have a wonderful afternoon. Securities offered through LPL Financial. Member FINRA SIPC. Investment advice offered through Ostro Financial Consultants, Inc., a registered investment advisor and separate entity from LPL Financial. Discover the stories that shaped Nevada County on History Unfolded, hosted by Tom Fitzsimmons and myself, Mike Stewart, with special guests, the 2nd and 4th Mondays at 9 a.m., brought to you by Mowl Paint and Glass, serving Nevada County since 1949, and Smarter Broadband, local, reliable, high-speed internet. Don't miss the voices, the stories, and the history that make our community unique, right here on KNCO News Talk 830. And welcome back down to town. Tom Fitzsimmons here at the Northridge in Nevada City. Always a great place to come for enjoying lunch or dinner. They have special nights. Rib Night is Thursday. Today could be like artist, we could have like an artist luncheon going on here because Mindy Obern's here, like one of my favorite artists, talking about Winterfair. Before we talk about Winterfair, I didn't have time to get you on to talk about the studio tour. I love your studio, by the way, because you do ceramics and stuff, right? Yes, I do. And then both Roger and I went to Antarctica, and we have beautiful photography up on the walls, too. Did you say Antarctica? Antarctica, yes. They let Roger in there? Well, you know, there are no governments in Antarctica, so yeah, he was allowed in. By the way, the Roger, we're talking about Roger Lewis, what was it like going to Antarctica? Life-changing. Makes you want to live there. It makes you want to live there. So beautiful. Okay, you went at a time of year when it wasn't frozen over, though, right? There's only a small part of the year that you can go, and that's right, but it's still pretty frozen over, but at least we were on a Russian icebreaker, so we were able to break through the six to nine foot thick ice, and it was just amazing, like your own National Geographic special. Wow. That is awesome stuff. Was that a bucket list thing for you guys, Mindy? It became a bucket list, yeah. By the way, there were two helicopters on board, too, so we went to places no man has ever seen. That is awesome. That is awesome. All right, so you had photography and stuff. I don't know how the attendance was and stuff, but I want to make sure people get out to studios and get out to see artists and what they have on display, because it is getting towards the holiday time of year. They make great gifts. Yes, they do, and it was unfortunate, but because there are so many creative people in the community, the open studio tour has gone ballistic, so it used to be about 40 studios. Now, there are over 80 studios, and so it makes it difficult for the artists. Maybe they can increase the number of weekends, possibly, or maybe do two three-day weekends would help people be able to see more. Would you be up for that? I mean, what would you prefer to do? I would be up for that, as long as they don't raise the price too much, yeah, because there's no way people can see all that's out there, and so this would be better. I think they need to do more outreach. We need more advertising in the union. On the community calendars, I ended up going down to the Chamber of Commerce and getting it posted on the community calendar. I shouldn't have to do that as an artist. That's the job at the center. Yeah, okay, so they're going to have to figure that out, that's for sure, because when we're talking about the art that you're doing, as an example of the other artists who are out there, you really do need to meet the artists. That's the nice thing about going to a studio, because you have a hands-on look at what they're doing. You can talk about how it's created, and really the time that goes into works of art. Yeah, exactly, because when people come and they look at my ceramics, they go, God, I've never seen anything like this. That's my cue to tell them how I came up with the design, and it's an origami style of construction with slab work in ceramics. I like being able to describe it. It really helps. Well, you have to describe that a little bit better, it's origami style slab ceramics? I'm sorry, so I found an origami box pattern on the internet. Okay, origami, I understand that, I love origami. So with an origami box with paper, you can open and close it, but you can't do that with ceramics, so I opened it up as wide as I could, added a little handle, and it became a teacup. That also had a spiral that, when you looked down from the top of it, there was this beautiful spiral, so I thought, well, wow, what else can I do with it? So I opened it up to make bowls, I made them longer to make vases, platters, I had this, I call it my Fibonacci fold, because Fibonacci was the mathematician that created the formula for the spiral, and it flowed a lot better than origami box folds. Wow. Now, did you just happen upon that, as far as creating that, you were turning stuff and it just happened? Yeah, no, what I did was, I think one of the websites to go onto is Pinterest. They have all kinds of ideas, and I got the original box pattern off of Pinterest. So yeah, I was very grateful, yeah. That's using high-tech stuff and that stuff, which brings up a point, with something as old as working with clay and ceramics and such, has AI gotten involved with creations and such, as far as kind of coming up with patterns and things like that? And you're making a face like that's a crazy question. Well, no, I have yet to come across any AI-created ceramics, but I wouldn't be a bit surprised. I have to ask Roger this, do you ever talk to her and get that face every once in a while? Every time I talk to her. Every time? Yeah. It's that, are you stupid? Kind of look that she gives. It really was, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah. Wow. I've got a long time there, Roger, without getting that look. So I thought I was on a roll, but maybe not. That comes with being married. Or just being an interviewer. All right, but Winter Fair's coming up. Yes. Okay. Can you explain what Winter Fair is? Well, I would love to. Winter Fair is more than a craft show. It's a Nevada County tradition. As the longest-running art show in the Nevada County Fairgrounds, Winter Fair is truly a show by local artists for local artists. No outside promoters, just guild members volunteering countless hours to create a special juried event that celebrates our creative community. Every item at Winter Fair is handcrafted, giving you the chance to discover one-of-a-kind art, meet the artists, and learn about the inspiration and craftsmanship behind their work. And we have a new little goodie this year. A new little goodie? A new little goodie. They're called Wonder Bags. So for just $10, you can choose one of 50 mystery Wonder Bags each day, guaranteed to contain at least $20 in value. So right away, you double your money. But inside, you might discover original art with some pieces valued in the hundreds, wine-tasting certificates from the Nevada City Winery, and plenty of other surprises. And best of all, the purchase supports the craft guild's community programs, including two new scholarships for Nevada County art students, and projects such as our monthly arts and crafts classes at the Senior Center, where materials and instruction are provided at no cost. So it's a good cause. That's awesome. Now you said this is like the longest-running event? Yes. It's been going for over 40 years. Yeah, the craft guild, I mean, I've lived here for almost 50 years, and I didn't even know about the craft guild until about four or five years ago. Yes, and I've heard that from other people, too, that it's had different leadership, and it was kind of a, I want to say kind of like a private little thing, but it seemed that way. It was like a little group upon itself you didn't hear much about. Yeah. So, you know, the people got in their 80s who started it, and they got tired of that. And yeah, it's a different show now. It used to be more of a Christmas-oriented show, where they had a whole big area set out just for kids to play and, you know, do stuff, but it's not really a Christmas show. It's the Winter Fair. It's preparing for Christmas, so definitely you can get Christmas gifts there, but it's an art show. All right. So you're going to have some of your stuff out there? I take it? You bet. I definitely will. All right. Well, let's take our one break. We are out of town here at the Northridge in Nevada City talking about Winter Fair. We'll continue our discussion in a couple of moments when we come back. The roots run deep for me, Margie Carr, owner of Reflection Skin Oasis. My dad and grandmother came to Nevada City on the Narrow Gauge Railroad in the 1930s. In my early adult career as a dental assistant, I fostered a love for helping and caring for people in their individual needs. Such is the emphasis at my skincare salon, Reflection Skin Oasis, where personalized care and real results in high-tech skincare diagnoses, along with 31 years of experience for finding the best treatments and products for your skin. Come in and enjoy the boutique quality that Reflection Skin Oasis is known for, along with skincare design just for your individual needs. Reflection Skin Oasis, 138 Colfax Avenue, Suite No. 2, Grass Valley, California, phone 530-274-9053 or text 530-277-9706. Uh-oh, I'm late for a birthday party and I need a gift, but Foothill Mercantile will help me out. Located in the heart of Mill Street Plaza, downtown Grass Valley, Foothill Mercantile has been family-owned and operated for 50 years and have something for everyone. They have the most amazing toy selection in Nevada County and have been voted best toy store for 17 years in a row. The stuffed animal selection is dazzling, ooh, should I get the copy bar or the narwhal? And they have games, puzzles, art and science toys, building kits, toy vehicles, dolls, squishies and more classic toys. They also have greeting cards, candy, gifts, housewares, department 56 village houses, seasonal merchandise and more. If I can't make up my mind, I can purchase a gift certificate for any amount I wish. After I have picked something, I went with the narwhal, they will beautifully gift wrap it for free and I'm off to the party. Thanks, Foothill Mercantile. And welcome back downtown. Tom Fitzsimmons here at the Northridge in Nevada City, it's where the locals like to go to get lost as they say, just because it really does have a certain feel. And when it's cloudy out and it starts to feel like autumn, it's wonderful because it's woodsy inside, it's woodsy outside. That's what I love about Nevada City. Winter Fair is a great artist and craft show happening at the Nevada County Fairgrounds. And so let's get to it. It's this weekend, right, Mindy? That's right, the 24th and 25th from 9 to 4 p.m. So how did you get to keep the, first off, admissions only two bucks? How did you manage that? Well, you know, it's just to keep them honest. Otherwise, you know, we raise money with our membership fees and we have fundraisers, things like that. So we can keep the price reasonable and parking is free. Parking is free at the fairgrounds, that doesn't happen at most events. So that is wonderful. So it's very well priced. The thing is, you said, I think it was, what's the term, that it's juried artwork that's out there. What does that mean for our listeners? Well, so we have a board and the board accepts applications and then they decide who they want to accept and who they don't want in. So that's pretty much how it works, yeah. Okay, all right. So what type of artisans are out there? Because you're a ceramicist, so you're going to have bowls and vases and things like that. That's right. We also have Carolyn, who's the president of our group. She does beautiful hand-painted, she'll find, to repurpose, like watering cans, teapots, things like that, and she paints them. Beautiful job. There's jewelry, there's bags, and what else, oh, you know, the llama people have a big booth where they sell socks, yeah, the wool products. The wool products and stuff? Yeah. There's toiletries, well, not toiletries, there's hand cream, face cream, soaps that are all lavender, and the lavender is grown locally, and then she makes them into soap. So lots of painting, of course, and photography. We have a guy that does great wooden pieces. We have one of his birdhouses, it's an owl with his feet spread out, and it's actually a little bird nest, and then people give him stuff to repurpose. So he's now doing these dogs with golf clubs, the golf clubs create the ears, and people are just loving it. That's what I love about artisans, because they're able to see something that people don't see, and all of a sudden, it's like there, and you go, wow, I'm always amazed at the eyes that you have. You probably have the same thing with ceramics and such that you might be having in your mind and all of a sudden create it. Well, yeah, I mean, whenever I walk into a kitchen supply place, I'm always looking for potentials, tools, and textures, things like that, so yeah, the mind is always working towards that. All right, well, it seems like it has, though, a good enough variety that people can do gift shopping, and probably at different price points as well. Absolutely, and not to mention, we will have food there, too. We're going to have a couple of food trucks, and the Elks are having an indoor food thing, and yeah, so it's going to be a whole day event. Yeah, and I think the weather puts everybody in the mood for this. One thing about having a studio tour, and it's really kind of hot out and all that stuff, and it's hard to kind of comprehend gift-giving time and all that stuff, but really, it does feel like the holidays, not just the cowboys that are up here at the Northridge, but it is getting cooler weather. We start thinking about Thanksgiving, then Christmas, and these things are really conducive to that. Yeah, and I did want to mention, too, that unlike the big Thanksgiving show that happens at the fairgrounds, the Winter Fair is just the one main building, so there's maybe about 45 artists, so really easy to see. It's right near the entrance, so yeah. How do you like the Craft Guild? Just because you brought up that you are part of the Craft Guild and stuff, and it is kind of... I know they're trying to get younger people in there and stuff, because I heard that was one thing, that there were people that were getting old, they were dying off, and we were worried about the Craft Guild for a little bit. Yes, yes, that's true, no, but I love it. I love the camaraderie that we have, sharing information about different shows that, you know, successful or not successful. We give workshops to the members, so I had a clay workshop, and now I've got a regular student coming to my class, because she had been to the workshop. So did you get them to kind of fool around with clay and let them kind of spin it and touch it and stuff? Yeah, yeah, so I do my origami thing, and it's basically, it's a square that you cut diagonal corners, and you can fold the cuts, and so it creates a little tray, right? Easy peasy. Easy peasy. She says easy peasy. Have you ever done any stuff, fooling around with clay and stuff? No, no, not at all. I feed her. You just made a funny face when I just asked you that. However, did you do some of the photography that was up there in Antarctica? Yeah, that was my background, was photography, and we went there when digital first came out, so we took like 10,000 photographs. Thank God for digital. 10,000 photographs. We could never bring that much film. Yeah. No, I don't know. Now, are they going to be at Winter Fair, your photographs and stuff? No, not there. No. They're going to, our home is just around the corner. Our studio, our gallery is there. They could come see them there. Anytime. Okay, anytime, yeah. And by the way, Roger did make a video, and that's on YouTube. If you look up Roger Grass Valley, and you'll see Antarctic videos on that station. It's very cool. All right. Are you going to go back to Antarctica, you think? Oh, I'd love to, but the boat has retired, and I think we have to. The boat's retired? Yeah. Roger didn't do something bad, did he? No. No, it was an old boat, and they repurposed it to be a cruiser. It used to be a working ship, and so it's no longer, and the place that it took us to in Antarctica was the best. Most people leave from Ushuaia in Argentina, and go to the peninsula in Antarctica. We were able to leave from New Zealand, and hit the Ross Sea area, where we have a station, McMurdo Station, and it's the one place where you can see emperors during the summertime. Emperor Penguins. Yeah, because the sea ice lasts longer there than in other places, and so they're still out there, and we got to capture them on film. What was the sky like there? I'm just totally fascinated that you went down there. Does the sky look different, like a different blue, or anything like that? Sometimes it looks that way. Yeah, well, you know, it never, since we're there in the summertime, it doesn't get dark, so around between 1 and 4 a.m., you get these beautiful pastel colors, yeah, and everything is pristine, is crystal clear, because the air is so thin. If you're out there, and there's a cloud over the sun, you got to get your jacket on, and everything, but the sun comes out, you're taking off layers, because, yeah, because it's so changeable. It is. Yeah. All right. For Mindy, do you have a website where people can see your artwork and stuff, or are you that techie? No, I'm a little techie. It's called... Tesla outside. Yeah. It's actually, it's TwinStarGallery.com. Twin Star Lane is where we live, so, and it's such a pretty name, I figured I'd name the gallery that, yeah. All right. Well, Mindy Obern and Roger Lewis, thank you for coming on the town. First off, Mindy's going to be part of Winter Fair, that's the artisan and craft show happening at the Nevada County Fairgrounds. It is this weekend, the 24th and 25th, from 9 to 4. There's food out there, free parking out there, it's only two bucks to get in, and it's a perfect time of year to start thinking about gifts for, not only your loved ones, but maybe for yourself as well, as you prepare for the holiday season coming up. And again, I want to thank Crystal and staff for hosting us here on the town, at the Northridge. Always a great place to come for the holidays as well. So that does it for us. We've got ABC News coming up right now. --- end of transcript ---