SWEETER YEAR: For Rosh Hashanah, which began...

SWEETER YEAR: For Rosh Hashanah, which began at sundown Monday, many of Orange County’s estimated 100,000 Jews are eating foods symbolizing sweetness, blessings and abundance. . . . Rabbi David Eliezrie said the holiday celebrates the coming of a new year with an emphasis on charity and repenting sins. “We dip challah (bread) in honey and after, on the first night, we dip a piece of apple in honey with the hope that God will bring us a sweet, good year.”

CAMP REMEMBER: For more than 25 years, Garden Grove resident Shiro Nomura, a Japanese American interned during World War II (B1), has been collecting mementos from his relocation camp in Manzanar about 235 miles north of Orange County. . . . Now they’re on exhibit at an Inyo County museum, including reminiscences on the camp, its guard towers and big searchlights. “It was said that the street lights of nearby Lone Pine were turned off at night,” he wrote at the time, “because the searchlight beams of Manzanar kept the town well lit.”

DREAMING: Barbara Eden, the genie in the 1960s TV sitcom “I Dream of Jeannie,” will be in Santa Ana Wednesday morning at Planet Hollywood, but her biggest fans in Orange County may miss the ceremony. . . . Josef Rodriguez says he and roommate Alfonso Luna, who have a carload of Jeannie memorabilia in Garden Grove (E1), can’t get tickets and probably couldn’t use any. “I’d like to meet her,” Rodriguez says. “But if I take off work, I’ll get fired.”

PUFFIN’ POSSE: Maybe you don’t think Walt Netschert of Orange should have any rights. But Netschert--Capt. Huff-and-Puff--who gained notoriety with his plastic helmet that allows him to smoke without bothering others, is making his move. His Puffin’ Posse has lobbied more than 40 local businesses and agencies over smoking rules. Says Netschert: “We came up with some shocking, provocative things.” Such as: the city of Orange doesn’t want its firefighters smoking--on or off the job.