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Posts published by “Tommy Wayne Kramer”

Done Writing Before It Starts, Almost

Son Lucas, a fraction of your age and thus able to control the internet the way you control your shower temperature, recently spent a minute showing me a new thingie on my laptop.  It’s ChatGPT…

The Afterlife, Custom-Tailored

Miss Primwood spent more than 40 years in Ukiah schools teaching English to students ranging from the indifferent to the absent.  Hers was a no-nonsense approach, a stickler heavy on grammar and composition and with…

Tommy Can You Hear Me?

The ability to hear clearly being the last refuge of a guy clinging desperately to middle age, I ignored, denied and resisted the idea I might need a hearing aid. It was different when my…

Misspent Years, Squandered Lives

Suppose you were living in Mendocino County in 1972 and suppose that, being young and idealistic, you wanted your life to have meaning. You wanted to devote yourself to a Cause. Plenty of options: You…

Smoking Kills, But So Does Life

A friend of mine on the Mendocino Coast has tried every recreational drug known to druggies, hippies and doctors, and lots of the prescription meds too.  Drugs she’s sampled include, but are not limited to:…

Improving Ukiah, If It’s Not Too Late

There are many ways to improve Ukiah, and here are a few: 1) No parking in front yards. No more cars, trucks, boats, broken motorcycles, RVs, dead refrigerators or trailers squatting about. Violators ticketed and…

More Ham In Your Cheerios, Dear?

Bought me some ham a couple weeks back. Purchasing a ham would not ordinarily warrant an ordinary column but it was no ordinary ham. It was one of those hand-cured Tennessee hams from a family…

Promises, Promises

As a simple matter of principle, and a tiny dash of “Screw you!’ added for flavoring, citizens should vote against anything having to do with tax increases or tax extensions. Otherwise, how stupid will Mendocino…

Words Ain’t What They Used To Be

Definitions dreamed up in a slow stretch at the column-writing factory: APPLE: Once defined as a fruit varietal, now best known as a cyber-digital entity, and to a lesser extent as a recording label; see…

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