REMEMBER WHEN BALLOON MAN drifted low over The Valley on that wintry afternoon in his patchwork quilt of a homemade zeppelin, the airborne object looking as if granma’s sewing basket had turned upside down and…
Posts published in “Essays”
The first time I made money picking wild fungus for the restaurant trade was when a friend offered to let me keep all the gambones (boletus edulis, aka cepes, aka porcinis) I could pick on…
The time will come, though you and I will not be present to witness it, when most everything about our era is forgotten, just as we’ve forgotten most everything about the semi-distant past. Unbelievable as…
Kicking off the 32nd Annual Anderson Valley Variety Show was one of the better opening acts in living memory. There always has to be a dilemma that needs fixing. This year Captain Rainbow’s beloved tuxedo…
"This is Fascism" is the title of a Counterpunch Radio show featuring Ralph Nader that aired March 18. Those same words had crossed my mind two days before. The thought must be occurring to millions…
In the United States the average age of retirement is 65. This is a pretty good age for curtailing many types of activities. Very physical jobs like firefighter, vineyard worker, or construction crew jobs are…
Steve Howe died way too young. He was 48 when his pick-up truck rolled over on a road in Coachella, California, around dawn on the morning of April 28 [2006]. Riverside County authorities said Howe…