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Posts published in “Essays”

Karen Mathes

Karen Alveen Mathes was born in Oakland, California, June 24, 1951, to Aili and Joseph Mathes, the oldest of five children. She grew up in the Mountain View-Sunnyvale area back when it was semi-rural. Her…

Grandma Stubblefield, an American Frontier Icon

I had visited Susan Stubblefield’s grave in Evergreen Cemetery numerous times, had heard about this early Valley settler’s memoirs for years and finally got around to reading them last month while working on the Aunt…

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the AIDS Epidemic and Me

Dr. Anthony Fauci announced this week that he will be retiring as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a position that he has held since 1984.  I have great respect…

Coast To Coast With Wainwright & The Kentish Quartet

We were just shy of two weeks and two-hundred miles into a walk across northern England, from the Cumbrian seaside town of St. Bees on the island’s West Coast to Robin Hood’s Bay on the…

Petrov: The Man Who Lived In Hendy Woods

When Laura Hopper was a kid, her mother had a friend who lived in a tree. “And I thought he was the coolest thing ever,” Hopper said of the man who lived in the woods…

The Woman In The Window

After ninety minutes of winding, narrow, and tedious backcountry roads without an English-speaking voice on the car radio, we endured a period of silence, the kind perhaps that is inevitable when traveling in close quarters…

Why Anderson Valley?

Why do you live in Anderson Valley? How did you even find Anderson Valley? Unless you were born here or brought here by your parents you have a story about how you ended up here.…

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