John Wheeler and James Anthony escaped from the county jail in Ukiah in the dinner hour of November 7, 1879. They employed a Babbitt metal key to unlock their cells and a door to the…
Posts published in “Essays”
This is our final part in the series looking at the 1918 Influenza Pandemic. It started in early 1918 and lasted about two years, officially ending in April 1920. During those two years, it went…
Disturbing news suggests baseball has grown delirious from ill-considered changes made by owners unfamiliar with the game’s history and traditions. Alarmed, son Lucas and I launched a 250-mile roundtrip journey to Oakland to assess baseball’s…
Wow, a double whammy, losing a loved one and discovering you are to inherit a loving gift from them, as they left a Will. Prepare for a journey into the Kabuki theater of the macabre…
For the last several years I've been on Sacajawea's trail, literally from Montana and Idaho to Oregon. Of course Sacajawea means Lewis and Clark. Part of the trail my brother was working as a tourist…
Last week's Philo Mill story left off at the encounter between the mill Boss, Jack Davies and the sitdown strike participants gathered sheepishly on the greenchain. This week's rest of the story begins where I…
Timber Harvest Plans (THPs) are like demure invitations to dance. A timber company sidles up to Cal Fire, which extends its soft hand. The music is an ancient minuet, its steps designed almost fifty years…
The pursuit of the Mendocino Outlaws, wanted for the murder of two men, extended from October into November. The posse searched for the three remaining fugitives from the coast to the Eel River to Round…
After he made New York City his base in 1970, Alex Cockburn and I became friends. We were in political sync about many things but not about the Civil War in Spain, where Claud Cockburn…