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Posts published in “Essays”

Mining Mount Shasta

I am standing at the base of Mount Shasta on a late summer day as rivulets of snowmelt bleed out of rock and fill up a small pool whose waters will join other pools and…

The Invitation

I got an invitation yesterday to the opening of an art exhibit at The Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University in Durham, NC because our family lent a painting to the show a couple…

Proactive Environmentalism

Call them the king and the queen of the endangered monarch butterflies. Ole Schell and Elizabeth Weber, both of whom grew up in a world of privilege, have put their own privilege to work for…

Macy’s Last Stand

Like others, it’s fair to say, or at least like other oldies, I had not purchased any new clothing in a year. I sometimes wore the same shirt and jeans for a month.The only people…

Our Times: An Error of Omission

Margaret Renkl, 61, is a New York Times opinion columnist who describes her beat as “flora, fauna, politics and culture in the American South.” She lives in Nashville where she was a high school teacher…

Painterland

The most famous event in the history of avant-garde literary San Francisco was Allen Ginsberg’s reading of “Howl” at the Six Gallery at 3119 Fillmore St. on Oct. 7, 1955. That frenzied reading, the subsequent…

Aunt Blanche Brown & Indian Creek (Part 2)

Two weeks ago our story introduced us to the life of Aunt Blanche Brown, teacher, historian, community asset.  The episode ended with the fire that consumed her Indian Creek home in January, 1956.  This week…

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