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Posts published in “Essays”

A Short History Of Early Mendocino County

Feliz Creek at Hopland is a parched summertime expanse of dry streambed barely discernible as a water course. Only when it comes alive in the winter as it runs off from its headwaters in the…

Gatsby/Trump, A Century Apart

Way back when I was an undergrad student at UC Santa Barbara, a fair number of Vietnamese refugees had been and were being relocated to the “student ghetto” of Isla Vista. Some of them even…

Democrats, Party Of Long Noses

It’s hard work being a Democrat these days. If it isn’t the lies and deceptions, it’s the dishonesty and denials. And that’s just the stuff they tell their own party members. Sadly, the average Democrat…

Russian Gulch State Park Waterfall Shortcut

I first heard about a faster way to the waterfall in Russian Gulch State Park years ago, but never tried it, because who needs a shortcut when the long way is so beautiful? Yes, the…

A Night To Remember

HarvestFest 2007 at Navarro the late Fall night in 2007 was a huge success. The organizational abilities of Dave Evans, proprietor of the Navarro Store, and co-organizer, Megan Nelligan, in not only attracting big name…

Invisible Men

Fort Lawton doesn't exist anymore – not as an Army base and not in historic memory, unless you come across “On American Soil” by Jack Hamann (University of Washington Press, 2007). In 1944, 43 Black…

Busted

On November 22, 1977 I left a “Sheila and Jessie” concert at the Garberville Theatre and headed north toward Eureka to UPS a box of canning jars full of trimmed weed, the first pound I…

Ives At Election Time

The iconoclastic American composer become cultural monument Charles Ives was born 150 years ago last Sunday. Ulysses S. Grant was then in the midst of his second term as president. Ives’s father George, the formative…

Our 21st Century Genius

I’ve neglected watching television and most of its mutations for several years, and this makes me less than well-informed on news and developments. Indulge me if I speak the obvious, but was the recent launch…

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