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Posts published in “Essays”

Donner, Party Of 81, Er 45

In December of 2001 my dog Jasper the Wonderdog and I were walking up a street called Slalom, approximately 6,500 feet above sea level in the Sierra, on the outskirts of the town of Truckee.…

The Great Flood of 1927

Most people couldn't recall a time like it. For months on end in the midwest of 1927, and across much of the country, it rained steadily, sometimes in volumes not before seen. Southern Illinois received…

Brother Ray Makes My Day

One sunny San Francisco morning in the 1990s I was sitting in my office trying to decide which pile of papers and journals and telephone messages piled on my desk to tackle first, when the…

Family News? None For Me, Thanks

I once described my family as “six abrasive oddballs” led by “parents from Neptune and three siblings I never knew. All the kids ignored each other except when tormenting younger ones, while mom and dad…

Commie Days

I was a delegate representing the Noe Valley to the founding of the Peace and Freedom Party at the Richmond Auditorium in 1968. For the three days that strange assembly had gathered to organize opposition…

Hitler’s Misunderstood ‘White Hope’

On June 22, 1938 thousands of boxing fans poured through the turnstiles at Yankee Stadium. Most couldn’t wait to to boo Max Schmeling, the German fighter they viewed as Hitler’s white hope against African-American heavyweight…

The Gumby Papers

A Friday night search for ice cream in Hades… On a warm Friday afternoon in late May 1974, Terrence and I decided to take “the Raiz Diabolicum,” the diabolical or devil's root, the conquering Spanish…

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