As I've described previously Floodgate Store was a complex retail business operation with long daily hours. During the day Marguerite Avery was the sole attendant at the deli, convenience goods, bar and gas pumps part…
Posts published in “Essays”
Bridgewater, Massachusetts, February 28, 2021 – At the end of February, I went to Gillette Stadium about 20 miles west of home in Bridgewater, Massachussetts, and got my vaccination, first round. Sunny day with a…
After the ambush of October 15, 1879, that killed two civilian members of a posse, the four outlaws escaped into the forest east of Mendocino. In town, suspicions spread. About half of the original twenty-one…
March 3, 2021 — When Ferlinghetti died I thought maybe I should write what I knew about Shig’s accusation. But maybe I shouldn’t. Why tarnish the reputation of a man everybody respected (including me)? I…
(research by Deborah Silva) Wednesday, July 9, 1919 — Mendocino County's celebrated law man, Sheriff Ralph Byrnes, was in Fort Bragg when he got the chilling news: a newlywed woman was found murdered in her…
They’re demonized and exploited, revered for their youth and reviled simply because they’re young. They are today’s teenagers, the post-millennials, who came of age during Trump’s nightmare presidency, the flowering of the Black Lives Matter…
On October 15, 1879, four gunmen, intent on robbing the county sheriff, ambushed a posse of civilians in the woods east of Mendocino. Store owner Tom Dollard was murdered on the spot. Townsman Jim Nichols…