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Posts published in “Essays”

Ranching Near Laytonville, 1902-1907

When we were growing up around Laytonville in the 1900s, Papa used to say that folks in California need never go hungry if they have piece of ground and are willing and able to work.…

Water & Power in California

Some sleuths have a detective gene. One of them is my brother Adam, a PI for the past 40 years who tells me that everyone lies: cops, criminals, judges and lawyers. I think of Mark…

Cookies to Kodiak

Christmas Cookies. Just the thought of warm freshly-baked cookies gives one a cozy, fuzzy holiday feeling. That’s what I was thinking when, a couple of days after Thanksgiving, I realized that soon Christmas would be…

Christmas 1918

Christmas fell on a Wednesday in 1918. Letters were still arriving in Mendocino from men who had fought the War to End All Wars. Though the armistice had been signed a month and a half…

The Ghetto Expert

A put-down of George Butterworth, the head of gang-related prosecutions during Terence Hallinan's eight years as San Francisco District Attorney, drew a response from AVA reader Jim Miller, a retired SFPD officer. He wrote that…

The Arrival of Vaccine is a Reason for Optimism

The roll out of both the Pfizer and Moderna COVID vaccines have gone much more smoothly than many other aspects of battling this pandemic have so far...

Uncrowning The Crown

Watching the Netflix show, The Crown, now in its fourth season, I reminded myself that when I lived in England in the mid-1960s, I never stood in movie theaters when “God Save the Queen” played, and when…

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