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Posts published in “Essays”

Humco Sheriff: Jail Assault Reflects ‘New Reality’

The attack of a corrections deputy by inmates has led Humboldt County Sheriff Billy Honsal to call attention to the impacts of the state’s public safety realignment and increasing crime and gang activity. Honsal held…

Know Your Snitch

The letter arrived in the mail. They turned me down. Mendocino County refused to issue me a business license for short-term rentals. The Mendocino County Board of Supervisors must be high-fiving on that. Brown and…

3,768 Miles Of Backroad America

I’m weird. I admit it. I go on a 3,768-mile car ride through Eastern and Midwestern back roads and I find the strangest darn things to get excited about, or question. After two weeks on…

Manfully Hanged

The history of Mendocino is dotted here and there with mortal crimes. In the broadest sense, the early years following the California Gold Rush filled the calendar with mass murder of the indigenous population. After…

That Clancy Sigal Sound

I learned of Clancy Sigal’s death on July 16th only on returning home Saturday to Ithaca, New York after five weeks on the road. I owed him an email. I’d meant to write him back…

You Get What You Pay For

I was on the yard yesterday morning, alternately running and walking laps — it's just too blasted hot for uninterrupted running, even at eight a.m. — and saw a chap of my acquaintance presenting a…

I Hope I Don’t Go To Jail

It was such a lovely summer. The novel I’m working on was already at 200 pages and more. I decided to take a break. We went to France—Finisterre and Brittany on the Atlantic coast. We…

Here’s To Bud Light Bob

Bud Light Bob has died. A regular at the Forrest Club whose tenure predates my own. I was informed of his passing this afternoon, as myself and Salvadore were his only surviving drinking buddies, and…

The Fort Bragg Mill Site

When the fog rolled in at dusk the Safeway parking lot lights turned the gray to a dusky orange and the asphalt was yellow. Highway 1 murmured in the background. On the far side of…

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