Posts published in “Essays”

I was born in Rock Hill, South Carolina. My parents signed for me to go into the military so I went in at a fairly young age. I stayed in the Marines for almost 22 years and got out of the Marines in 1994 as a master sergeant.

I have made tracks and left prints fairly extensively across this vast land of ours, being naturally of a nomadic tendency and also of necessity sometimes lamming it outta Dodge mere steps ahead of the…

Less than a month before the first presidential election of December 1788, Francis Hopkinson published his Seven Songs for the Harpsichord or Forte Piano, dedicating the set “To His Excellency George Washington, Esquire.” Hopkinson was a Philadelphia…

In the tertulias of times past, there was always a scholar who knew everything. He remembered names, faces, dates, and data with absolute precision thanks to his privileged memory which was nourished by voluminous, diverse, and at times, useless reading. Any argument would ultimately appeal to him to act as the Court of Appeals.

Early January. Big storm, lots of rain; the electricity goes off for four days. I'm not home. I'm traveling. I return a few days later and there it is: the long puddle of putrid water…

How do you top the story of the Fort Bragg City Council approving an ordinance that provides for cannabis manufacturing within the industrial zones of city limits. With four magic words that at once ignite…

In this interview, Deputy Orell Massey, Mendocino County’s first and only black deputy, looks back... Midnight Rambler Incident — I was on patrol one night and saw a car going about 80 miles an hour.…