"Oh crap," I thought to myself as my old pickup truck rattled to a stop in front of the barn, "This ain't good.” It was early morning on November 2nd, 2015, and the reason for…
Posts published in “Essays”
When I completed my first prison term here in California back in 2006, I was bound and determined never to repeat the process. It wasn't my first rodeo, but in an extension of the metaphor,…
On June 23, 1941 Joe DiMaggio didn't get a hit. No, his famed fifty-six game hitting streak didn't end there, he was just past half way at the time. It was an off day between…
I blame yellowjackets. If they hadn’t stung me two years ago this week I’d never have become an EMT, sitting long shifts every week in the Anderson Valley Ambulance Barn waiting for impermanence to flex…
Anyone who does crossword puzzles regularly has probably done the New York Times crossword, which is in most daily newspapers, and considered the crème de la crème of that puzzle genre. And perhaps the more…
Written 76 years ago, For Whom The Bell Tolls is Senator John McCain’s favorite novel, also an “inspiration” to Obama. Toward the end of the Spanish civil war, up in the mountains looking over a…
When Arnold Schwarzenegger became governor after Gray Davis was recalled in 2003, Schwarzenegger was the rare elected official who believed with some reason that he had nothing to lose and behaved accordingly. When presented with…
The janitor thought it was a drunk.
He was curled up on the landing of the second floor with his head resting against the wall, his eyes closed, the legs in a strange position—as if he had fallen asleep with his knees tucked into his body and sleep had relaxed his legs without quite completely stretching them out.
The 1935 theatrical cartoon, The Sunshine Makers, created by Van Beuren Studios and distributed by RKO Pictures tells the tale of a community of identical gnomes who distill sunshine into an elixir. Those who drink…