I have been in the county almost 20 years now. It has probably been the most challenging 20 years of my life. It's been very difficult at times and really tested every character trait and every emotion that I could probably come up with and more — being in this county and coming into contact with the people who live here.
Posts published in “Essays”
Behind the crumbling Anderson Valley High School, Billy Lee held a scuffed football on a weedy field that resembled an over-grazed cow pasture. It wasn’t going to seed, so much as becoming a miniature desert. The ground was harder than the parking lot out front but not nearly as smooth, pocked with gopher holes and tufts of star thistle. Nobody would call this crap turf.
Garberville's Blue Room Bar has a sign on their front door reading, “No Patchouli”. The 'necky' older crowd of loggers, cowboys and country folk seem to find peaceful solace together inside the Blue Room in…
It's Burning Man time again. I'm not going, again. I'm going to say something critical about it, again. And will be mostly ignored and/or vilified, again.
A spokesman for one of the police departments currently under scrutiny for summarily executing illegal lane-changers had this to say in his trigger-happy officer's defense: "Our number-one priority is always going to be officer safety."…
I was put in mind of my friend Elgin this morning when I heard the unmistakable sound of an old Volkswagen Beetle going by. Elgin and I met in 1966, my junior year of high school. He was a massive six-three, a formidable football player, grew up in wealthy family, had his own horse, a new VW Beetle, hunted, drank whiskey, and hung out with other football players and their cheerleader girlfriends.
The night before the Russian River Run, Sally Miklose called me from her motel room in Ukiah because her 16-year-old son Jesse wanted to find out how fast I'm planning to run the next day's…
Giant ragweeds bloom in the fields of our river valley after an unusually wet spring, with vast expanses of the bottoms and low ground temporarily abandoned by modern agriculture. Most of the watermelons have succumbed…
So, you are out on the John Muir Trail (JMT) and nature calls. Your first thought: Why doesn't Nature have a 1-800 number. Of course, Mother Nature isn't calling you on the phone. Mother Nature…