There’s nothing funny about suicide, unfortunately; one cannot employ humor to mitigate the horror, not and remain within the bounds of humanity and good taste. It’s just too sad, and even though I crack wise…
Posts published in “Essays”
The drought has reduced California’s water supply to an all-time low, prompting officials to mandate strict cutbacks in urban communities. Farmers, who went unaffected by the regulations, have said they have already made enough sacrifices…
Trust is a tricky thing. Long ago, I held writing workshops for groups of eight people meeting for two hours once a week in my living room, each course lasting eight weeks. At the outset, I would reiterate what I had explained to prospective participants when they called to sign up for the process: we would be doing my original writing exercises and there would be no lecturing or criticism or analysis of anything we wrote, by me or anyone in the group, and no one had to read aloud anything he or she wrote unless he or she wanted to.
June 24th brings us to one of the littlest known stories about major league baseball. It began in Ipswich, County Suffolk, England in 1854, on July 24th, with the birth of Richard Higham. Before Dick…
Dear Steph, I am a Dubs fan. Always have been, always will be. I pass by Oracle Arena every day to and from work. Traffic is so bad on 880 I often get to admire,…
Buck Miner, Mattole’s 90-year-old blind troubadour, celebrated the North Forks in a lyrical book, trailing a contemporary of his father, a salmon named Henrietta, as she returns up the river. Five miles from the Pacific,…
The Pacific-slope Flycatchers who entrusted a corner of this ranch house for their nest have fledged their baby Flycatchers and moved on, leaving behind a beautifully constructed, but empty, nest. It's possibly the same Flycatcher…
What's your favorite type of music? Chances are it's from the time you were young, probably even a teenager. This is likely due not just to the memories songs can evoke like nothing else, but…
When my daughter was getting a divorce a while ago I sent my grandson a pup tent and told him to go sleep in the backyard. I told him sometimes a guy’s got to hide.…