I had no idea that Nellie was an alcoholic. One night I woke up and noticed she wasn't in the bed; I went downstairs and found her in the kitchen with a cup in her…
Posts published in “Essays”
I doubt that I'm the first person to wonder where it is they're coming from, when the cows come home; you don't see a lot of cows, not at home. If there's grazing to be…
Lee grew up here in the Ukiah Valley, attending grade school and high school, graduating in 1964 — then he went off to Napa Junior College for awhile. He is married to his high school sweetheart, Alma,…
“California Puts Mandatory Curbs on Water Use” reports the April 2 New York Times long article at the top of the front-page. “Steps to Confront Record-Setting Drought,” the sub-headline reads. The article describes Gov. Jerry Brown’s executive order—California’s first time restricting water use.
In the San Joaquin Valley heartland town of Livingston, located along Highway 99 between Turlock and Merced, the United States' most lucrative wine corporation, E&J Gallo, operates the world's largest winery: a place where serried…
What follows is unclassified. At least as far as I know. It comes from my fading memory and the so-called "open literature." The connections, if any, are pure speculation on my part. This train of…
It was a bad day. A monumentally unpleasant, seriously discommoding, entirely disagreeable sort of day. In the Bad Day annals of the Bad Day pantheon, it occupied an honored spot on a tasteful display, dramatically…
You must sometime experience the irrepressible charm and extensive knowledge of Katy Tahja if only to stand around pretending to look at the books of the Gallery Bookshop in the town of Mendocino while she…
The day before Opening Day of Baseball Season 2015, Lon Simmons died at the age of ninety-one. Lon and his broadcasting partner Russ Hodges were the San Francisco Giants radio announcers when I was a boy and a teenager, and Lon’s voice and laconic style are etched in my memory as deeply as the voice of any close relative.