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Posts published in “Essays”

Unbroken

For some of us it is hard to believe that World War II ended seventy years ago. I am not quite old enough to have lived through that conflict, but it was an oft referenced…

Boomer

A lot of younger people seem to be under the impression that baby boomers are the selfish “me” generation, who, after a brief flirtation with something that came to be known as “counterculture,” became yuppies,…

Tons of Books

When I was a kid we used the word tons to mean lots. I have tons of baseball cards. You have tons of friends. This week, however, I really did move tons of books, eighty big heavy boxes, of my self-published opuses Buddha In A Teacup and Under the Table Books, from the warehouse where I was paying to store them, to our house, which now resembles a UPS shipping center.

Pope Tom Melcher

The name Tom Melcher rang a bell. So I did a little research. Isn't this the same Tom Melcher who ran for the KYX Board in the last elections cycle? Indeed it is! Melcher was…

Why I Became an Ambulance Driver/EMT

I never overly applied myself in school, which resulted in some mediocre finals and had the astounding consequence that I could not study biology, the only science that held any interest for me. Fortunately I…

Another Dead Dog (1971 to 1975)

Will the person who shot my dog down by Outlet Creek read this? Was she threatening you with her friendly tail wagging? Was it a mercy killing? Target practice? I hate not knowing why she…

Letter from Paris (to Ishmael Reed)

All is well here at our house. Religious fanatics were on other side of town. But religious fanaticism is a threat all the way around the globe. Not just the Islamic stripe either. And freedom…

The Windmill

In the 1940s I remember my grandfather digging a well at our pear ranch. It was not very deep and he lined with wooden boards. He purchased the parts to a windmill and when it…

The Gusts of Globalization

Last month the novelist, screenwriter, and CounterPunch contributor Clancy Sigal, whose most recent book is the vital Hemingway Lives!, sent me the following vignette, a history lesson in the nearly unbreakable union between music and…

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