Flocks of sandhill cranes fly overhead during the day, millions of the birds wintering in our river valley. They choose more or less V formations, but not as pronounced as the Canada geese do. The…
Posts published in “Essays”
Marcia and I are standing in line at See’s Candies in Santa Rosa, two days before Christmas 2014. See’s Candies is owned by billionaire Warren Buffet and has more than two hundred outlets throughout the west, most of them in California. Some of my earliest memories are of chocolate caramel lollypops from See’s. Hard as rocks and long lasting, those delicious teeth-rotting suckers were two for a nickel when I was a little boy—gateway drugs to a lifetime of chocolate addiction. Warren Buffet did not own See’s when I was a boy, and when he bought the business from the founders, he was wise enough to retain the winning formula: rich chocolate candies sold by matronly women in shops reminiscent of small-town bakeries.
During my periodic visits to Anderson Valley in recent years, I often told recently arrived residents they had not yet experienced a true Anderson Valley winter, one with big storms that lasted days, came often…
It's sad when people die, especially when they are taken violently or unexpectedly. I don't like it when this happens to people I know and I don't like it when I'm forced to participate via…
A week ago, two big stories had just broken: "Senate Exposes CIA Torture" and "Sony Chiefs' Racist Emails Revealed."In response —and in concert— the National Security Apparatus denied the torture charge and Sony staged a…
I started writing stories when I was six. My first stories were essentially transcriptions of stories I had invented and told to my friends and classmates. I knew from the get go I would have to practice writing, just as one practices a musical instrument, in order to get good at writing stories. By the time I was ten, writing had taken a backseat to sports. I was a total jock until I was fifteen and severely crippled by a disease called ankylosing spondylitis.
When the rain let up and the sun went down, it started to get cold out. The soggy skies had kept it somewhat milder and sleeping out in the park was OK. Not great, but…
Derek Jeter, the now immortal New York Yankee. I add in New York because that's where I grew up, a blue blooded, pinstriped Yankee fan. But fear not, I've lived a longer life here in…
The authors of a new study on the vulnerability of road infrastructure to climate change say impacts will happen more quickly than anticipated and need to planned for now. A final version of the study…