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…
Posts published in “Essays”
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…
At night the band would play paso dobles in the square. When it was time for the tuba solo, the audience became quiet and in the absolute quiet the song of the cuckoo could be…
As a kid during the 50s my favorite movies were sci-fi and monster flicks, mostly black and white budget affairs like Creature from the Black Lagoon, where you could see the zipper up the back…
On an unusually warm July evening for San Francisco, I sit in front of an antique Underwood typewriter in the room where Dashiell Hammett wrote “The Maltese Falcon.” In the former studio at 891 Post…
Javier didn’t recognize their faces, but he had seen the chairs before; white, plastic, cheap. Stackable. Their center of gravity was off kilter. They strained, almost buckled on weak, ill-designed legs to hold the nine…
A few months ago Harper’s Magazine published an article by Rebecca Solnit titled “Abolish High School.” After a brief introduction, she tells about the circumstances that propelled her from junior high school straight to college.