Press "Enter" to skip to content

Posts published in “Essays”

Curse Lifted

The curse that shaped the life of my grandmother, the lives of my mother and her brother, the life of my brother, and my own life, has finally been lifted. My brother and his wife lifted the curse, and their daughter Olivia, my charming niece, is the prime beneficiary of their heroic reversal of our family pattern, though I feel gifted by that reversal, too.

The Food Of Love

Patches of snow cling to the muddy earth in the city’s picturesque nineteenth-century cemetery just to our north. Down in the gorge immediately to our south the creek builds momentum ever hour as the thaw…

Vaccinate!

Vaccination is one of history's most significant health advances. But California has had outbreaks of measles and pertussis in the past year. California also has a rising number of children not vaccinated for such diseases.…

My Story

My name is Brett McFarland. I was born to Mike and Gayle McFarland on October 28th, 1984 in Sioux Falls SD. My father was a high ranking officer in the United States Army and my mother worked nights as a pediatrics intensive care unit nurse.

Tan Bark

One of the old-time industries in Anderson Valley and the North Coast was peeling and shipping of tan bark. It was a big thing in its day and created a living for many people. The…

Robinson Crusoe Island

This April puts us five years short of the 300th anniversary of the publication of Robinson Crusoe. Daniel Defoe's popular novel about an island castaway is thought to have been inspired by the experiences of…

Prison Tornadoes

We can't see the city of Decatur from inside this prison, but at 9:30pm, we hear the city's sirens wailing in the distance, alarms that signal the worst disasters: floods, fires, plagues of locusts, nuclear attacks, and, of course, tornadoes.

-