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Posts published in “Essays”

Putting Food By

Last autumn, I received permission to harvest apples from our neighbor’s tree. I had no idea what variety they were; they looked a bit like Gravensteins, but ripened later and were not very good eaten…

The Less Fortunate

Do you believe that your contributions are really helping the less fortunate? Do you want to know where the tax dollars and honorable contributions for the needy are really going? Have you been told that there are plenty of services, programs, and much help given to the impoverished people in your community? I asked these same questions and would like to share my experience with you.

Confessions Of A Failed Computer Professor

Actually, I was not a computer professor but a junior college part-time computer instructor in the late 1980s at Evergreen Valley Community College in San Jose. I bought a Radio Shack TRS-80 in 1979 when…

Crisis & Opportunity

In 1967, when I was a senior in high school and intending to grow up to be a star of stage and screen, I landed one of the leads in the Woodside High production of the not-so-great musical Take Me Along, based on Eugene O’Neil’s play Ah, Wilderness.

Detroit (Part 2)

Today we go to a ballgame at old Tiger Stadium, in Detroit. Life is good, real, real good. And, MOTOWN, baby, Barry Gordy’s home — Hitsville, USA.

Selecting Naturally: Local Tree Foods

The location of my experiment with tree crops and the forces of nature are right here on a raw, steep 20-acre homestead. The land is on the margin of foothills and valley, the margin of…

The Boys From El Cerrity (Part 2)

We arrived in Stockton in my car of the moment, a '58 Plymouth Fury, a cool car in its day, a sporty two-door hardtop with outsized Cadillac-style rear fins. It had two big 4-barrel carburetors sitting opposite each other on a ram-induction fuel system feeding a huge “hemi” V-8 engine and a speedometer that registered up to 160 miles per hour.

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