Press "Enter" to skip to content

Posts published in “Essays”

AutoInterview with The Musical Patriot

I’ll be back in Indiana a month from now to play an organ recital devoted entirely to Handel’s music. The performance will be Sunday, March 5, at 4pm in the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center at…

When Giants Strode The Newsroom

There’s hardly such a thing as an old journalist who doesn’t miss the golden era of newspapers and the glamour that went with it.  In fact there’s hardly such a thing as an old journalist,…

My Travels With Wes, Part IV

Wes and my Navarro road trip recounted in last week's Advertiser continued south, stopping next at the Floodgate shopping mall Rock Stop store.  The house across the street on the east side of the highway’s origins have…

A True Story From Boonville, 1971

The great hippie political takeover of Mendocino was still a few years away from that summer day in 1971 when we established our raucous brood in Mendocino County's serene summer hills, not far from the…

Take A Knee

There is an expression in competitive football that all players are familiar with. When a player is injured badly, no matter which team that player is on, you “take a knee.” The teammates and opponents…

Goodbye Tom, Hello Super Bowl LVII

So long, Tom, it’s been an ordeal to watch you win so many Super Bowls and to set so many NFL records. It has been easier to like Aaron Rogers and Patrick Mahomes. Call it…

An Informal History Of Early Mendocino County

Feliz Creek today, where it passes beneath Highway 101 at Hopland is, in the summer, a parched expanse of dry streambed that is barely discernible as a water course. Only when it comes alive in…

Slow Beethoven

A lifelong amateur violinist, Albert Einstein was an avid chamber musician. He would hardly have endeared himself to his fellow players if, when straying from the agreed-upon tempo or missing an entrance, he had tried…

Travels With Wes III

The end of La Nina drought has been like no wet winter I remember in my half century living in The Valley. From the day after Christmas until Wednesday ten days ago over three weeks…

-