August, 1990. One morning, towards the end of May, Dave came over to my desk and said, “Well, here’s the scoop of the year: I’ve got AIDS. I’ve given them three months’ notice.” Within a…
Posts published in “Essays”
June 28 A young friend’s band played at the Pride Parade in San Francisco today—their first paying gig! I didn’t share my memories with them. How could I convey the fear that pervaded the city…
In front of the Horniman Museum in the leafy Forest Hill district of London stands a weathered Tlingit totem pole. It is loomed over by the museum’s squat-yet-somehow-also-lofty clocktower and regarded from behind with neo-medieval…
“Just make sure Landovsky doesn’t destroy the place.” The words were Milos Forman’s. It was August, 1980, in the driveway behind a large 1877 Victorian house on Captain Merritt’s Hill in Mt. Kisco, New York,…
Climb the steps at Ukiah City Hall, look up at the building’s exterior and what do we see? A filthy, grimy, mildew-stained surface that would probably take 10 minutes to power wash back to its…
Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Donald J. Trump were born rich. They were born 64 years and 214.3 miles apart in very different times ─ FDR at the cusp of the last century, Trump in the…
Someone very special, my husband’s sister Connie Atkinson, died recently and she knew exactly what she wanted to have happen after her death. She had her funeral arrangements mapped out, but she also planned a…