He lived in the attic of a four-story Victorian house built after the big quake. Once a queen now more Cinderella, it tilted downward at a slight angle on a despairing street suffused with potholes…
Posts published in “Essays”
You probably knew him even if you never caught his name. You likely saw him driving his red Mustang on the 128. Maybe you saw his huge white fluffy dog named Tinkerbell in that car…
I’d like to say the 2022 baseball season has me all excited, as amped up and thrilled as a front page Ukiah Daily Journal headline like “Women artists at local gallery.” Or golf on TV.…
“I hate traveling and explorers.”— Claude Levi-Strauss, Tristes tropiques (1955) It is an illusion to think that a need to complain about travel is unique to our age of mass tourism. In 1778 Thomas Boswell…
1. Fire Jared Huffman who said, “If you tear out Scott Dam you would have more water” -- a stupid statement. Scott Dam creates Lake Pillsbury which gives year-round water to Lake Mendocino down to…
It was a routine day at the office in the early 70s at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi. I had been transferred to the job of Organizational Maintenance Squadron Commander a few months…
Okay, that's it: no more hookers. As I drove into the capital city of San Luis, mapless with still no smart phone, I nudged myself toward the shopping area but ended up at the wrong…
Spider, spider in the sink Trolling for a simple drink Then I worry late at night Does it linger out of sight I can’t sleep. Again, another night. It’s the thought of death that triumphs…
A Molecule Away from Madness: Tales of the Hijacked Brain by Sara Manning Peskin. W.W. Norton 214 pp. $25.95 Even if you’ve never had any training in science, or know what you know of science…