The school gymnasium is just as you remember it: The smell of sweat, the smell of fear; the childhood anguish of an evil room where cross-armed coaches and lesbian gym teachers reside, shouting orders and…
Posts published in “Essays”
I was reading National Geographic this morning and noticed an ad the featured something called Eco Grain. “What in tarnation is Eco Grain?” the headline said. Well, according to the ad, it is grown on…
Not long ago the Ukiah Daily Journal ran an unsigned "In Our Opinion" column entitled "Back to the market we go." The columnist advised readers that, although investing in the stock market involves risk, as…
Call him, just for now, Spartacus. He was two years old when the slavers captured him in 1982 and hauled him off to Oak Bay, near the town of Victoria, on Vancouver Island, British Columbia,…
Hello caller, you’re on the air. Hey, it’s me and I’m sorry but I gotta say that your last caller was so out of it. I mean, they obviously just don’t get living here because…
All right, maybe I exaggerated a little bit. There were a few weeks of spring before summer hit with full superheated force. As I was to learn (and re-learn, year after year), freezing weather can…
Sunday afternoon was another perfect day for possibly accomplishing something, but I spent most of the afternoon mentally and physically preparing for a trial run for our farm's upcoming Variety Show act. Scores of people…
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about Glenn Sunkett's problems firing public defender Linda Thompson. In the following excerpt from this week's Off the Record, prosecutor Jill Ravitch and AVA editor Bruce Anderson weigh…