The first clear memories of my childhood began in the town of Los Gatos, located in south end of Silicon Valley and nestled against the base of the Santa Cruz mountains. Our family had just…
Posts published in “Essays”
For 46 years I’ve been married to a “ferroequinologist.” Know what that is? A person who loves any and all aspects of railroading. They are also known as “foamers” as they foam at the mouth…
Oracle Park is where the Giants play in San Francisco. (It used to be PacBell Park. Can’t tell the corporate sponsors without a scorecard.) Unite Here is a union representing some 270,000 US and Canadian…
She is high off the ground, far higher than is comfortable for most people, as she begins to let go. Her hands are chalked to soak up any perspiration and trace of wetness. Those hands…
In 1934 the French government banned six varieties of wine that had been created years earlier by crossing native varieties —merlot, Cabernet sauvignon, etc— with some hardy American varieties that had been imported in the…
It’s been tough sledding for newspapers the past 30 years. Allow me to elaborate. The first two newspapers I worked on were The Plain Dealer (once the biggest newspaper in Ohio) and the Cleveland Press…
Long ago, the apple industry coined and popularized the slogan, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” A recent study concludes that the available evidence does not support that notion. Still it appears that…
The last of the Mendocino Outlaws to be captured, George Gaunce and Harrison Brown, stood trial in Santa Rosa in the first week of December, 1880. Both had gained a change of venue for their…
Everyone in the northern California cannabis world knew of Frenchy Cannoli who proselytized tirelessly for hashish and who provided a living link to Europe and to the world where hashish was born. Frenchy died in…