I pinched another one out of my motorcycle seat recently after I made a right turn, and afterwards failed to cancel my non-self-cancelling turn indicator. An oncoming driver understandably anticipating I was about to turn…
Posts published in “Essays”
Among the most alluring of cross-species collaborations is truffle hunting, a pursuit that brings dog—or, more rarely these days, pig—together with man. Women, it seems, are as uncommon as swine in this field. Unearthing culinary…
The pacifiers were sold one to a package. I asked for a dozen—maybe $20 worth back then. “That's a lot,” the clerk said. “You don't know this baby,” I told her. Bill H. was one…
It's all about attention: we all want it, we all need it, so how we gonna get it? There is a finite amount and social media is sucking up most of it. Thousands of engineers…
As an adult, the smartest thing my mentally ill and drug-addicted brother did was to move to the City and County of San Francisco. I was there the day it happened. I had just picked…
That’s the name of a song which reminds me of Ukiah. I needed to visit an appliance store on the north end of town. When we finished leaving a cooler for repair and turned south,…
Last week Willits made the front page of the AVA and the obituary section of the New York Times, where the death of Sally Miller Gearhart was acknowledged. The farewell by Annabelle Williams described Gearhart as “a feminist, lesbian…
On May 13, 1880, a visiting Sonoma County judge sentenced Dr. John F. Wheeler to death by hanging for his role in the ambush slaying of two Mendocino City men in October, 1879. Deputies returned…
Mental illness, with all its many ripples as it winds its destructive way through our families and communities, is a regular and growing topic in Mendocino County, including within the pages of this newspaper. Less…