The playlist of life follows patterns, tends to the familiar. We don’t need Silicon Valley algorithm makers to seduce us into routines. We fall into them ourselves. Once these tastes are formed, we continue to…
Posts published in “Essays”
After a summer’s absence, I am back in The Valley, adjusting to drought- and-fires life here at the vineyard, and going through my list of Boont fables possibly worth telling. This one has been wandering…
One of the first people we met in coming to Westport almost fifty years ago was Lyle Standley. He had heard we had bought the old Kruger Place (then the only house on the west…
Other than the weather, the homeless and the Giants, the most popular topic in Ukiah is our lack of affordable housing. But unlike the weather, the Giants and our ever-swelling homeless population, at least someone…
It was on a Thursday in late May, 1990, that a bomb exploded under Judi Bari’s seat as she and her beau, Darryl Cherney, were departing the East Bay. The two Earth First!ers had spent…
BOOK REVIEW: An Eclectic History of Mendocino County, by Katy M. Tahja. Tahjanjoki Press, Comptche, 2019, 166 pages, $22.00. Katy Tahja, a local retired educator and librarian, defines “eclectic” as “drawn together from a broad range…
There are certain people society has taught us to trust and respect, like doctors, judges and the police. In my life I have found out the painful truth about these people one catastrophe at a…
Samuel Carr, who turned state’s evidence against his fellow Mendocino Outlaws, served two years in the state penitentiary then gained his release in May, 1882. Later that year, Doc Standley was elected Sheriff of Mendocino…