Many years ago this summer, I was standing in the Shield's Cemetery at the graveside services for Mickey Bloyd. It wasn't necessary for me to think back to my high school years in Boonville --…
Posts published in “Essays”
Streaming services have inundated the world’s quarantined population. The rising digital waters have distracted and anesthetized viewers, but also, at times, buoyed and instructed them. It is Netflix that has issued the defining entertainments of…
In this moment of shifting historical identities — the Fort Bragg City Council has taken up the question of whether to change the town's name on Monday — it might help to know what the…
Ukiah isn’t Detroit. Or Chicago, where two years ago the city spent more than $113 million on lawsuits involving police misconduct. But neither is Mendo an island, as shown by residents who, in spite of…
Berkeley, CA June 22, 2020 — The Fusion Centers were working overtime this past week. You probably didn’t know. Reading daily newspapers wouldn’t have helped you. Nor would listening to the radio or watching TV.…
Daniel Jeans was born a slave in 1835 Missouri. After the Civil War he made his way to California and to the Anderson Valley, probably in the wake of families he'd known in Missouri when…
When Terence Hallinan asked me to be his press secretary in December, 1999, I was 58 and in my 13th year as managing editor of Synapse, UCSF's internal weekly. The benefits were good and if I…
While many of my peers were celebrating at Woodstock, from August 15 to August 17 of 1969, I was defending America from Communism, irony intended, and more specifically, preparing our squadron of T-28 trainer aircraft…
This reporter and his consort arrived in Navarro on 31 March, 1971. Over prior months we had rented a small cabin above the dump on Pine Mountain, Cloverdale and spent the winter exploring Sonoma and…