It was the winter of 1956. The Vice President of the United States, Richard Nixon, was trying to convince voters that he would be a wise choice in the upcoming Presidential primaries. His advisers had…
Posts published in “Essays”
Bainbridge Island, Washington. It was 1973. I was eight years old and Hollywood was into disaster movies. Somehow, I fibbed my way with a friend and his teenage, baby-sitting sister into a matinee screening of…
Some 23 years ago I had some free time and I wanted to serve on a Sonoma County Fair Board. This honor is an appointment made by the Governor. Ironically of all the appointments made…
I was still about half drunk when my plane touched down in San Diego. It had been three weeks since I signed my enlistment papers, and I used that time wisely. I had partied. Large.…
When you leave California and return to Arkansas in the spring time, you immediately notice how red the earth is and how green the grass and trees are, and you breathe the scent of pine.…
How much of a joke are New Years resolutions, actually there’re not really funny, have been thoroughly discredited, and exposed as a silly ritual which brings almost zero success or change to anyone, in other…
Floodgate, like history, is Open Every Day. From anywhere in the Valley, you go “down to Floodgate.” Whether you need something as prosaic as flypaper or sublime as white redwood, chances are good you'll leave…
Senator John Sanford represented Mendocino County’s interest in state government from 1894 to 1908. Well respected as a teacher and a journalist, “He has an unusually powerful mind capable of analyzing motives behind deeds” the…
Well that was a Christmas not to remember. First there weren’t any presents under the tree that I didn’t put up in the living room, and I remembered to not decorate it without any ornaments. …