I have seen the future of footgear, and its name is Hey Dude. Despite the improbable brand label, Hey Dude shoes will soon sweep the country like hula hoops, Beanie Babies and Taylor Swift all…
Posts published in “Essays”
Thomas Hardy’s poem ‘A Christmas Ghost-Story’ was published in the England’s Westminster Gazette in December 1899, two months after the start of the Second Anglo-Boer War. The ghost is that of a soldier, and the…
It’s a hot quiet weekday morning in Falls City, Oregon, which is more of a town than a city, at least by the standards of a northern Californian who has lived in Santa Rosa and…
Forget the Christmas tree and Saint Nic’s suit, it is music that marks Germany’s greatest contributions to the holiday. Aside from any number of carols, there is the ubiquitous Messiah, like Handel himself, to be…
A man’s what he is, not what he used to be Never pray for a new king A job is fine but it takes too much time To be on a secret’s no blessing Proverbs…
Say what, and to whom, and why? Such are the questions being asked these days by those who want to say something. And those questioning what those wanting to say something mean to say. Can…
The first rich man to say yes to Ramparts was Irving Laucks, a vivacious 81-year-old who had a nine-year-old son, a millionaire to the tenth power and also a nice guy who specialized, in his…
The excitement of Christmas in our post-war family of six was more than a little girl could stand. There were no extravagant gifts. My plasterer dad only worked when the sun shined and that didn’t…
Ed Denson was still a relative newcomer to southern Humboldt when he arrived in the 1980s. He had spent most of his adult life in the Bay Area. During the sixties he managed the bands…