In 1968, five years before the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision guaranteeing women the right to legal abortions (ironically also the year that Pope Paul VI declared his opposition to birth control pills),…
Posts published in “Essays”
Yesterday I went to the San Francisco Department of Motor Vehicles, armed with all ID, to renew my driver's license. The female robo voice called my number and summoned me to "Window Number 21," staffed…
By November of 1770 the English organist, traveler, and man of letters, Charles Burney had been on the road for five months, touring the Continent doing research for his General History of Music; the first of…
Why does Ed Denson get to eat hamburgers, french fries, and a milk shake and I don't? Why does Ed get to live for now, eat anything he wants, and I have to worry about…
Twenty-two years ago, I moved away from Mendocino County and the Northern California coastal redwoods, and I returned to my childhood life outside of L.A. in Palos Verdes to live with my widowed mother and…
I was transferred back to the North Coast in 1965 by Ortho Chemical Company who I had worked for five years. I started with Ortho on the day my first of three daughters were born,…
Every morning at eight o'clock sharp each of the six maintenance organization chiefs had to appear at the morning status briefing in the cramped, table-less headquarters conference room. The chiefs were joined by a supply…
As historic Midwestern floodwaters receded, another “bomb cyclone” attacked the central U.S. this week. It is a time of extremes: to the south wildfire danger builds in New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma. So much for…
The pressure on Humboldt County Supervisor Rex Bohn is intensifying as members of the community say he’s a racist and rally for his resignation in the wake of an offensive joke. Controversy over Bohn’s divisive…