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Posts published in “Essays”

DA History Series – Part IV: Doc Standley

Jeremiah “Doc” Standley was born August 20, 1845 in Andrew County, Missouri, the son of Harrison and Elizabeth Standley. When he was 8 years of age, the family moved from Missouri to settle in California.…

Fishing With Chris Isbell

I moved to the Anderson Valley in the fall of 1971 and this fall it will be 50 years I have lived here. I don't know where the time is gone. In the summer of…

Fred Hampton’s Chicago

After watching Judas and the Black Messiah, I called John Woodford for a reality check. In the summer of 1968 Woodford, then 27, was a staff writer at Ebony magazine in Chicago. His proposals for…

Sam & Marguerite

It's time to get down to the biography of Sam and Marguerite Avery's life in Anderson Valley, 1946-77. In preparation I went back to my archives to find a copy of the local monthly newspaper,…

Clarence Ford’s Ride with Dr. Wheeler

After Dr. John F. Wheeler had been arrested as the suspected ringleader of four other men who ambushed a constable's posse, killing two civilians, the dentist faced an arraignment. Under a second day of questioning,…

Read No Evil

With PC outrage on the rise over several children’s books by the newly “racist” Dr. Seuss, I called up the Ukiah library to see if Dr. Seuss’s head might be next on the guillotine of…

Coming Soon, Flying Carpets

Today we explore the shabby, semi-shady spending schemes of our elected representatives who, failing repeatedly and learning nothing, plunge ahead with billion dollar projects you and I know are idiotic.  (One of) Jerry Brown’s follies…

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