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Posts published in “Essays”

No Country For Old Women (Part 4)

I don't keep a ringing phone in my bedroom. Whatever it is, unless it's an invasion from Mars, in which case it wouldn't matter, can wait until I've had a night's sleep, I figure. One…

Costco Comes To Ukiah

They arrived in droves from all points of the county and beyond, rising with the birds and freeing up all available cargo space in their vehicles in order to maximize the Costco experience, which is…

Death By iPod

The iPhone has made universal the paradoxical pleasure of listening privately in public. The casual hello and exchange of pleasantries; an alertness to oncoming steps and the ability to wait politely for a person to…

Life & Death in Mendo, 1905

Examples of the abrupt nature of life often pop up close together. Mendocino County has been no stranger to such occurences. The town of Mendocino's history of dentists remained tainted for years following the relatively…

Boonville 1987

Arturo Flores might be Boonville's least known serial killer. In 1987, Flores would tell his friends that “all anglos should be exterminated.” Then he exterminated one. Maybe he'd exterminated others, too, but we knew from…

Redistricting Fort Bragg

Monday night, July 9, on a breezy summer evening the terminally endangered Fort Bragg City Council met again in regular session to conduct a public hearing on their own extinction under the pending California Voting…

No Country For Old Women (Part 3)

Arrangements are made to send her back to the home and put her in hospice care there. This is good: she goes back into the hands of people who love her, and when she slips…

Death & Dying on the Mendo Coast

Recently when walking in the woods above Point Arena, my pal Michael and I heard hammers banging away. We followed the sounds and came upon a clearing and a construction site. Rob, the foreman, and…

Local Vets & Their Legacy

As the calendar marks the dates for D-Day, Flag Day and on through Independence Day, my thoughts often turn to men I knew in younger years, local men who left their Mendocino County lives and…

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