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Posts published in “Essays”

Gus

The lucky accident of our place and time has spared us the unspeakable domestic horror of watching our families and friends displaced from their homes and slaughtered as they flee for their lives. Our modern…

Hmong Among Us

On a summer day in June it was hot and dry almost everywhere in California. Nearly eight thousand miles away, it was hot and rainy across much of Laos, the landlocked nation in Southeast Asia…

Fear The Beard!

Of all the mystifying shit that youth is getting up to these days — body-madding, skinny jeans, gender-hopping, emoji poetry, and molecular cuisine being just a few notable examples — I find the proliferation of…

Clones

I really wasn't sure I wanted to grow this year, the stress of selling it was overwhelming, the price always going down, and all the packaging and repackaging, all the handling was finally getting to…

Yellowstone

In your life you must go to Yellowstone. If you can't or haven't, come on, come along. I was a tour bus driver and a park ranger there for several seasons. I've been taking folks…

Garlic Gone Baby

Several years ago we rented a farm house to a couple new to the area. Ironically the man’s father-in-law had just purchased our property in Hopland, making it possible for us to purchase the small…

Music Never Dies

Ahh, those Anderson Valley mornings. At the Mosswood before things heated up it was calm and happy, the smiling lovely staff providing truly wonderful coffee, and there were open seats out front. I plunked my…

The Technicolor Swan

When I think of the Democratic Party these days, the image instantly comes to mind of little Linda Blair playing the demon-possessed child in the classic horror movie, The Exorcist (1973), most particularly the scene in which…

No Woman, No Cry

Monday morning I debated making a trip over the hill to the Ukiah valley where our watermelons and sweetcorn might be needing water. At the Mosswood Market in Boonville my girlfriend, Jetta (who is carrying…

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