When getting ready for bed around 11:30pm Sunday night, October 8, 2017, my 87-year-old dad heard loud noises from outside, 60-65 mph winds. He looked out his bedroom window. He saw dots on the hill behind his house and thought there was a fire.
Posts published in “Essays”
My old friend Gibbons sent me a copy to review for – what else? – the AVA. Jim and I are AVA old-timers, and my first exposure to the paper was in 1988 at his…
Jerry Brown’s California enters this new age with a halo over its head. We “get” climate change and thumb our noses at the mad denialist in the White House. Our governor advocates the Paris standards…
We first spotted him when we came up the stairs to the second deck. He was hard to miss. We were still in the station in L.A. on a gorgeous sunny morning, all-aboarding the Coast…
A couple of months ago at a family dinner party, a high school sophomore from my son-in-law’s side of the family walked into the room, taking time out from her texting long enough to say…
PG&E is now under investigation by state authorities trying to determine whether the electrical monopoly’s power lines played a role in igniting Northcoast wildfires that destroyed thousands of homes and killed 43 people. Both the…
I showed up Friday afternoon at the Hostility Center (Old Coast Hotel) down on Franklin Street looking for a story. I wanted to ask what Hospitality Center knew about this year's Emergency Winter Shelter. The…
When I was a youngster in the late 1950s a series of thick foggy evenings meant my father would usually conclude supper with the comment, “Good night to burn.” My older sisters and I armed…