We can't see the city of Decatur from inside this prison, but at 9:30pm, we hear the city's sirens wailing in the distance, alarms that signal the worst disasters: floods, fires, plagues of locusts, nuclear attacks, and, of course, tornadoes.
Posts published in “Essays”
A “Second Chance,” after 25 years of absence and silence, was recently offered Shepherd by Assumpta. Her email arrived from Europe to his farm. We met in Barcelona in 1988 and have had no contact during the last quarter of a century. I answered her email within 15 minutes of its sending, without thinking, but with a deep feeling of connection.
I walk to town most every day rather than drive my truck for the same reason I decided in 1967 to create a life for myself independent of automobiles, something I’ve managed to do for most of the last forty-seven years.
On Thursday, February 14th— Valentine’s Day, about three weeks after my article, “El Úndecimo Mandamiento” appeared in The Anderson Valley Advertiser, Samantha called. It was the first time I’d spoken to her in 18 years.…
After digging out of the Big Snow of ’75 I checked in at the Mendocino County unemployment office in Ukiah because my six months of $31 a week had run out. I was asked about…
Dear Dr. Zack, Please help me settle an argument with my girlfriend. We agree that the two sure signs of life are irritability and the ability to reproduce. She says a man who can’t get…
“Writer’s block” - A euphemism for having nothing to say. It happens. But I was thinking about a piece on Freedom and Liberty, a couple of terms that have been hijacked, co-opted by the far…
Last week, in the McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission case, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion for the narrow (5-4) majority that "Money in politics may at times seem repugnant to some, but so,…
Rather than heading south with the droves of springbreak-bound students fleeing the endless winter of Upstate New York, I spent a couple hours last week in a local venue at least somewhat warmer than my…