As I left the movie theatre in downtown Ithaca, New York on the Friday night after Thanksgiving a wintery gust ripped a crucial piece of paper from my ungloved hand. On that scrap I’d sketched…
Posts published in “Essays”
Why have insects survived for tens of millions of years? According to the bug experts, it’s their resiliency, adaptability and just plain “go with the flow” attitude that keep them around. After stacking wood, my…
Thirty years ago, proud to be a hippie and wearing my new yellow leather fringe jacket for the first time, I was on my way to Woodstock along with half a million others on that…
Edelweiss Bike Travel tourenfuhrer Werner Wachter wants to go to China. More exactly, he wants to market motorcycle tours in China. Are Edelweissers ready for China? Is China ready for Edelweissers? To get answers, Wachter…
This year marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the beginning of “The Humboldt Independent” and brings back memories of the summer of ‘97, when a group of us got together to start it. After the “Redwood…
In June, 1900, troops of the Western powers broke the Boxer siege of the embassies in Peking, looted the Empress Dowager’s summer palace and thus destroyed for a time the valiant nationalist effort to halt…
I first tasted food in the crowded but livable Brooklyn neighborhood where my parents rented a small, dark one-bedroom apartment. My mother didn’t have to buy or cook the food since it came directly from…