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Posts published in “Essays”

Beyond the Garden Gate

One of my first memories is of a huge Victorian on McAllister Street near Fillmore in San Francisco where my family lived in 1944. The rambling old structure, which I believe had survived the Great…

Branch Rickey as Anti-Hero

In response to our item about Major League Baseball’s hypocritical “homage” to the Negro Leagues, John Woodford – an AVA reader whose resume includes Times correspondent and editor of Muhammad Speaks – sent along an…

Ludwig & The Bomb: An Oppenheimer Symphony

After Beethoven, few have been the composers named Ludwig. Number two on the list was Ludwig Spohr, reasonably big in his day, though only fourteen years younger than his illustrious predecessor. Spohr’s posthumous reputation makes…

The Rear View

In 1969 we watched Michael Parks in his TV series “Then Came Bronson” riding his Harley Sportster wearing a watch cap, with apparently everything he owned strapped on the bike, a sleeping roll, and a…

Singing In The Woods

Strange songs haunt the fairy tales collected by the Brothers Grimm and first published in 1812 in Berlin. “Old Hildebrand,” a story of a parson’s attempt to seduce a peasant’s wife, ends with a rousing…

Dorothy Day, Real Saint

John Cardinal O’Connor, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of New York, proposed recently the canonization of Dorothy Day. If she makes it through that long process, it would only be fitting for the Pope to come…

A Mendocino Remembrance circa 1942

When Alvin Mendosa’s long-time friend, Buddy Fraser, passed away in 2018, Alvin received a copy of Buddy’s memoir of town life during World War II. Alvin recognized a little gem when he saw it, and…

Conversation On An Airplane

The art of conversation, or at least practice, is as dead and gone as your grandmother’s DeSoto sedan. This didn’t happen last week nor last decade but it makes no difference. We no longer sit…

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