Press "Enter" to skip to content

Posts published in “Essays”

Tres Amigas Do Southeast New Mexico

"It ain't new and it ain't Mexico," so says a popular bumper sticker. Everywhere we three traveled everything we saw was old, very old. Millions and millions of years old. It was an incredibly wonderful…

The Etymology of 420

Your correspondent got invited to an “Eve-of-420” bash on April 19, 2016, at a club in San Rafael started by the Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead. At the bar I got into a conversation…

Raising Wheat In Anderson Valley

Wheat was one of the main crops raised in Anderson Valley by the first homesteaders. In 1864, John Gschwend built a waterwheel powered grist mill on Mill Creek and in 1881, Mr. Chapman built one…

Prolonged Grief Is Now An Illness

In a tremendous win for Big PhARMA, the American Psychiatric Association has added “Prolonged Grief Disorder” to its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder —a list of conditions for which insurance companies reimburse doctors.…

The Writer

He lived in the attic of a four-story Victorian house built after the big quake. Once a queen now more Cinderella, it tilted downward at a slight angle on a despairing street suffused with potholes…

A Tribute to Morris Caraway

You probably knew him even if you never caught his name. You likely saw him driving his red Mustang on the 128. Maybe you saw his huge white fluffy dog named Tinkerbell in that car…

No Game For Old Men

I’d like to say the 2022 baseball season has me all excited, as amped up and thrilled as a front page Ukiah Daily Journal headline like “Women artists at local gallery.” Or golf on TV.…

Travelers, Sour & Sentimental

“I hate traveling and explorers.”— Claude Levi-Strauss, Tristes tropiques (1955) It is an illusion to think that a need to complain about travel is unique to our age of mass tourism. In 1778 Thomas Boswell…

Guest Editorial: Solving Mendo’s Water Problems!

1. Fire Jared Huffman who said, “If you tear out Scott Dam you would have more water” -- a stupid statement. Scott Dam creates Lake Pillsbury which gives year-round water to Lake Mendocino down to…

-