I recently wrote about the cork trees of the Iberian Peninsula, those great, handsome figures so emblematic of the interior plains of Portugal and Spain. But further abroad are many more trees of great stature…
Posts published in July 2012
As my hometown of Fertile, Minnesota celebrated its 125th anniversary last weekend, I found myself in a goofy outfit out in the cemetery playing the role of one of the town's old pioneers, H.L. Gaylord.…
Step aboard the wayback machine for another trip to Anderson Valley of my childhood in the late 1950s and 1960s — and in this case, into the 1970s. I begin with an apology for taking…
My brother lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, so I'm visiting in the south, always creepy and exciting together -- the Confederacy, the other country inside the United States. We've been civil warring up and down the…
Greetings one and all. If you are sitting comfortably then I shall begin. Apart from being three of the nicer ladies in the Valley, what do these three have in common? Mary Darling, Joanne Clark,…
Songs of heartbreak are flowing from down the hall. Why is it the heartbreak of youth seems so much more devastating than the heartbreaks we have subsequently? You remember being a heartbroken teenager. Don't pretend…
INTERIM COUNTY COUNSEL DOUG LOSAK submitted his resignation to the Board of Supervisors late Monday afternoon. Reliable sources say the Sheriff and District Attorney were prepared to force the issue by declaring a conflict of…
This is a story about a man who is much more interesting than the hassle he's in. First, the man. You wouldn't guess looking at him that Tu Blujays is 63. He looks like the…
Jeanine Nadel, new judge. Most male-type individuals will tell you, as just as many female-type individuals disagree, that plenty of women have hurtled through the glass ceiling in the last thirty years. But in Mendoland,…