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Posts published in May 2020

The Shrum Murder Mystery (Part 2)

Previously, we examined the murder of A.J. Shrum in his Round Valley field one evening in July, 1878. The authorities decided the deed was committed by eighteen-year-old Jesse Anthony so that his older brother, James,…

Journal of the Plague Year (#8)

Berkeley, CA 5/11/2020 – Lacking, as we all are, anything like responsible, responsive, informed sources about the COVID – 19 Pandemic, we cluster, knowingly or not, around a few people who seem worth listening to.…

Culinary Chaos in History

“Drunken Woodsmen Wreck Cookhouse-Raise Hades at Little Valley Camp.” That’s what a headline in the Mendocino Beacon reported in the November 23, 1918 issue. This is the story about cooks and their customers.  North of…

What’s Going On at the Old Grey Whale Inn?

The Redwood Coast Inn is looking shabby these days, but it has a special place in Fort Bragg's heart. Partly that's because, even now, a fair number of Fort Bragg people were born there. The…

Defending the Mutineers

A soldier being court-martialed is entitled to an Army defender plus “counsel of choice.” Fourteen of the 27 Presidio stockade prisoners who had been read the mutiny article during their sit-down in the Presidio stockade…

Off the Record (May 13, 2020)

ONE MORE PLUG for the fiction of Annie Proulx and her lightest book so far, the comic masterpiece, ‘That Old Ace in the Hole,’ funniest thing I've read since ‘The Ginger Man’ and ‘The Magic…

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