Much of my childhood was spent in a van, especially the 1968 Chevy that my parents drove across California, Nevada and Arizona. I remember feeling trapped and bored on those trips, spending countless hours staring…
Posts tagged as “essays”
In eulogies Daniel Ellsberg is defined as a “whistleblower,” but he didn’t really break the news about “our” role in Vietnam to US Americans who had attended a teach-in or read about the war in Ramparts,…
Quit drinking the other day, but knowing me, it won’t be long before I hit the bottle again. It’s my pattern. That means I’ll soon be drinking again. Hallelujah. I started in college and have…
The hippies grew up in my backyard. I did not find them good neighbors. It was nothing personal. I thought it terrific, in the early days of the Haight-Ashbury, that love children could put a…
There is “town vomit” on the streets of Elsinore (Helsingor in Danish), a mere cobblestone’s throw from Hamlet’s castle. Depending on your temperament the stench might evoke either a medieval morosity or a renaissance joie…
Fort Bragg Chronicle, November 25, 1913 — Like a chapter from the “Old Sleuth” series of dime thrillers or a page from the history of “Doc” Standley, Mendocino County's redoubtable fighting sheriff, reads the story…
Five days after Ishi’s arrival in Yuba City Kroeber took him out for a Sunday drive through the city. Their initial destination was the ocean, about which Ishi had heard. He had already crossed the…