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Posts tagged as “essays”

The Shot Heard Around the World

Ten-year old Robert, “Bobby B,” so-called, because there were two other Robert/Bob’s in his third grade class, was seated in the first row in Miss Fritz’ classroom. He was particularly fidgety that third day of…

Hit Me With Your Best Shot

It was a Pat Benatar kind of day, a day when I knew I would say, at least once, “Hit me with your best shot.” I was scheduled for a vaccination, my first, and I…

He Had A Hammer: Henry Aaron Presente

When you write for a living, you invariably pen obituaries in advance so they are ready to be published as soon as the death knell of the famous is sounded. I could never do that…

Houses Where Nobody Lives

Many things puzzle me about Ukiah and someday I’ll write a 25,000 word column listing them. For today, let’s limit ourselves to asking why so many houses stand empty around town. Not far from my…

Superspreader Bowl

A month and a day after the storming of the Capitol came the national rites of healing. These were enacted not in an atmosphere of penitential sacrifice and prayer, but through elaborate choreographies of unbridled…

Ukiah Defiant

I was hunting down some morning coffee at daughter Emily’s place in Santa Rosa and I opened a kitchen cupboard, pulled out a big white cup with big black letters that said: BITCH, PLEASE. I’M…

The Ten Mile Killer

The Roaring Twenties had just begun to roar, you couldn't buy a drink in Ukiah but you could in Point Arena, brothels catering to the transient men of the booming logging industry were the social…

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