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Posts tagged as “essays”

Flashbacks: A Memoir By Jim Gibbons

My old friend Gibbons sent me a copy to review for – what else? – the AVA. Jim and I are AVA old-timers, and my first exposure to the paper was in 1988 at his…

El Diablo In Wine Country

Jerry Brown’s California enters this new age with a halo over its head. We “get” climate change and thumb our noses at the mad denialist in the White House. Our governor advocates the Paris standards…

Strangers On A Train

We first spotted him when we came up the stairs to the second deck. He was hard to miss. We were still in the station in L.A. on a gorgeous sunny morning, all-aboarding the Coast…

Then & Now

A couple of months ago at a family dinner party, a high school sophomore from my son-in-law’s side of the family walked into the room, taking time out from her texting long enough to say…

Deregulation, PG&E, and the Fires

PG&E is now under investigation by state authorities trying to determine whether the electrical monopoly’s power lines played a role in igniting Northcoast wildfires that destroyed thousands of homes and killed 43 people. Both the…

A Brief History Of Fire In The West

When I was a youngster in the late 1950s a series of thick foggy evenings meant my father would usually conclude supper with the comment, “Good night to burn.” My older sisters and I armed…

Zombies In The Orchard

I was walking down the Talmage road one afternoon in late summer/early fall, about an hour before dusk, if memory serves. As I recall, the light had begun to take on its characteristic pre-crepuscular weight.…

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