Press "Enter" to skip to content

Posts tagged as “essays”

Discoveries On 8,000 Miles Of Back Roads

After three weeks on the road, 3,000+ miles by rail on AMTRAK and 4,996 driven in a rental car what did we learn wandering around…

Falls City, Oregon

It’s a hot quiet weekday morning in Falls City, Oregon, which is more of a town than a city, at least by the standards of…

Baghdad By The Bay [1950]

San Francisco, to me, is like a house of cards: postcards in glowing colors stacked against the hills that march from the Bay on one…

In Search Of Barbie’s Voice

What does Barbie sound like? The original doll’s blonde hair, pointed toes and pointed breasts define her look, but her voice was, until the sing-song-then-sadistic…

The Chronicle/Examiner Newspaper Wars

In 1960 daily journalism was still a competitive enterprise in San Francisco. The Chronicle and the Examiner were slugging it out for the city’s breakfast…

The Sixties [May 1998]

For a while it looked as though the Sixties had been captured by the enemy, its history decorously re-edited by people like Todd Gitlin. Anyone…

What Bores Whom?

In 1971, I made my fifth journey through Israel; purpose of journey, a book that never jelled. Tired of being serious and taking notes, I…

Beyond the Garden Gate

One of my first memories is of a huge Victorian on McAllister Street near Fillmore in San Francisco where my family lived in 1944. The…

Branch Rickey as Anti-Hero

In response to our item about Major League Baseball’s hypocritical “homage” to the Negro Leagues, John Woodford – an AVA reader whose resume includes Times…

-