We arrived in Stockton in my car of the moment, a '58 Plymouth Fury, a cool car in its day, a sporty two-door hardtop with outsized Cadillac-style rear fins. It had two big 4-barrel carburetors sitting opposite each other on a ram-induction fuel system feeding a huge “hemi” V-8 engine and a speedometer that registered up to 160 miles per hour.
Posts tagged as “essays”
Exactly one week before Christmas I received a bill in the mail from the Mendocino Coast District Hospital for $2,635.47. Immediately after arriving home from the post office, I called the hospital’s billing department. I spoke at some length to two women who worked there.
High school hit me right between the eyes. Where does a freshman fit in? At the bottom of the ladder, of course. Within a student body of well over a thousand individuals, I ran smack into a social class mentality that seemed to pervade the entire experience, the elite spending their time looking down their noses at those beneath them, each class assuming a position of authority over the underclasses.
AMTRAK has handled the black-porter/white-porter issue very deftly. Their logo — or at least the one that appears on the tissue covering the head rest — depicts a porter standing erect in his sharp uniform,…
We are currently in the midst of a local drought that coincides with a state drought that coincides with a regional drought that coincides with the global climate change crisis that more and more scientists believe is now irreversible
However uplifting Messiah and the Christmas Oratorio may be, even after all the recordings and annual performances, I’d grab for Heinrich Schütz’s Christmas Story (Historia der Geburt Jesu Christi) even if it meant consigning to the deep the cherished masterpieces of Bach and Handel, both born just thirteen years after Schütz’s death.
Why does the presence of mistletoe — a parasitic plant that roots in oaks and other host trees — confer the right to kiss whoever you're with? The answer occurred to John Lee, MD, a…
“It is a wise father that knows his own child.” — William Shakespeare My father was extremely neurotic. A psychiatrist by profession, one of his more pronounced neuroses was the inability to complete anything, which…
Tony Serra was a fascinating individual and I liked him right away. He was highly principled and his reputation as a fierce opponent in the courtroom was widely held. He was eager to defend the underdog and those subject to racial injustice.