I developed an awe of the men (I never saw a woman) who worked for CalTrans at all hours and conditions, keeping the roads open.  Read More

We felt a bit deceived—after all, we only agreed to take him because she had begged—but he had clearly had a traumatic adolescence and changed since his owner had died.  We still took him in, the damaged goods, and named him “Jack”. Read More

A hippie, a priest and Henry Kissinger were in an airplane...... Read More

Turning sixteen was a coming-of-age ritual.  Not a sweet sixteen party—getting a driver’s license!  Having wheels in mid-twentieth century US meant mobility, freedom, unsupervised hanging out with friends, romance. Read More

I needed something more reliable. My hours were irregular, public transportation spotty, and I lived too far from the hospital to walk.  And it rained and snowed.  Any car that ran would do. That, plus my general ambivalence, is probably why my first car was such a clunker. Read More

I had already reasoned out that, looking at the evidence, there was no way that Santa could make it to all the boys and girls around the world in one night, not to mention the chimney issue or the problematic Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy visits.  Read More

Telegraph Avenue.  Wonderful!  Full of cheap eats, head shops, bookstores, hippies and students and life.  Read More

Frustration has been my strongest trigger, especially from interaction with systems I dislike. Read More

Halfway up, I got stuck.  I couldn’t see how to get up or down, splayed across the cliff, hanging onto tiny stone ledge finger and toe holds. Read More

Little songs would run on endless loops as I concentrated. It was a sort of fuzzy daydream state, where only vague thoughts of work or the future hovered at the periphery, kept at bay by my mantra of the day.  “Doing the garden, pulling the weeks, who could ask for more?” Read More