The Life in My Years

An anthology of life

The third in a series of occasional posts about tripping along U.S. Highway 395. Between Knight’s Ferry and Chinese Camp is 21 miles of rolling ranchland. Out here the land is split into parcels, each section defined by the brainchild of an Illinois farmer named Joseph Glidden. Glidden’s invention would forever put its stamp on …

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“Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball, the rules and realities of the game.” ~Jacques Barzun Major League Baseball’s spring training is open for business. With all due disrespect to Punxsutawney Phil, that know it all buck toothed rodent, the news that pitchers are lobbing baseballs to catchers …

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The second in a series of occasional posts about tripping along U.S. Highway 395. To explore Highway 395, you first have to get to 395. We’ll be picking up 395 at Sonora Junction, at the terminus of Highway 108, just east of a twisting descent from the Sonora Pass. We’re eastbound cutting across the width …

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The boy turned 13. Thirteen begs a question. Is he still a boy? For a time, back when he was two or three, he would insist that he was a boy. Whenever Cora or I presented him with the proposition that he was a person he responded with a reasoning, “I’m not a person, I’m …

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The first in a series of occasional posts about tripping along U.S. Highway 395. Highway 395. From the Canadian border to the Mojave Desert in California, it makes its way through thick green forests, flinty high desert country, and oceans of cheatgrass. It rolls past golden yellow wheat fields, blinding, bleached alkali lakes, the rugged, …

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“Beg to report sir, the good ship California is taking on water and is listing to port.” *** “It’s raining, it’s pouring, The old man is snoring …” It’s been raining and pouring but this old man hasn’t been snoring. He’s a light sleeper, even lighter when anything that isn’t tied down is blowing around …

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