On Sunday we left Amarillo, a fair sized city in the Texas Panhandle, for Stroud, Oklahoma. Oklahoma City is on the way to Stroud and Cora and I debated about keeping the Oklahoma City National Memorial on our itinerary. I wasn’t ecstatic about taking on city traffic, but given that it was Sunday we decided …
Friday, May 21, 2021 Day four Mother Nature. Sometimes she can be a real; you know, that “B” word? When she gets to feeling a little fishwifey, she’ll cut loose with an earthquake in the San Francisco Bay Area, where I live. I had a friend in Missouri who used to hunker down when the …
Thursday, May 20, 2021 continued. Next stop, Oatman, Arizona. We enter Arizona, through the town of Mojave Valley. I slow down at the Welcome To Arizona sign and ask Cora if she’d like me to take her picture standing by the sign. She declines. “It’s too hot,” she says. It is that. The thermometer on …
Thursday, May 20, 2021 “Pardon me, you left your tears on the jukebox” That’s George Strait on the radio. It’s day three of a month-long road trip. We’ve travelled down the eastern side of California’s San Joaquin Valley and are now passing through the Mojave Desert on the Southeastern edge of the state. When it …
Warning: Some content rated R. Post-It notes, travel guides, an oversized Rand-McNally Road Atlas, assorted other maps, pens, pencils, a highlighter, notepads and a couple of spiral notebooks; my current life in a nutshell, all of it scattered about, on a little desk, a printer stand, the dining table and, to the wife’s displeasure, the …
It’s been alleged that COVID is in recession in America, and with that news, along with the arrival of summer and increasing vaccinations, Americans are looking to rid themselves of a side effect of the pandemic; let’s call it hometown-itis. Whether they contracted the coronavirus or not, most Americans have exhibited symptoms of hometown-itis; alternating …
Warning: Contents of this post rated R. “Ever heard of rekall? They sell those fake memories,” Said Douglas Quaid, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, in the 1990 movie, Total Recall. In a touch of irony, thirteen years later, Schwarzenegger would be elected Governor of California in a recall election that ousted Governor Gray Davis. There are …
The fish house The carcass of the Nantucket Restaurant lies at water’s edge on the northwest corner of Crockett. The Nantucket was a local seafood joint, one of those simple, honest, unpretentious places that offered an easy atmosphere, neighborly service and a good meal at a fair price. The best thing on the menu was …
Crockett, California (known to locals as Sugar City) can be a hard place to figure. At a glance you might take it for a Rust Belt community of the Midwest, sitting on the shore of one of America’s great rivers. There’s a factory, the big old brick C&H Sugar refinery that sits on the edge …
Quite some time has passed since the last edition of the COVID Chronicles. Does that mean that we’re almost over it? From where I’m sitting, here in carefree California, it’s almost like we’re ready to emerge from the deep, dark COVID woods. Some catching up and a little perspective might be in order. We’ve been …
The Life in My Years 