Musings from one who writes, and rides…
Originally published in the Santa Cruz Good Times. If you’re suffering from Zoom-induced ennui in your work and personal life, you’d probably benefit from a glimpse inside Hope Services’ “Hope to Home” program. The virtual classes serve more than 140 developmentally disabled clients in the Santa Cruz and neighboring areas. For three and a half…
Originally published on the Seafood Watch and Monterey Bay Aquarium Conservation blogs. Imagine you’re a young father, from Myanmar, who has come to Thailand with this simple goal: to find work as a fisherman and support your family. But once aboard, your time at sea stretches to weeks, months, or even a year. You find yourself…
Originally published in the Good Times Santa Cruz. “I’m an athlete,” says Diane Cunningham, 32, of San Jose, before going on to recite a list of activities that would make most of us tired just hearing it: swimming, basketball, soccer, floor hockey, powerlifting, snowshoeing, softball, and bowling. She’s competed in the Special Olympics World Games. To…
This article was originally published in City Bike magazine. May your heart always be joyful and may your song always be sung. May you stay forever young. –Bob Dylan In the early 1960s, Carmel, California, was sanctuary to a Bohemian assortment of singers and artists that would soon leave an indelible mark on American culture.…
Our house is a very, very, very fine house. -Crosby, Stills and Nash & Young In 1978 I arrived in Seattle on a Greyhound bus with a suitcase and a letter of admission to the University of Washington. It was my second-ever trip west from Connecticut, made in a great paroxysm of energy that was equal…
Lake Florence is not large, maybe three miles around, and though there is no trail, you could complete the wobbly circle with one half day of steady walking and a strong case of poison oak, the thin line of boils a persistent reminder of your exploits. Don’t ask me how I know this. It has…
In Paxton, winter relinquished its hard grip on the land slowly, the bony fingers of the season unfurling to reveal the mud beneath. What was uncovered belied the stark beauty of the other seasons—there was only tenacious, axle-deep mud on the narrow roads, and the nakedness of the trees awaiting the mysterious spring messages to…
The summer of 1969 stretched out endlessly, with days spent swimming in the small, unthreatening waves of Long Island Sound, family dinners in the backyard, and stick-and-ball sports played on the sticky macadam of our neighborhood streets. Steamy hot Connecticut evenings were spent with my ear pressed to a transistor radio, memorizing top-40 songs on…
Sometimes I consider myself an athlete. Nothing spectacular, mind you, but dedicated in my own way. When it comes to bike racing, I’m not the strongest guy in town. But I’m not the weakest, either. I’ve also had more than my share of sports injuries. And I mean that literally. I’m counting more than a…
This story was originally published on the Monterey Bay Aquarium blog. It was 3 a.m. on June 25, and Security Officer Clara Nilsen was making her regular rounds of the Aquarium’s ground-floor exhibits. Suddenly, she spied what looked like a banana peel on the floor, in front of our Shale Reef lookdown exhibit. “That’s odd,”…