The woodpeckers thumping, rapping, knocking rattled me and my neighbors, way before our usual morning coffee. My neighbor crawled along my roof dangling tinsel and shiny objects from the gutters. I bought a big black battery spider that jumped out screaming “boo” when the red-headed... Continue
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When we are young, time crawls. In grade school I was a horrible student, a child with a lot of energy and prone to giving lip to my teachers. A school year seemed like a decade to me, as I squirmed, doodled on the paper... Continue
Chapter 14: 1932 • Colusa, California ~ Three years into the Great Depression, when there were no jobs and little money and Herbert Hoover was unable to keep his campaign promises of prosperity, my grandmother, 59-year-old Nellie Chatfield, moved to the bustling rice town of Colusa, the... Continue
It feels like a lifetime ago, but as Chair of the Board of Supervisors in 2020, I focused my State of the County address on the urgency of climate change. Unfortunately, COVID-19 drove that issue to the back burner last year, but the urgency for... Continue
Ever since the largest trees in my neighborhood were cut down, including a Red Mahogany Eucalyptus topping out at one-hundred feet tall, habits of the wildlife in my yard have changed. Squirrels, for one, disappeared entirely for several months. There had been a crew of... Continue
Not since Atticus Finch defended Tom Robinson back in 1929 Alabama has a trial transfixed the nation like that of ex-police officer Derek Chauvin, now facing charges ranging from manslaughter to second-degree murder for kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, a black man, until... Continue
Good sports coaches always make sure to celebrate a win immediately, establish a team baseline expectation and to cultivate an appetite for winning. After white-knuckling through the chaotic and vexing Trump Administration for four years, putting a solid ‘W’ on the board is satisfying. The... Continue
Andrew Cuomo is just the latest high-profile man to become ensnared in the #me too movement. By today’s count four women have come forward with complaints about his flirtatious sexual advances, and in my experience, where there are four, there are forty. Men like Cuomo... Continue
Sonoma County reached a long-awaited milestone, entering the Red Tier of the Governor’s Blueprint for a Safer Economy plan. On March 14 we saw hungry diners returning to indoor restaurants and fitness buffs hitting the gym indoors for the first time in months. I am... Continue
It’s a small goal: to get the gargantuan globe shaped into a calm, satisfied round ball. Everybody has a different theory, from new laws, growing vegetables to solar panels and jobs. It just seems to me that if we can’t all get along, all the... Continue