There’s a sense of optimism in the air as we emerge from our pandemic fog after more than a year of a challenging, transformed existence of sacrifice and loss. But even as we let ourselves experience the joy and gratitude of lowering case numbers and... Continue
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Chapter 15: 1932 • Colusa, California ~ Comfortable around Mrs. Chatfield, Carl talked to her about the heat and the bugs, discussed the differences between hay and rice farming, and went on about Leghorns and Rhode Island Reds. They could talk about almost anything. It was... Continue
After a year in and out of quarantine, we have emerged, like a latter-day Rip Van Winkle, into the light of day, scratching our heads and wondering what was that dream we were having, of a new way of life emerging from the prolonged miasma... Continue
When Sigmund Freud authored Civilization and Its Discontents in 1929, the world was in the throes of social, economic and political upheaval. The 1920s brought with it a post-WW1 era of explicit sexuality, financial excess then collapse, and world politics riven by domination, resistance and... Continue
Sonoma County held a virtual Town Hall on Climate April 6, picking up where we left off, said our District 1 Supervisor, Susan Gorin, when our lives were so rudely interrupted by the pandemic. She was “excited”, she said, to move climate change to the... Continue
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
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