August 8, 2011 – 10:00 pm
I stand astride America’s Transcontinental Railway, looking east, then west.
Initiated by Lincoln, overseen by Johnson, and completed under Grant, the undertaking called for the Union Pacific Railroad to work westward from Omaha and the Central Pacific, eastward from Sacramento. They met, as most schoolchildren learned in my day (do they study this anymore?), at Promontory Summit, Utah Territory, in 1869, where a laurel tie was laid and ceremonial golden spike was driven to link the two coasts. With that linking, a cross-country journey abruptly dropped from six weeks to five days. Moving people and freight and the telegraphy that paralleled the tracks changed America forever. The immensity of the undertaking (the equivalent of a 19th century NASA moon shot) captured Read More »
August 5, 2011 – 4:13 pm
I glance at the headline of an old newspaper that had been used to insulate one of the old log cabins that make up the museum in Frisco, CO.
“Bankers Blame Tax Laws for Securities Drop” (The Denver Post…November 7, 1937).
The Great Depression had been ongoing for over eight years.
Yesterday the Dow fell over 500 points. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Sigh…
July 30, 2011 – 6:56 am
Some 20,000 years ago, a volcanic eruption sent gouts of lava into what is now Northern California’s Hat Creek Valley. This molten rock, like any liquid, flowed downhill, gravity pulling it into the lowest channels. These rivers moved slowly, the sides and top cooling as they touched ground and air. A hardened skin slowly formed around the molten flow, creating a rock tube through which the still-liquid lava continued its downward movement. If the gradient was steep enough—and the viscosity low enough— Read More »
July 29, 2011 – 9:16 am
My son once opined that explorers should always travel with a ship’s poet, the better to name the newly discovered.
Great Pond. Black Mountain. Rio Grande. No poet named those.
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Planning a road trip into the Rockies had dragged my map mouse across several northern California highways unknown to me. Whim uppermost, I fixed on Route 36, a skipper above Lake Almanor, until three names bade me stop: Boiling Springs Lake, Drakesbad, and Dream Lake. The first brought me sulfurous thoughts; with the second, I heard oom-pah tubas; the last was reverie.
All three of these place names Read More »
July 15, 2011 – 12:41 am
“With the coming of the Industrial Revolution, craftsmanship dissolved miserably into creativity.” In his shop beside the flour mill, the cooper spoke flatly and firmly, with no correction possible.
It was Colonial Williamsburg, and my daughter Emily and I were breaking our cross-country drive with a hot summer’s day walk into 18th-century Virginia. Read More »
July 14, 2011 – 9:06 am
Marty Stein and Benny Silverstein operated shoe stores in Oxnard, my California childhood’s small town. Marty’s store (Kirby’s Shoes) was on A Street’s east side, right next to my father’s men’s & boys’ clothing store. Benny’s store (GallenKamp’s Shoes) was directly across the street. Marty carried a marginally higher-priced line, but in a town that lived off three military 
bases and farming, they competed for the same clientele. The men were not friends, but they ate lunch together at least once a week, at which they spoke only lies. Read More »
July 14, 2011 – 12:43 am
A guest post by my oldest child, Emily.
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I had this memory of my father. I was very young, and he was shining shoes. I well-remembered the smell, and the mess, and how careful he was with the polish in the little tubs. Everything was kept in a shoebox, and newspapers spread on the table, and I remember my amazement as the shoes would become transformed.
Last year I brought my daughter and my favorite clogs to my father’s house. I told Rhiannon: “Watch what Pobba can do — he will make them look new again.” She was dubious, carefully watching him unload polishes and stained toothbrushes and other such stuff from his very very old shoebox. But as the scuffed leather began to gleam, she delighted. She talked Read More »
June 26, 2011 – 4:22 pm
Every once in a while I come across a blog post that deserves wider reading. Hollye Dexter wrote one today. I reprint it unchanged below. The original is here.
* * * * *
When I started the seventh grade all the other kids seemed to tower over me in the halls. The girls had women’s bodies, and the ninth grade boys had peach fuzz moustaches. But me? I was just a skinny little kid with the unfortunate nickname of Hollye Smally.
I was a friendly girl, well-liked by most of the kids. I made friends with the nerds, stoners, surfers, black kids, white kids, everyone. It was my outgoing nature, and also a good survival tactic. So I kept smiling and waving, smiling and waving…But there was one girl, Liz Baker, who just hated me. I mean, hated. And the strange thing was, I didn’t even know her.
Read More »
June 22, 2011 – 10:46 am
A letter I wrote to The New Yorker about Hawaii’s infamous Massie Affair, a sordid episode in American race relations, was printed in the June 27, 2011, issue and is at the bottom of this page.
I wrote the letter because: (a) I had recently read three thought-provoking books about racism in America during the early years of the 20th century and (b) the magazine’s profile of Clarence Darrow overlooked an important and defining episode that checkered the man’s career.
The first book, The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of Empire and War by James Bradley, deals with Theodore Roosevelt’s foreign policy Read More »
May 23, 2011 – 12:30 am
I know a woman (she shall remain nameless) who loses her sunglasses repeatedly. A retired attorney, she is neither careless nor insouciant. It just happens. And each time her cheaters go AWOL, she reacts with dismay and a bit of self-directed anger. Then, after a mourning period shortened imperatively by the next glary day, her chagrin wanes, and she buys a new pair.
Over the years, her disappearing shades routine, unpredictable, yet certain as California earthquakes, Read More »
I stand astride America’s Transcontinental Railway, looking east, then west.
