Category Archives: Uncategorized

5 a.m., the sixth day after He’s the third person who’s walked in our room in the last half hour, which they don’t do in the better hotels, and this is one expensive place to stay. The first two took … Continue reading →

This may be the story that Dick Schmidt and I tell for the rest of our lives about one of our many trips to Hawaii. We were about to board the plane in Honolulu Tuesday, Jan. 15, after coming in … Continue reading →

We will think of ourselves as writers, even when we’re not writing. Or haven’t written for a while. Or haven’t had our work published. Or even sent our work out for consideration to be published. Lately. Or maybe ever. Because … Continue reading →

But she looks like she just woke up from a nap, her bright red hair all frizzy, almost electric, and her wings are short, stubby things that don’t look capable of flight or whatever it is angels do with wings. … Continue reading →

Maybe you have to be an English literature geek. It probably also helps if you’re female, and you fell in love with Jane Austen at a tender age.  I hate to say this (as both the English lit geek and … Continue reading →

I have the great good fortune to be the proud aunt to the most amazing niece and nephew. And I’m not at all biased. I would’ve loved them had they chosen to pursue careers in, say, architecture or business, but … Continue reading →

We’re all looking for good news stories these days, the kind with happy endings. As a journalism teacher and former journalist, I love these stories that show the kindness of strangers, often in our own neighborhoods, but we don’t always … Continue reading →

For Alma, who escaped the Camp Fire with her life but not her home Porches, steps and all, except some concrete ones left blackened, broken off like old teeth, not to mention flower pots and the last gasp of roses … Continue reading →

Now and again this old print journalist steps into radioland and puts her voice out on the airwaves. I did that very thing this morning when the smoke from a still-uncontrolled fire that has taken most of the town of … Continue reading →

What the dead don’t know piles up like crusty sycamore leaves falling from the enormous tree in the backyard, nearly a century old now, just a sapling when Aunt Estelle told the men from the city to plant the youngster in … Continue reading →