The other night I had a dream – a nightmare, really. The kind that caused me to sit bolt upright in bed, sweat pouring off me. It was horrible, so bad that I was afraid […]

History, as they say, is yesterday’s news. That being the case, I shudder to think about the history we are writing these days. Discussion and debate appear to have given way to something else entirely. […]

Every day at noon I take a walk through the north Salem neighborhood where I work. Aside from a handful of people making their way back and forth to the grocery store, most of the […]

If the year 2020 were a movie, it’d be Rocky. Round after round, we were pummeled as our defenses were breached. It was not pretty. But as the end of the year arrived, the music […]

Last March, right after our fearless leaders decided to start shutting down the economy because of the coronavirus, I was sitting in a friend’s office. “If this goes on more than a couple of months, […]

It’s about those masks. Occasionally, I get an earful from friends and others about how the requirement that we wear a mask when buying ice cream and soda pop at the grocery store in some […]

It began on a recent Monday afternoon. A day that had begun with bright blue skies and happy chatter among house guests was transformed. First the wind started. Not a breeze, it was the kind […]

I’m afraid there’s been a serious mistake. The other day I got an invitation. It was for a 50th high school reunion. Surely it was supposed to go to someone else. I’ve only been out […]

Oy, it’s going to be a long year. Oh, wait, it’s already been a long year. We have viruses to the right of us, economic heart murmurs to the left of us and presidential politics […]

In 1976, I was editor of the University of Alaska-Fairbanks bicentennial project. It was called the 1776 Gazette, a newspaper that printed the news of that revolutionary year one week at a time. Relying on […]