Bernie Sanders’ “Political Revolution”
Bernie Sanders has staked his campaign for the presidency on public disgust and anger over the unconscionable and rapidly growing gap between the richest Americans and most everyone else. He rails against the “billionaire class,” the big banks, and the multiple ways in which the 1% control the government and just about all other institutions. […]
Geraldine
Karen looked up from her computer, on which she had been reading newspapers from places where we have lived, and said, “Geraldine died.” I was lying in a hostel bed, relaxing after a ten-mile hike along the ocean, the beach flanked by tall dunes. It had been a picture-perfect afternoon, the sky festooned with great […]
Dreaming of the Dead
My father was sleeping, curled up in the small chair next to the picture window. I thought this strange, because he never sat in that chair. It was my mother’s perch, from which she peered out at the street watching for neighbors and waiting every day for the mail truck to arrive. When she was […]
Dolphins at the Hilton
The Kohala Coast on the Big Island of Hawai’i is spectacular. For miles north and south, the lava-rock shoreline is broken by tree- and palm-lined beaches. Thirty miles across the sea, the islands of Maui and Lanai are often visible. To the north the Kohala Mountains rise gently inland, and to the west, the immense […]
Order-Givers and Order-Takers*
In the summer of 2001, I worked as a front desk clerk—we were called guest service agents—at the Lake Hotel in Yellowstone National Park. The work was hard. We spent long hours on our feet, dealing with a steady stream of demanding guests and a constant barrage of problems. The pay was low, six dollars […]
Sacco and Vanzetti*
Today is the 87th anniversary of the state-sponsored murder of Sacco and Vanzetti. What follows is a film review and essay that I wrote a few years ago. I think you will find it interesting. There are links for further study. “If it had not been for this thing, I might have lived out my […]
Daydreaming
Karen and I begin our hikes talking, but after awhile I fall behind a bit, and lulled sometimes by the sound of a stream or the singing of the birds, I daydream. On a trail not long after we got to Tennessee, I thought about the month we had just spent with our daughter and […]
Playing To Win
When I was a boy, I loved sports. Baseball was my passion, and I could be found in the backyard, even in the middle of winter, endlessly throwing a rubber-coated baseball into the air and hitting it as far as I could with my bat. I played organized ball from the age of nine to […]
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