Stop! Thief!

So many times, I have wondered how it was that my new school friend and I got away with our shoplifting sprees. We only did it three times before I resigned from my part in a life of crime; but that was enough to give me a good understanding of how ones actions dictate ones […]

Jenny Lind, You Owe Me One

The Mother Lode; rich in gold, 49’er history, and splendor that was a significant part of my life growing up in, what was then, rural California. My family and grandparents spent countless weekends during the 1950’s driving around the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and panning for gold in many of the mineral rich […]

Hope And Promise In A Quonset Hut

I have an old wicker chest in my room where I store odds and ends, a little bit of everything me; from stamps I collect and have not placed in my album yet, to books with which I cannot bear to part. And an old candy box I had not opened since 2003. This evening, while […]

Happy Birthday Mr. McKuen!

In 1966, I moved from my little valley town to the San Francisco Bay Area. The fountainhead of creativity, freedom, revolution. In all ways of expression, I was there; red bandanna, blue work shirt, threadbare jeans, sandals, guitar, bicycle. In those days, you could color me a very happy 1960’s flower power energized, we can […]

Mahalo Steve McGarrett

On September 20, 1968, the television show I had been most eagerly waiting for premiered on CBS. Hawaii Five-0. I will never forget the awe-inspiring ocean wave in the opening sequence, brief shots of Hawaiian scenery, pretty people running on the beach, and hula dancing; all the main cast introduced in zoom-in close ups, with […]