Return to the Sunburnt Southwest Part 2—Wine Country

We head south to Garberville,  then turn east on CA State Route 128 and skirt a variety of vineyards across Sonoma County’s Alexander Valley. The road is laid out along plat lines, making 90° turns at each vineyard’s edge. 128 is an “old Northern California” road, a scenic two lanes lined with oaks. Wine tasting [...]

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Return to the Sunburnt Southwest: Part I—Ukiah

Day one finds us driving through our standard coastal rain, pouring at times, south down US 101 through Eureka and the redwoods. We’re glad to make it to Ukiah, where watery blue sky and white nimby clouds greet us at late afternoon. There are a number of jazzed-up hotels on the other side of the [...]

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A Lost World: Southern California Dreaming—Part 5

Things of Memory Think for a moment about a treasured photo of you as a child. Of the surroundings, of your smile or the frown. Maybe your childhood home is in the background of the frame, maybe you are playing on a swing at the park with friends. You get the idea. In viewing even [...]

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The Murals of Santa Paula

At the end of June we were in Southern California for our youngest daughter’s wedding, a lovely affair held in Ojai. Rather than buck the craziness called LAX (Los Angeles International Airport) we chose to fly into Burbank, a small airport whose too large name, first just plain Burbank, grew to Burbank/Glendale, grew again to [...]

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A Lost World: Southern California Dreaming—Part 4

A CHRISTMAS TREE AND THE FOREST For my mother and father, the tree had to fit these specifications: a six to seven foot Douglas Fir, fresh if possible, big blue-green needles, full branching.  And oh, yes. It must exude that wonderful resiny smell of the forest on a summer day, the trade mark so to [...]

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A Lost World: Southern California Dreaming — Part 3

FARMING I grew up on a 7000 square foot city lot in inner-suburban Los Angeles. I grew up gardening. But I considered it, or imagined it, to be farming. In Southern California before automatic drip systems, the homely hose was the workhorse of the garden. Since my family often traveled through the San Joaquin Valley [...]

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A Lost World: Southern California Dreaming – Part 2

ROMANCE, 1928 The woman in the picture is eighteen. The location, resembling a Hollywood stage set, is Avalon, on Catalina Island, some 30 miles west of Los Angeles harbor. Yachts anchor offshore, a casino is in the background. The time is around 1928. The photo of the woman is well composed. A slight angle of [...]

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A Lost World: Southern California Dreaming — Part 1

THE  CHRISTMAS  CABIN Once upon a time there was a woodsy cabin, made of alder logs, set deep in the woods. This cabin was very small. That, however, made little difference. This is the thing: Each Christmas season, around December 6, the cabin was reoccupied for a month. Sometimes it stood firm, heavy with snow. [...]

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