Archive for July 2020

Years ago I was hired to teach first grade at a private school in the San Francisco Bay Area. (I won’t be more specific.) The principal who hired me in June told me she was leaving, and there would be a new principal when the next school year began. The week before school would start…

During theSpanish Influenza epidemic more than 100 years ago my father was sent away from the city to stay with his grandparents in the Appalachian Mountains. At the end of the school year when he was able to return he was given the kerosene lantern from the bedside table he’d used and the hand-held school…

Where I live, in the Sierra foothills of California, the Fourth of July has always been a big deal. Grass Valley and Nevada City alternate between having the parade, which includes music, floats, lots of groups marching, etc. and reaches for blocks.The Nevada County Fairgrounds has a lot going on all day and a spectacular…