IIlustration by Paul Stokstad of DuckByte using ChatGPT

My Writing

“I think I’m lucky. I was born with very little talent but great curiosity.” – (Me and) Anthony Quinn

  • Your Hippie Mom

    My road to the hippie lifestyle started when I was in junior high. At that time my road was just an deer trail in the woods. The superhighway came later. My mom played Simon and Garfunkel and Joan Baez, too. We watched Hootenanny on TV and I loved the New Christy Minstrels, the Chad Mitchell…

  • They Call It Arid-zona

    Mosquito Abatement, Volunteer Watermelons and Monsoon It’s September 1st tomorrow, thank God, because August seemed to crawl by at a snail’s pace. I thought it would never end. Finally it’s ending. August was too humid and rainy and then too hot and miserable. The mosquitoes were out in force, and the little buggers are so…

  • A Cemetery in Wales

    In 1983 I took a trip to France, England and Wales with some friends. We went to Paris and met up with an acquaintance of mine who lived in Rueil Malmaison outside of Paris. We stayed on the Ile de La Cité for a couple of nights in a very old hotel and then we…

  • No Chicken No Pizza, Chichen Itsa – Part 2: My Trip to Belize

    This is where things literally and figuratively go really south. On the border between Mexico and Belize at the Hondo River we stop because we have to and the border crossing guard says welcome, checks everything, and then asks do you have car insurance? Oh yes, we say. We got it in Cancun, and the…

  • The Unending Tunnel of Jungle

    My Horror Journey to Belize Part 1 The year must have been 1975 plus or minus. Here’s what I was thinking: Belize is a good vacation destination because it’s an English speaking country and it’s exotic. Don’t forget it used to be British Honduras. Belize also has the largest barrier reef in Western Hemisphere and…

  • Verdizona

    We arrived in Southeast Arizona back in April of 2021. We didn’t know it yet but along about July it was going to start raining. A lot. I didn’t have a rain gauge that summer, so I don’t know exactly how much rain we got that year. I also didn’t know that it doesn’t take…

  • Dust in the Wind

    When I thought of writing this essay it was because yet another person my age had passed away. I was feeling a little bit depressed and wanted to get those feelings out so I could process them. Then I had another thought right on the heels of that: it’s such a Debbie Downer to talk…

  • The Green Jesus

    I am a warped individual, and I know how this came to be. When I tell you the story some of you will relate. It was The Green Jesus (that is what I call it. I don’t know what the painter called it.) that did it. The Green Jesus screwed up my mind. Royally. Anyway…

  • Baja Beans

    Highlights from my trip to Baja California Sud I was becoming more and more concerned about the direction that our country was going in when I got an invitation to visit Baja. I had airline miles accrued enough to get there and back and they were offering free accommodation, so I jumped at the chance.…

  • Gardening is Not as Easy as They’d Like You to Believe

    I suppose that’s not what you wanted to hear but I feel that it is my solemn duty to tell you the truth. I say this because I see a lot of articles online and in print that encourage anyone to grow food and they make is seem like it’s a walk in the park.…