When I first moved to California, nearly 40 years ago, I felt the elation of someone who has just stepped into Paradise. The climate alone was enough to make you think you were in heaven: mild temperatures all year round. Blue sky all summer and most of the fall. Few pesky insects. I grew up…

 [published in Sierra Seasons Magazine] I used to think that fairy tales were just for tiny tots.  Despite the song “Young at Heart,” which proclaims “Fairy tales can come true, it can happen to you,” I just assumed that the star-dust magic of fairy tales glittered only in the lives of little children. But then,…

My Sweetheart longed to visit South America. He wanted to practice his Spanish. Wanted to taste authentic South American dishes. Wanted to photograph volcanoes. The large continent had never called to me, but I love him, I enjoy travel and we aren’t getting any younger, so if we’re ever going to take such a trip…

Early in my newspaper career I realized, quite by accident, that I was more than a writer or reporter, even more than an editor. It happened in the late 1970s. I’d just hand-delivered the weekly newspaper I edited to a local pianist who played nightly at a popular steak house in town. I’d heard that…

“I wish I could, but I just can’t do the right thing until everyone agrees that it’s the right thing to do.” [Published July 1999 in Unity Magazine and September 2000 in Spectrum Magazine] If you’ve ever struggled to be true to yourself, struggled to get others in your family, the office, the PTA, and…

I came to Antigua, Guatemala, for the most elaborate Holy Week celebration in the Western Hemisphere. I was eager to immerse myself from Palm Sunday through Easter in art, music, culture, and spectacle wrapped in Christian spirituality. I wanted to see the beautiful street “carpets” made from colorful sawdust and created by locals. I wanted…