Tag: Nonfiction
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Welcome to Tramwayland
One summer, my best high school buddy Gary and I went backpacking on Mt. San Jacinto, nearly 11,000 feet above Palm Springs. For anyone not familiar with that mountain, the way to get there is by taking an aerial tram that climbs most of the way to the top — a 15 minute ride. The…
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The Time I Kinda Sorta Murdered Someone in My Volvo
I once drove a very white Volvo. It’s the only white car I’ve ever owned. I loved the pearlescent finish, but as anyone who’s ever driven a white car can attest, every drop of mud screams for attention. If you live in a place like Oregon, you may as well forget about having a clean…
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Death by Orange Flavored Foam
One evening I felt like I was coming down with a cold. I stopped into a pharmacy near my apartment in Amsterdam, and picked up a tube of 1,000 mg Vitamin C tablets. I could read just enough Dutch to know that they were orange-flavored and delicious. I left the store, and decided to chew…
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Surfer Chicks
My best friend Gary got his drivers license a few months before I did. His default car was a heinous red 1970-ish Datsun station wagon that no self-respecting 16 year old guy would be seen in. Once in a while, his dad let him drive the studly ‘72 blue Chevy Nova, but only after being…
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The Time My GPS Almost Got Me Arrested
Lessons learned from an accidental off-road adventure in the early days of GPS Most of us take GPS technology for granted, but it was once in its infancy and I was an early adopter. I had a little device that went on top of my dashboard. It couldn’t route me anywhere and it had no…
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No Spaghetti, Mom
When I turned 16, I got my drivers license almost right away, but I was told to stick close to home until I could demonstrate that I was responsible and trustworthy. I was on my way back from the library late one afternoon, with both hands on the steering wheel, when out of the corner…
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School Lockdown
Or, how I got around the fence I visited the old neighborhood once again today, while in Covina, California to attend a memorial service for a childhood friend. I got the idea to walk around my elementary school, which I like to do every few years. I don’t really know why I do it, other…
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Sticker Balls
A Warm Welcome from an Old Pal When I was a kid, there was a sweet gum tree out in front of my house, planted around the time I was born. The kind that sheds those little prickly seed capsules. The fresh, heavy green ones hurt when they hit you in the back of the…
SMUDGED POSTCARDS 