Opinion

Did I ever tell you about my pickup? Oh, no need to reply. If I go one day without speaking about the “Green Machine,” I start to get the shakes and Lorraine runs out of the room. Don’t get me wrong, she knew that...

I’m a brat. There, I said it. I think my mother was the last person who said it to me many years ago and she wasn’t wrong. I have lived and traveled freely all my life. I have cruised back and forth at will...

Some years ago, in a library in Southern California, I gave a book to a young lady in hopes she would find it a compelling story. She replied she had heard of the book but had yet to read it and thanked me for...

I cannot remember the first time I met her and her lovely husband. It seems to me that we were friends from the minute I arrived in the valley about 19 years now, so it was a good while ago; and likely at a...

Have you ever been shot? Kind of a crazy question at the beginning, but I have a reason that I’ll tell you about. First, I want to tell you how I got into a situation that ended with a shot. I have told you...

(This essay recounting an automobile excursion from the Midwest to the Florida archipelago in the Gulf of Mexico is offered by an amateur writer from central California. American Travelogue Magazine does not by habit publish articles other than submissions by professional travel writers, but...

In 1986 I worked for California’s Employment Development Department, where I processed amnesty seekers under President Ronald Reagan’s landmark immigration reform law called Immigration and Control Act (IRCA). The Watsonville office reviewed documents proving that applicants had worked in the local farming economy for...

As I get back into the swing of things here in South Valley, I want to offer up some random thoughts, or comments, garnered from notes taken over the past few weeks both here at home and on the road. The first observation is...

To the Editor: For many years I made my living as a street cop, trying to distinguish fact from fiction. And for Americans, one indisputable fact is, without the National Rifle Association you would not be able to own a firearm. As of 1967, the NRA...

Believe it or not, it’s time once again to talk about influenza. The typical flu season in the United States begins after Labor Day, and can extend into the early spring of the following year. Our best defense has always been, and continues to...